Well, if comedian Eddie Izzard can run 27 marathons in as many days, my reviewing a mere brace of King Lears amounts to a comparative doddle. In practice the text is nowadays always cut somewhat for performance, although in these two cases the more comprehensive cutting occurs in a staging – Michael Buffong’s revival for Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Talawa and Birmingham Rep – which runs some half an hour longer than the barely three hours of Max Webster’s production (originally slated to be directed by Philip Franks) for Northampton’s Royal & Derngate.

The undiplomatic explanation is that the difference in running time is down to less pell-mell pacing and more considered acting. Michael Pennington in Northampton shows more demonstrative changes of gear in the title character: majesty turning to ire as he attempts to map out (literally) his retirement in the first act, only to find it frustrated by youngest daughter Cordelia’s refusal to engage in hollow flattery; the rage growing over the next couple of acts, as elder daughters Goneril and Regan turn against him; full-blown madness on a storm-blasted heath; a quieter, almost serene partial recovery and ultimate death. More demonstrative, but less interesting. Pennington is a fine “technician” actor, but you can always see why he’s doing what he’s doing. Things can be made too clear. Don Warrington, who takes the role in Manchester, is more measured (and much less physically active), but his equal thoughtfulness shows through moment by reflective moment rather than in a broad-brush portrait.

Webster’s Edwardian-dressed production feels more concerned with shepherding us along a narrative journey rather than taking us on an emotional one. Beth Cooke’s Cordelia, for instance, almost orates her opening confrontation with her father, and only comes into her own during the final reconciliation; Tom McGovern seems more concerned with delineating the difference between Kent in his own persona (effortful Received Pronunciation) and in disguise (an exaggerated form of McGovern’s native Scots accent) than with getting under the skin of either aspect. Joshua Elliott’s Fool is thoroughly eclipsed by his Mancunian counterpart Miltos Yerolemou, whose extensive comedy experience is palpable even as he eschews virtually all of it as a grubbily white-faced cynic reminiscent of Tony Hancock at his most lugubrious.

The principal exception to this is the play’s other disguised character, Edgar. In Manchester, Alfred Enoch goes vigorously for the assumed persona of madman Poor Tom and the clutch of other accents Edgar uses to stay close to his now-blinded father Gloucester. Enoch is a more skilled actor than Gavin Fowler in Northampton, but Fowler makes a virtue of necessity by allowing us to see Edgar’s agonies as he encounters both Lear and Gloucester, and the difficulty he has keeping up his role-play amid such torment. A word of acknowledgement, too, for Catherine Bailey and Sally Scott as Goneril and Regan in Northampton, competing for the affections of Edgar’s bastard half-brother Edmund by playing the cold-hearted seduction card with brio.

My Northampton viewing also included a salutary reminder that all artistic response is subjective: even as I was sitting umoved through the final act, the woman beside me was sniffing and sobbing her way through a two-hankie experience. Nevertheless, I am in no doubt that Warrington and his comrades in Manchester (dressed in unspecific olden-times costumes) offer a much more feeling and ultimately illuminating collective portrait. Add to this the physical connection afforded by the Royal Exchange’s in-the-round configuration compared to the Northampton Royal’s conventional proscenium arch, and the result is clear.

Written for the Financial Times.