I did not mean to snort so loudly. There I was watching the amazing Simon Russell Beale in King Lear at the National Theatre and things were all getting a bit nasty — what with daughters scheming and people having their eyes gouged out. And then, through a small earpiece, which no one else could hear, I heard the immortal words, said in a deep and quiet voice: ‘Lear enters to find Goneril clenched in tight embrace with Edgar.