Event Details

King Lear on Mute -- a one man spoken word event on and around Shakespeare's King Lear, written and performed by Rupert Smith.

King Lear’s Mute

Solo Spoken Word by Rupert Smith

Directed by Lloyd Notice

In Shakespeare’s King Lear, the music has diminuendoed to a murmur. There’s no reveille, no flourish, no more jazz, just a storm and plenty of nothing. The exiled Cordelia can no longer play trumpet.

Here is Shakespeare’s King Lear, but maybe not as we’ve experienced it - 50 minutes of solo spoken word that reimagines the youngest daughter of Shakespeare’s King Lear as a musician on mute. It is a story of anywhere and everywhere between silence and breath and pause and speech, where there are no real notes.

Running time: 50 mins approx

Rupert Smith is an actor, spoken word performer, AHRC funded creative writing PhD student at Lancaster University, Creative Sustainability Award Nominee, and author of The Pit Ponies’ Penultimate Life Drawing Class -- “A mesmerising piece of theatre” (The British Theatre Guide). His PhD project is a novel written in the cracks of Shakespeare’s King Lear.

This show is funded by the AHRC/NWCDTP