Sir Ian McKellen will take on his first major theatrical role since his fall from the stage in 2024. He will star in Lear, a reimagining of Shakespeare's King Lear, at a small theatre in east London this winter.
The production marks McKellen's return to the stage after he lost his footing while performing in Player Kings at the Noel Coward Theatre in June 2024, breaking his wrist and chipping a vertebra. Following the incident, he stated he planned to take some time off but had no intentions of retiring.
Lear, reimagined by Simon Stephens and Jay Miller, will be staged at the 220-seat Yard Theatre in Hackney Wick. The show is part of the Yard's first season in its new building, which replaces the original warehouse venue that opened in 2011 using materials reclaimed from the nearby Olympic Park. The original structure has been demolished, and a new venue designed by Takero Shimazaki Architects now stands in its place, featuring a curved auditorium with reused brick from the original building.
The season also includes the London premiere of an adaptation of Jackie Collins' 1968 novel The World Is Full Of Married Men, a revival of Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When The Rainbow Is Enuf directed by Diane Page, an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, and There's Something About Adam Black, the debut play by Sex Education writer Troy Hunter.
Founder and artistic director Jay Miller commented: 'In 2011 I opened The Yard as a DIY theatre that was supposed to be here for six months. On The Yard's 15th anniversary, I'll open it again. Same spirit, this time in a better, bigger theatre. In the 12 months we've been closed, we've been playing with shows that pop. A debut play by Troy Hunter; toy dolls playing with Jackie Collins; a brilliant actor playing in ways he's never played before. Virginia Woolf, Ntozake Shange, and the world's worst band, all on the same stage in the same season. They said it wouldn't happen. It's happening. Deep breath in.'
