Award-winning theatre maker Dan Colley brings the UK premiere of Lost Lear to the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe as part of the Traverse Festival. Running from 3–24 August (with previews on 27 July and 2 August), this bold reimagining of King Lear fuses puppetry, projection, and live video to explore memory, identity, and dementia.
Told from the perspective of Joy, a woman with dementia reliving an old memory of rehearsing King Lear, the play blurs the lines between past and present, fiction and reality. When her estranged son arrives and is cast as Cordelia, he must find a way to connect with her within the confines of her fading world.
Following rave reviews in Ireland and multiple Irish Times Theatre Award nominations, Lost Lear is a moving, darkly comic meditation on theatre, memory, and the struggle to communicate across emotional divides. Co-produced by Mermaid Arts Centre and Riverbank Arts Centre, and supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, this is a must-see for fans of innovative, emotionally resonant theatre.
