#Duke of Cornwall

[theroyalsandi]

British Royal Family - The Duke of Cornwall, during a private visit to the Duchy of Cornwall farmland in early May of this year. (Photo by Andrew Parsons) | May 2025

[world-of-wales]

The Duke of Cornwall visited Lower Blakemere Farm to learn about how a multigenerational farm has diversified as part of its journey to net zero in Herefordshire (Photo Courtesy : Kensington Palace/Andrew Parsons) | 28 JANUARY 2025

[thewales-family]

The Duke of Cornwall attends the Duchy of Cornwall Prince’s Council meeting at Windsor Castle in Windsor, England -June 9th 2025.

📷 : Kensington Palace.

[i-am-countess-olivia]

Guess what I'm watching

[billy-the-bard]

Fellow Bard enthusiasts!

I have a question: Is it common to portray Edmund and the Duke of Cornwall as having an affair, in productions of "King Lear"?

(This is in addition to Edmund's other canon affairs, of course.)

I just watched a version from the mid-80s and its version of Act III, Scene V left NO ambiguity about it.

I mean...

Cornwall on the left, Edmund in the water, on the right.

(Yes, I had to blur, um, certain 'parts of Cornwall', shall we say? Because it was all out in the open...)

[old-etonian]

This’ll make people so angry 🫣🤭

[gonerilgirleril]

no pressure to respond via ask, I'm only sending it here so it doesn't get cut off.

(first of all full disclosure, I watched half of this while prepping for my statistics exam, so I might have missed some stuff. might watch it again over spring break, but these are my first impression thoughts)

(also if you see any typos specifically where the letter n is doubled, that's something my keyboard has been doing recently and it's be tormenting me,, just ignore it)

--lear's surprisingly chill. I don't think I've ever seen a production where he's so calm while exiling cordelia. I thought this would impact how the lear daughters (goneril and regan) are viewed, but honestly I still felt bad for goneril the whole time because she had to put up with albany. however it does kinda impact regan. because I feel like in comparison now to goneril, it makes her 'the worse one,'(morality-wise, I mean. acting-wise they're both fantastic) which is unfortunate. justice for regan, she deserves better

--I like kent. I almost always like kent. but this production does some fairly original characterization, so it's not a given that I'll enjoy the characters I usually enjoy

-- ngl I had to delete a whole tangent I went on about. idk. how im ignorant of british culture. and I don't know what's the norm for british theater. iirc you said you're british, which I guess probably means that this is the first production I've seen where everyone's actually british for real and not just doing fake british accents. admittedly I wouldn't be able to tell the difference either way, but it's still cool to think about

-- I do really really like how gloucester reads the letter. I think this is the first production I've seen where he reads it in the way that a person would actually read something. I love that.

He kinda cuts through the words and skims it until he gets to the part which catches his attention, which is so much better than what most productions do, where he reads the whole thing slowly word for word. He reads it the way a person who isn't expecting to find anything of importance in it would read it.

--Edgar jumpscare! honestly what a violent greeting. hey edmund go ahead and kill this guy. plus the way he says "you busy yourself with that??". yeah ok edmund you can go ahead and get rid of this judgy man--

(jk jk I do always enjoy how productions choose to introduce edgar. everyone characterizes him differently, and he somewhat fits the formula as 'blank slate character for the audience to project onto'-- imo even more so than cordelia, who we at least definitively know some aspect of her personality. her active choice to not play along with lear's game tells us more about her than edgar's choice to become poor tom. I have so many thoughts on this.)

-- at first I found this initial characterization of edgar to clash with how this production portrays him as poor tom/post-poor tom, but I think I'll have to watch it again with the complete knowledge of how it characterizes him.

--LOVE when kent's disguise is just a hat

--with this surprisingly chill version of lear, we get his surprisingly chill entourage. maybe the microphones weren't picking up on the noise, but they sounded completely silent. cmon guys y'all should be making noise. the surprisingly chill lear+co definitely make the daughters seem more unreasonable.

In productions where the crowd is visibly and audibly rowdy, it makes goneril look like the most sensible person there when she tells them to quiet down and get out of her house

--LOVE oswald though. I think he's my favorite in this production. tell oswald he's the best

--love how edmund's hyping himself up to stab himself

--(I took notes while watching it so I'd remember what to mention and I wrote how much I loved oswald another 2 times. so just pretend I wrote some elaborate praise of him. to be fair I do just love oswald as a character and find him funny, so that definitely helps my bias in favor of this actor)

--cutting edmund from 2.2 should be a crime. I know he only has one line there but I find it to be a crucial part of his character. :(

--kent lying down on stage is so valid so relatable. idk if anyone says 'it's a mood' anymore. but it's a mood.

--"GO SEEK 👏 THE TRAITOR 👏 GLOUCESTER 👏" fantastic delivery! 10/10!

-- violent albany? and earlier did we get horny albany? (idk if the back hug was supposed to be sexual but goneril was Not Into It) this characterization is absolutely fascinating because usually I see productions portray him as a very useless man and not an actual threat to goneril. anyway I was always a strong supporter of protecting the lear daughters, but especially this goneril. someone get her to the domestic abuse hotline.

--the servants in the black clothes strongly remind me of the stagehands from timeloop hamlet (both in costume and in how they play multiple parts). not sure if you've ever seen timeloop hamlet but I highly recommend it

-- edgar's disguise isn't enough of a disguise to justify no one recognizing him, and I'm gonna believe that this is an intentional part of the characterization-- I think that would add such an interesting layer to his character.

no one bothered to learn about gloucester's legitimate son because they were too focused on his bastard. the one who wanted to be recognized as a person,, and the one who also wanted to be recognized a a person. I've seen other posts about how they both just want to be recognized as individuals, but having edgar's disguises be very minimal and yet still no one recognizes him could be seen as deeper than just budget constraints and I need that.

-- albany comes across as more angry about his wife's affair with edmund than about all the treason happening here,, which is canonically what his lines are saying but regardless, most productions portray him as both stupid and some final beacon of justice. I like how he's not innocent in this production. everyone's got something messed up going up (incredible! it's just like real life!)

but on that note, I wanted to go back to "the difference between man and man" to see albany's part in that scene-- and I see that they cut 'the difference between man and man.' They definitely cut a lot more if I was able to completely miss that the first time around.

--I'm glad edgar got a mask for the final fight, because I wouldn't be able to justify edmund not recognizing his own brother standing right in front of him. I was getting ready to call edmund stupid when edgar showed up with a mask. good job to both of the eds.

-> that's it with the initial notes I had-- all in all I thought everyone was very good. albany's characterization was unique and I liked that they did something that I've never seen before with his character.

It does impact goneril's characterization (especially with the extremely chill lear),, it changes up her problem from an abusive father to an abusive husband.

and I've never seen gloucester faced away from the audience during the torture-- I would think that people want to see the torture scene? but I could understand that for a variety of practical purposes it would be better to face him away.

regan and cornwall were fantastic. cordelia was fantastic. all very par for the course in terms of what sort of characterization to expect

same for the gloucester family-- in terms of edmund, I have so much respect for productions that portray him as angry instead of just Evil. Thanks for letting him be angry. he deserves to get to display anger.

and edgar is an interesting character because every production does something different with him. the director and/or actor always has some new take on him. this production doesn't do anything 100% new-- HOWEVER, it does do an interesting combination of traits-- pre-poor tom edgar vs edgar for the rest of the play are a combination of traits I hadn't really seen before. ultimately I think it paints a picture of a more complex character than we get in other productions. I really do want to rewatch it again just to see the person edgar is here.

alright I think that's it 👍

Ah interesting!!

I completely agree with a lot of what you say and a lot of it is down to budget stuff, for sure. (Edgar's disguise, the eye gouging) Oswald is excellent and I'm glad you said so! I wondered if you were going to mention accents, it seems so normal to me!

I think Albany is really interesting, I didn't like the strangling at all in 4.2 but I did like his anger generally, it's definitely something different and he isn't as impotent as he can be.

I wish (as Regan) I could have been a little more unhinged but I'm happy generally with how I performed it, even if I was a bit Unreasonably Evil- it was fun!

Curious to know if your thoughts change re Edgar, I loved how he was in 1.2 and I know our Edgar was keen to make him not too sympathetic initially.

On Edmund, I know he was keen to not be just Evil. He has played nasty characters before (and has said to me he thinks he has a "naturally Evil face") but always tries to see his own perspective within the characters which shone through nicely. And yeah the self stabbing is a lot of fun!

[thepastisalreadywritten]

[oneshoulderangel]

I get you Eldol, I too regain the Strength to crush my enemies when I see Gorlois.

[dreamconsumer]

Richard III (1452-1485) and his son and heir, Edward of Middleham (1473-1484).

[theroyalsandi]

British Royal Family - The Queen Mother with her grandson, Prince Charles and Pippin the dog, in an informal photograph taken on a terrace. (Photo by Hulton-Deutsch Collection) | 1954

[world-of-wales]

Kensington Palace has released a new portrait featuring The Duke of Cornwall taken in October of last year by Andrew Parsons during his visit to the Warren House Inn in Yelverton | 6 JUNE 2025

[thewales-family]

The Duke of Cornwall and The Duchess of Edinburgh attend the Royal Cornwall Show at the Royal Cornwall Showground in Wadebridge, England -June 6th 2025.

[rmelster]

Arthur Tudor, the king that never was.

[witchpuppies]

(via GIPHY) HRH The Prince of Wales receives gifts from schoolchildren in North Wales. 1/3/2024

[old-etonian]

👀