Sir Ian McKellen to return to the stage in first major theatrical role since fall
Sir Ian McKellen will take on his first major theatrical role since since his fall from the stage in 2024.
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He will star in Lear, a reimagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear, at a small theatre in east London this winter.
It will mark his first major theatrical endeavour since he lost his footing whilst performing in Player Kings in June 2024 at the Noel Coward Theatre, breaking his wrist and chipping a vertebrae.
After the incident he said he planned to take some time off but had no plans for retirement.
Sir Ian will star in Lear, reimagined by Simon Stephens and Jay Miller, at the 220-seat Yard Theatre in Hackney Wick.
The show will be part of the Yard’s first season in its new building after it opened in 2011 in a warehouse using materials reclaimed from the nearby Olympic Park.
The original building has been demolished and replaced with an entirely new venue on the same spot, designed by Takero Shimazaki Architects.
The curved auditorium features reused brick from the original building.The programme also features the London premiere of an adaptation of Jackie Collins’ 1968 novel The World Is Full Of Married Men, as well as a revival of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When The Rainbow Is Enuf, directed by Diane Page.