In the opening scene Hawthorne is a convincing blend of strength and weakness. The old autocrat wants to be feared and loved at the same time, just as a little later he wants to give his power away and yet somehow retain it. He even plays to the gallery, asking us to applaud his clever tricks. But he is no less irascible for that: when he is crossed, angry pride shuts out everything else.

Hawthorne's subsequent reading of the part is moving and finely detailed. It also has one obvious limitation. He doesn't thunder. No doubt he is well advised not to: thundering, on the evidence of his past performances, isn't in his line of business. But as a result, the full depths of Lear's rage and anguish remain unexplored.

I am not unduly perturbed by this, however. Most of the thunderers I've seen in the part (Donald Wolfit being the prime exception) have come dangerously close to rant � better a controlled performance that brings off those effects it can. And every Lear is liable to be inadequate in one way or another: the remarkable thing about Hawthorne's partial rendering is how much it leaves him free to achieve.

Hiroyuki Sanada's capering Fool is less successful. It Is a virtuoso performance, but too blatantly at odds with its surroundings. And there's one regrettable gimmick � a steady shower of rocks and boulders, dropping from on high during the storm scene. It would be nice to ignore them, but as they come thudding down it simply isn't possible.

He is brilliant, for instance, at implying the heavy heart with which Lear thinks of Cordelia as soon as be realises how deeply he has wronged her. Again, be may not excel at conveying the first eruption of anger, but he gives you a keen sense of its stubborn persistence. His weak smile when he is afraid he is going mad � as though to say, what's to be done? � is more effective than a loud lament would be. And I have seldom seen a Lear who makes you so aware of the frustrations of old age.

The production as a whole, like any good Shakespeare production, brings us into fresh contact with things we have come to take for granted, and reveals things we have never properly registered. Among the supporting cast, John Carlisle's Gloucester is outstanding. I shan't readily forget the scene in which be laughs while Lear discourses on the injustices of the world. What's to be done?

There are excellent performances elsewhere. Robin Weaver, in schoolgirl plaits, makes a particularly good Cordelia; Sian Thomas's Goneril is almost too compellingly vicious, since she somewhat outshines Anna Chancellor's Regan; there's solid work from Christopher Benjamin as Kent, Michael Maloney as Edgar and William Armstrong as an Edmund who sweats evil through every pore.