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Most 83-year-olds live pretty quiet lives. Not so Sir Ian McKellen: fresh off the back of a summer spent in a dance version of ‘Hamlet’ at the Edinburgh Fringe, he’s now plotting a return to the world of pantomime, 16 years after he did a couple of seasons as Widow Twanky at the Old Vic.
He’ll be taking on the title dame role in ‘Mother Goose’, which the great Hackney dame Clive Rowe has described as ‘the “Hamlet” of pantos’, insofar as it’s the only one in which the dame is the lead character. In this new version from writer Jonathan Harvey, McKellen’s Mother Goose is the kindly owner of an animal sanctuary which she owns with her husband Vic (John Bishop). But when a golden egg-laying goose (Giedroyc) flies in one day, their heads are catastrophically turned by all the free dosh.
Crack comedy director Cal McCrystal helms the action in what is a big step up for panto in the West End: not so long ago there was none at all; then the Palladium’s old-school Julian Clary-starring productions became a fixture; now it’ll go head to head with ‘Mother Goose’, which sets up in the Duke of York’s Theatre for the best part of two months before heading out on a national tour that will see McKellen and play dates in Chichester, Sheffield, Wolverhampton, Liverpool, Oxford, Dublin, Cardiff and more to be announced.
‘Mother Goose’ is at the Duke of York’s Theatre, Dec 15-Jan 29. See the official website for more info.