It is a principle of reviewing that one should not judge a show against one’s own presumptions. Sometimes, however, it is both difficult to avoid and somewhat instructive to do so.
     
The blurb for this production reads as follows: “Acclaimed classical actor Edward Petherbridge rehearsed the role of King Lear – then a major stroke left him barely able to move. As he struggled to recover, he made a discovery: the entire role of Lear still existed word for word in his mind.” I had inferred from this that Told By An Idiot’s show would be about the recovery and unlocking of both Petherbridge and Lear… something, as my opening-night companion put it, “Oliver Sacks-y”. In the event, the 90-minute piece revolves primarily around Petherbridge’s subsequent pursuit of the lost opportunity to play that towering role. Recollections of the lead-up to, and the aftermath of, his stroke jostle with childhood reminiscences (his mother also suffered a stroke, two days before Petherbridge was born), an assortment of surreal riffs and a clutch of extracts from the Shakespeare play, as a kind of consolation prize.
     
This, unsurprisingly, struck me as less satisfying and less profound than the show I had expected. But am I justified in coming to such a conclusion? Less profound, almost certainly: that the neurological landscape takes a distinct second place to the biographical gives us less chance to identify, to feel ourselves on the inside together with Petherbridge. Less satisfying, perhaps not: he is an immensely personable actor, and the style of the piece (under the direction of Kathryn Hunter, who has herself played Lear) gives him extensive rein for asides and digressions which are almost always wryly self-deprecating. Every other character – from a German medical lecturer to the Kiwi director of Lear to Laurence Olivier to Petherbridge’s mother – is played by Paul Hunter, with whom Petherbridge appeared in his first post-stroke gig, the flop 2010 West End revival of the musical The Fantasticks. Hunter may be the foremost British exponent of playing material comically without trivialising it; this aesthetic is at the heart of Told By An Idiot, and it delightfully pervades the show. Nevertheless, I can’t rid myself of the niggle that it would have been possible to choose less trivial material on the subject. Material a bit more, you know, Oliver Sacks-y.

Written for the Financial Times.