Ian McKellen on Stage: Tolkien, Shakespeare and You! Tickets

Ian McKellen On Stage – One of Britain's best-loved actors

If you fancy seeing one of the nation's national treasures in action, the highly respected and much-loved Ian McKellen live and dangerous, on stage doing his remarkable thing, this is your chance. He's a wonderful man, highly entertaining, and this latest tour sees him taking a one-man show around the country, from the depths of the English countryside right up to Orkney in the far north.

The legendary actor has been busy taking this specially curated show to venues around the country to raise funds for regional UK theatres. As The Telegraph says, this is an event rich in “Warmth, wit and wizardry. Come one, come all and marvel”. And they're not wrong. McKellen is celebrating his 80th birthday by touring this brand new solo show that kicks off with Gandalf and, in the actor's words, “will probably end with an invitation to act with me on stage”. The event is billed as being packed with brilliant anecdotes and acting.

McKellen has more to say about the production: “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.”

Sir Ian McKellen's incredible career covers genres as diverse as Shakespeare and Science Fiction. He has won a total of six Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, BIF Award, two Saturn Awards, four Drama Desk Awards, and two Critics' Choice Awards plus a load more nominations. He has sealed his reputation in stone with masterpiece roles like the King in 1995's awesome production of Richard III , as James Whale in Gods and Monsters, as Magneto in the X-Men and, most famously of all, as the wizard Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

McKellen was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1979, and was actually knighted in 1991 for services to the performing arts. He was made a Companion of Honour for services to drama and equality in 2008. He's a stalwart champion of the LGBTQ social movement and was given the Freedom of the City of London in 2014. If that doesn't make him a living theatre legend, we don't know what does!

The limited London run of McKellen's solo masterpiece takes place once the UK tour is complete, landing at the West End's Harold Pinter theatre in autumn 2019 for a strictly limited run tat takes us into January 2020.

Who is this show for?
This performance is suitable for those aged 6 or more.