Starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as the conflicted monarch and directed by Richard Eyre, the new two-hour film situates the story in a parallel version of modern Britain.
He directed Lear at the National in 1997, a landmark production starring Ian Holm, Anne-Marie Duff and Timothy West.
BBC Two is broadcasting a bold new adaptation of William Shakespeare’s 1605 tragedy King Lear on bank holiday Monday.
Lear was also a key reference point in the writing of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part III (1990).