Sir Ian McKellen is touring the UK to mark his 80th birthday and he’s visiting Cardiff – for a very good cause
HE’S one of the nation’s acting treasures and as he reaches his milestone 80th birthday, Sir Ian McKellen is taking his new solo show around the UK – to raise funds for the country’s theatres.
Launching in January 2019, he will visit theatres large and small with which he has personal connections, including amateur groups he knew as a child and notable playhouses he has played in as a professional actor over the last halfcentury.
Accessibly priced tickets will be available everywhere.
All profits will benefit specific causes at each theatre.
His intimate show is a mixture of anecdote and acting, including Tolkien, Shakespeare, others... and you the audience.
He says: “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 National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Prospect Theatre, the Actors’ Company, as well as with commercial productions. Sean Mathias, the director and I have worked together for stage and screen, many happy times.”
He has many memories of theatres in Wales, among them the New Theatre in Cardiff where two years ago he appeared alongside his friend Sir Patrick Stewart in No Man’s Land.
McKellen said of the Cardiff venue: “I was first at the New Theatre in 1966 with Judi Dench in The Promise. Most recently Patrick Stewart and I were here in No Man’s Land.
“I’m delighted to be back with my new solo show of anecdote and acting to benefit the New Theatre access project.”
The legendary actor first acted at school and with amateur groups in the north of England, where he was born and brought up. He attended Cambridge University and, since 1961, has worked non-stop in the British theatre.
He has been leading man and produced plays, modern and classic, for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Great Britain and in the West End.
He is recognised worldwide as Magneto in the X-Men films and Gandalf in Tolkien’s Middle Earth films.
More recently, he appeared in one of the nation’s best-loved soaps, Coronation Street.
■