Advocates: Ian McKellen

Sir Ian McKellen CH CBE is an award-winning actor on stage and screen. He has worked extensively with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre as well as in the West End. As one of the lauded and popular actors of his generation, he is familiar from both his acclaimed stage work as well as work in films such as The Lord Of The Rings and the X Men series. A prominent LGBT activist, he came out in 1988 and his first stage role following this was in the West End premiere of Alan Ayckbourn's Henceforward….

Quotes

"I was newly out as a gay man. Henceforward… was a chance to declare I was still the same actor who enjoyed mainstream theatre. There's nothing gay about Alan Ayckbourn's play, except in the old sense. There was certainly plenty of jollity and social purpose about playing Jerome, estranged from his sometime in the future, getting entangled with a glamorous automaton."

“I’ve often said that Alan Ayckbourn and Alan Bennett come to mind as you’re reading Ben Weatherill. It’s in a tradition of plays that use humour and laugh aloud laughter to reveal people”
(2023)

Copyright: Ian McKellen. All research for this page by Simon Murgatroyd, please credit this website if reproduced.