After Timothy West gave his King Lear at the Edinburgh festival in 1971 the Prospect Theatre Company took the production to La Fenice, the opera house in Venice. There was a demand overseas for the English classics not met by the RSC or the National, and Prospect toured Lear, along with Love’s Labour’s Lost, to the Adelaide festival, Sydney and Melbourne, before giving it at the Aldwych in London.
Taking over the Old Vic after the National left and meeting the UK touring demands of the Arts Council proved irreconcilable. But it had been the best of times, especially when led by West’s magnificent young Lear.
