Katherine MacAlister meets the Creation cast putting on King Lear

When Creation bosses sat down to discuss their 20th anniversary, which happily coincides with Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary, they decided to hit Oxford with the nation’s top three favourites, namely King Lear, Hamlet and Midsummer Night’s Dream.

First up is King Lear in Blackwell’s Norrington Room for the next five weeks and with ticket sales hitting the roof, Oxford is eager to see what Creation will pull out of the bag.

“2016 is a big year for Creation,” Charlie Morley, Creation’s general manager, agreed. “It marks 20 years since the first performance of Romeo and Juliet in the grounds of Magdalen College School and since then over 500,000 people have been to see a Creation show in all sorts of wonderful places from the Mini Plant Oxford to the rooftop of the Said Business School. So we’ve got a whole year of treats lined up for them.”

With the Norrington Room secured, and leads Max Gold and Lucy Pearson pinned down, staging Lear in the enormous book shop was a challenge the Creation crew relished.

“Max was the standout favourite,” Charlie adds, “he has such a strong understated power and it was clear he would bring something to Lear that people hadn’t seen before. Lucy came highly recommended – we only had to see her once to know she was perfect.”

All five characters play numerous parts, which involves as much commitment back stage as front, but Lucy says it will be a play in the round, as Shakespeare intended.

“People love the behind-the-scenes feel about The Norrington Room. It’s like pop-up theatre,which is an enormous challenge, but that’s what makes it great.”

“It’s very intense and incredibly hard work,” Max agrees, “but all of that is outweighed by what Creation has created and we are all stepping up to the challenge to really plumb the depths of this play and make it accessible to everyone.

“We want to take it to the next level.”

Where and when
King Lear runs for six weeks until March 19 
The Norrington Room, Blackwell’s
creationtheatre.co.uk 01865 766266