Ian McKellen to star in King Lear London transfer

ATG Productions, Chichester Festival Theatre, Gavin Kalin Productions and Glass Half Full Productions are delighted to announce a major West End transfer for Chichester Festival Theatre’s critically-acclaimed production of Shakespeare’s King Lear, which will run at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London for 100 performances only from 11th July to 3rd November 2018.

Directed by Jonathan Munby, this intimate and contemporary production ran for a sold-out season at Chichester Festival Theatre’s Minerva Theatre in autumn 2017.

The ensemble of actors will include Ian McKellen as King Lear, returning to the Duke of York’s Theatre where he made his West End debut in the 1964 production of A Scent of Flowers. McKellen has enjoyed an illustrious career on stage and screen, not least inhabiting some of Shakespeare’s most iconic roles including Hamlet, Macbeth, Iago, Richard II and III as well as in previous productions of King Lear as Edgar, Kent and in the title role.

Full casting for the West End production of King Lear will be announced in due course.

Two ageing fathers – one a King, one his courtier – reject the children who truly love them. Their blindness unleashes a tornado of pitiless ambition and treachery as family and state are plunged into a violent power struggle with shocking ends.

Tender, brutal, moving and epic, King Lear is considered by many to be the greatest tragedy ever written.

Jonathan Munby’s credits include his new production of Bryony Lavery’s Frozen in the West End; First Light for Chichester Festival Theatre; All the Angels, The Merchant of Venice and Antony and Cleopatra for Shakespeare’s Globe; and Wendy & Peter Pan for the RSC.

£5 tickets will be available as part of Chichester Festival Theatre’s Prologue scheme for 16-25 year olds. Tickets can be purchased on the day of performance in person from the Duke of York’s Box Office, when proof of age ID will be required.

ATG Productions, Chichester Festival Theatre, Gavin Kalin Productions and Glass Half Full Productions present Chichester Festival Theatre’s production of King Lear by William Shakespeare which is directed by Jonathan Munby, designed by Paul Wills with lighting by Oliver Fenwick, music and sound by Ben Ringham and Max Ringham, movement by Lucy Cullingford and fight direction by Kate Waters.