This King Lear is old, sick and tired .. and that's just the production!

The very capable director Jonathan Miller comes unstuck here,in this BBC television adaptation, mainly due to some very odd casting which sees him lumbered with likeable lightweight Michael Hordern as the complex, embittered aged King Lear.

Hordern is simply not up to the part, probably Shakespeare's most demanding. And without a central Lear with real gravitas as well as pathos, the whole thing comes unstuck. Which is a pity, given Miller's ability as director -- his stage and television production of English National Opera's Rigoletto is probably the best treatment of opera ever committed to film.

For great King Lears, look to the 1983 television production, also available on DVD, featuring Laurence Olivier. Or Peter Brook's 1971 version featuring a fine actor in Paul Scofield. Or Kurosawa's feudal Japanese 1985 adaptation, Ran. There are lots out there superior to this one.

The transfer is middling-to-average for a television production of this kind. The BBC approached this entire series of Shakespeare dramas with a Doctor Who production-values approach. That doesn't matter too much when the overall production is fine. But when the casting is flimsy, the entire deal -- transfer, sets and all -- come across as fairly mediocre.

The two-channel mono sound is adequate to its task. There are no real extras, although the subtitles do a good job for those who need their aid.