IAN MCKELLEN ON STAGE
With Tolkien, Shakespeare, others… and you!
A message from Ian McKellen:
I’m celebrating my 80th birthday by touring a new solo show to theatres I know well and a few that I don’t. The show starts with Gandalf and will probably end with an invitation to act with me on stage. In-between there will be anecdotes and acting. I open at my local arts centre in January and end up by August in Orkney.
Live theatre has always been thrilling to me, as an actor and in the audience. Growing up in Lancashire, I was grateful to those companies who toured beyond London and I’ve always enjoyed repaying that debt by touring up and down the country myself, with the RSC, the National Theatre, Prospect Theatre, the Actors’ Company, as well as with commercial productions.
In my early days, I worked at the Liverpool Playhouse as a director and actor. As a boy I saw productions here, as my step-mother had done before me. She remembered Michael Redgrave and Robert Donat in the repertory company and relished productions which toured beyond London to the north west, as I am now doing with my new solo show round the country. All profits will benefit the full range of activities undertaken by the Everyman & Playhouse, including artistic, young people and engagement programmes. See you there, I hope!
Presented by Ambassador Theatre Group