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Ian McKellen Live in London is the Best G-D Thing in London Right Now

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Ian McKellen is dazzling audiences at the Harold Pinter Theatre until January 5.

However high your expectations are for Ian McKellen’s one-man show at the Harold Pinter Theatre, he will exceed them. Doing a celebratory ‘birthday’ tour around the UK, which makes a ton of sense because I know all I like to do for my birthday is work my ass off (??), Sir Ian (honestly he earned this title just with this performance) is showing everyone why he is such an icon: because he’s g-d incredible.

This birthday he’s celebrating, he’s like what, 100? 110? And has more stamina and energy than most performers nowadays. He is up there alone for THREE HOURS. Yeah, it’s a 3-hour show! We thought maybe it would be a one act 90-minute situation, but the first act alone was 90 minutes! (The Harold Pinter website says it’s 2 hours 25 minutes with an interval, and just like its namesake, that theatre tells lies.) The performance is a life onstage, truly, a nonstop whirlwind of his entire multi-decade career, from stage to screen, from his early school days to his most precious memories, and of course, his recollections of the very first theatre he saw.

But of course, the show begins with a bang, as audio from The Lord of the Rings movie (one of them) booms over the blackened theatre until the spotlight reveals Sir Ian ‘reading’ (he has everything memorized, I don’t know how; he explains later ‘well it’s my job’ but even so man, even so) from Tolkien’s book (“it was a book first!”), the section around the famous “You shall not pass!” part. So yeah, he knows, give the people what they want right off the bat. The thrill of seeing this man saying these words in person was only topped by his bringing out his actual sword from the movies – and letting a ‘youngster’ (she looked my age, I’m pissed, I would have volunteered) come on stage to wield it.

His entire persona is pitch-perfect for this kind of show, where his effortless charm and affability make anything and everything he decides to do utterly enjoyable. Monologue from earlier stage works? We love it! Yes! Silly stories about Christopher Lee and everyone who brags about having read LOTR? Yes! We love it! Anecdotes about Judi Dench as a cat? Benedict Cumberbatch as a baby? Starring in his first panto? YES, WE LOVE IT ALL!

The first act is generally the story of his life, as he talks about the highlights of his career as well as the earliest theatre memories he has. The loveliest parts of the show are about his family and his coming out, and he ping pongs your heart between the warming and the breaking so quickly and so easily that you almost forget to pay respect to the art of his storytelling, some of the most brilliant storytelling imaginable. He makes all of this seem like he’s just chatting with friends in the most pleasant, wonderful way, and you’re too busy enjoying it to realize how revolutionary that is for an actor of such stature, and how astonishingly talented he has to be to make all of this work.

Just when you think you can’t be any more impressed, he decides to completely blow you away with the second act. He literally goes through every. single. Shakespeare play. All 37 of them. It’s quite the magnificent feat: He pulls 37 paperback copies of the plays out from his trunk, from which all his props came, and tells the audience to yell out titles as we think of them. Whenever he hears one, he picks up that paperback and either tells a wonderful story about his favorite production of that, or his favorite memory of when he was in that or when his friend (usually Dench) was in that…OR, he will just flat out do a 10-minute monologue from memory. Sometimes hearing the big speeches out of context doesn’t have the same power that seeing it in a play would, but sometimes, as with his monologue from Cymbelline that he used to eulogize the loved ones he’s lost, it still manages to be extraordinary, and to remind you that he’s not just your new best friend – he is a capital-A Actor, and he’s f-ing amazing.

INFORMATION

I honestly haven’t been so happy about my seat in a theatre in a while. I remembered my last experience at the HPT and used that info to make sure I had the seat right next to the exit in the stalls that is RIGHT at the Ladies bathroom – H22. You’re welcome. (Ladies bathroom users, you will want to sit house left in the stalls to get to the bathroom.) If you want to catch some of the candy, fruit, or giant cucumber he will throw into the audience to explain what the fork panto is, sit in the front center.

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