Sir Laurence Olivier as King Lear. Photo: Grenada Television.

Shakespeare scholar Stephen Booth called the conclusion of King Lear the “most terrifying five minutes of literature.” Below, the final scene of the play, from the 1983 television production starring Sir Laurence Olivier with Robert Lindsay as Edmund, David Threlfall as Edgar, Colin Blakely as Kent and Anna Calder-Marshall as Cordelia. It is somehow an appropriate entry after the events of the past few weeks, which have included the acquittal of Casey Anthony and the death of Leiby Kletzky.

I wrote about the play last year in “King Lear and the theatre of ignorance”; part one can be found here, part two here.