My husband buys a new car. It’s a brash, shiny thing; if it were a man, it’d be on the beach, showing off its abs in a tight lycra number. It runs on diesel; “Economical” my husband says. “Dirty” I say. It’s automatic; “Convenient” my husband says. “Made for lazy people” I say. And I’m ashamed to admit that it’s a four-wheel drive; “Essential on Malta’s bumpy roads” my husband says. “Early mid-life crisis” I say.

So it comes to pass that we have to say farewell to our old car, our trusty friend who has been with us for over a decade, who has driven us across Europe, through snow storms and over mountains, who brought me, seven months pregnant, to Malta. And it happens that her swan song is a journey through driving rain and flooded streets into Valletta to see King Lear at St James Cavalier in Valletta. I pick up my friends and make them gin and tonics to drink on the way in. It’s a premonition; the next day, somebody makes my husband an offer for the car and drives her away.

What we go to see is a broadcast of a production in the Donmar Theatre in London; basically they film the play and relay it to cinemas around the world. It’s an ideal format for somewhere like Malta, the cast are never going to travel all the way here to fill maybe one or two nights’ worth of seat, so this is the next best thing.

The set is bleak, white and bare. The props minimal and the costumes unobtrusive. Derek Jacobi as King Lear, is at once, commanding and diminishing as his folly becomes clear to him and his sanity is threatened. He rages and roars one minute and whispers and giggles the next. Goneril and Regan play the role of heartless and self-justifying sisters just right. Cordelia is maybe a bit goody two-shoes and pious for my taste, but I suppose that’s the role that’s been written for her, rather that the way she acts it, after all, the bad characters are always more interesting than the good ones.

As for St James Cavalier itself, the building, of course, is beautiful and their line-up of shows and exhibitions is the best in Malta. But, and I’m sure they’ve heard this complaint many a time, the cinema was freezing – everyone had jackets, coats, scarves and hats on all through the show. Maybe it added to the bleakness of the story, but most of us were shivering by the time it was over.

King Lear is such a huge tale of folly, betrayal, madness and greed, that in the end, we’re happy to run back to the car, bang the heating on and drive home for a drink. I wonder if my little car knows it’s the last time I’ll drive her. Does she know that just like King Lear’s daughters do to their father, we’re about to betray her because she’s too old and weak and lets the rain in whenever there’s a storm. Of course she doesn’t, she’s just a car after all.