Shakespeare Magazine 11

King Lear
Alfred Enoch
(Edgar)
Already a familiar face to
UK Shakespeare fans, the
versatile young actor talks
about Talawa Lear.
Edgar disguises himself
as a vagabond, calling
himself ‘Poor Tom’.
Stage to Screen is still a relatively new genre
– do you have prior experience of a filmed
theatrical performance? And did you adapt
your own performance to take the cameras
into account?
“I’ve done a few filmed performances, I’ve done
a couple of NT Lives. I was in a production of
Timon of Athens at the National and a production
of Coriolanus at the Donmar. It’s interesting,
because it can be a challenge from an acting
perspective, just because you’re trying to gauge how
much to be aware of the cameras or not. That’s
something I thought about as we were getting
ready to film Lear. We absolutely trust the crew
and leave it completely up to them and, because
we don’t have to police ourselves in that way, that’s
one of the nice things about it. We’re not trying to
make the movie of King Lear, we’re trying to give
people a sense of what it would have been like to be
in this room for the performance and get a feel of
what that live performance is like.”
How did you end up getting the role of
Edgar in this production of King Lear?
“I was mid-way through the second season of
How To Get Away With Murder, which is a job I’m
doing over in the States, and the way the season
works is that we shoot for seven months of the year
and then have a five-month gap. So I wanted to
come back home and do some theatre, hopefully
some Shakespeare. My agent let me know that
they had fixed me up with a taped audition for
Lear. They told me Don Warrington is going to
be playing King Lear, Michael Buffong is going
to be directing, and it’s going to be at the Royal
Exchange, and I thought ‘This is exciting!’ I had
my recall, in person, in London and they gave me
the good news in November, which was lovely.”
This play has of course seen you working
closely with Don Warrington. As a young
actor, are you thankful for experienced role
models like him?
“It’s important on a job to have someone at the
helm of it. Don playing King Lear is such a big
part and he’s got so much responsibility. One of
the main responsibilities – that some people may
not actually realise – is he sets the tone of how
the things go along with the director and in the
rehearsal room and the way he conducts himself.
“Don’s been fantastic in that respect, he’s
created a lovely atmosphere here and he’s very
open and very precise. Working with someone like
Don, with all his experience, is fantastic and – for
me, certainly – it has been a pleasure to get to play
scenes with him.”
shakespeare magazine 43