''The Tragedy of King Lear'' is an unpublished screenplay by Harold Pinter. It is an adaptation of

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's ''

King Lear ''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane ...

'' and was commissioned by actor and director

Tim Roth Timothy Simon Roth (born 14 May 1961) is an English actor and producer. He began acting on films and television series in the 1980s. He was among a group of prominent British actors of the era, the " Brit Pack". He made his television debut ...

with backing from

Film Four Film4 is a British free-to-air television network owned by Channel Four Television Corporation launched on 1 November 1998, devoted to broadcasting films. While its standard-definition channel is available on Freeview and Freesat platforms, i ...

. Pinter completed the screenplay on 31 March 2000, but as of 2017 it has not been filmed. It is one of only three screenplays that Pinter adapted from another dramatist's play, the others being his screenplay adaptation of '' Butley'', by his good friend

Simon Gray Simon James Holliday Gray (21 October 1936 – 7 August 2008) was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years. While teaching at Q ...

, and ''

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'', originally written for the stage by Anthony Shaffer. Roth told the ''

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

'' in February 2000, before Pinter completed the screenplay, "This is a very hefty piece, to say the least, and I'm not interested in a bunch of people standing around a castle talking. … What Harold Pinter will do is rearrange, cut and then turn it from a stage piece into cinema." At the time, Roth was "working with Dixie Linder, the producer of his directorial debut about incest, ''

The War Zone ''The War Zone'' is a 1999 British drama film written by Alexander Stuart, directed by Tim Roth in his directorial debut, and starring Ray Winstone, Tilda Swinton, Lara Belmont, and Freddie Cunliffe. The film is based on Stuart's 1989 novel of ...

'', with whom he formed the company Roth-Linder Productions. Commenting on how "active" were their plans to film ''King Lear'', Roth's coproducer Dixie Linder told her interviewer, actress

Lysette Anthony Lysette Anne Chodzko (born 26 September 1963), known professionally as Lysette Anthony, is an English actress and model. She is known for her roles in the film ''Husbands and Wives'' (1992), as Princess Lysssa in the 1983 fantasy epic ''Krull ...

, in an interview for ''Vivid Magazine'': Manuscripts and typedrafts for this work and related correspondence pertaining to it are part of

The Harold Pinter Archive in the British Library The Harold Pinter Archive in the British Library is the literary archive of Harold Pinter, which Pinter had first placed "on permanent loan" in the British Library in September 1993See Merritt, "The Harold Pinter Archive in the British Library"; ...

. Based on those materials, this unpublished and unfilmed screenplay is discussed briefly by Pinter's official authorised biographer, Michael Billington, who points out that Pinter completed it in March 2000, and, in passing, by Steven H. Gale, in his introduction to his edited collection of essays ''The Films of Harold Pinter'', and, also relatively briefly, in his book ''Sharp Cut: Harold Pinter's Screenplays and the Artistic Process'', citing an 88-page typedraft.

Notes

References

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External links

"The Tragedy of King Lear"
in "Films by Harold Pinter" at ''HaroldPinter.org'': ''The Official Website of the International Playwright Harold Pinter''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tragedy of King Lear (screenplay), The Plays by Harold Pinter Works based on King Lear