X-MEN TO INVADE THE WEST END!

THE X-Men are reuniting. Theatrical knights Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart are heading for the West End.

The two mutant hero movie stars are in discussions to appear in harold Pinter’s classic play No Man’s land, bringing over a production they had a hit with in New york 12 months ago.

on broadway, McKellen and Stewart performed No Man’s land in repertory with Samuel beckett’s Waiting For Godot. They have already done that play in london, and won’t be doing it again.

‘ We didn’t do No Man’s land, and we both want to,’ McKellen explained. ‘We’re planning it very carefully, because we have schedules to come to terms with. We’re definitely doing it. The question that hasn’t been answered is: when,’ he told me at the after-party for the Evening Standard Drama Awards at the london Palladium.

Sean Mathias, who directed the two lions in london and New york, told me the play would more than likely be in the West End in 2016. Mathias said broadway- based producer Stuart Thompson and West End production company Playful were working on getting the veteran stars back on the boards.

billy crudup and Shuler hensley played two menacing gentlemen in No Man’s land in Ny, but their roles would be re-cast for london.

both McKellen and Stewart have schedules that thespians half their age would envy.

McKellen will shoot a second series of Vicious with Derek Jacobi next year, followed by a bbc film of Ronald harwood’s The Dresser, directed by Richard Eyre and co-starring Anthony hopkins and Vanessa Kirby. The final hobbit picture, in which he plays Gandalf, opens next week. And Mr holmes, costarring laura linney, will open next year.

Stewart, meanwhile, has a film and two TV shows to shoot in the U.S.

Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud starred in the original 1975 production of dark comedy No Man’s land.