Kunene and the King
Ambassadors Theatre, London

The Upstart Crow
Gielgud Theatre, London

Theatre seems to be in a Noah’s Ark phase, shows arriving in matching pairs. After last week’s two productions based on the Book of Exodus, here comes a duo inspired by King Lear.

In Kunene and the King, reaching the West End via the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town and the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon, Jack Morris, a dying great white South African actor hires, for palliative care, Lunga Kunene, a black nurse from the depressed township of Soweto. The actor’s hope is to survive to play Lear on stage for the first and last time.