Sir Ian McKellan and Ted Lasso star team up for Shakespearean West End mash-up
ITV News' Arts Editor Nina Nannar sat down with Sir Ian McKellen and Toheeb Jimoh
There is a six-decade age gap between them but Sir Ian McKellen and Toheeb Jimoh have formed a mutual appreciation society.
Even though the 84-year-old acting legend has yet to see Ted Lasso, the hit TV series that has helped propel 26-year-old Jimoh to fame.
They play Sir John Falstaff and Prince Hal respectively in a new West End Production of Henry IV parts one and two.
The two Shakespearean history plays have been combined for Player Kings, a new adaptation by Robert Icke.
It marks the first time that McKellen has played one of the Bard’s best known creations Falstaff, who leads a young Prince Hall astray while he should be preparing to become the next king.
It is a huge role, and although McKellen shows no sign of slowing down, he says it is tiring, but for him, even more vital a job now he is in his 80s.
Toheeb Jimoh has done Shakespeare on stage before, but says he is learning from McKellen, which is one of the main reasons he took the role.
McKellen says it is heartening to know that the work of performing Shakespeare is in good hands for the day when he is no longer on stage.
Championing Shakespeare is one of his passions as is preserving regional theatre, something he showed when four years ago he marked his 80th birthday by touring 80 venues to perform and help them raise money.
The current funding crisis in the regional arts sector is nothing new, he says, and points to a wider disregard for the power of the creative industries.
It starts, he says, with the drop in schools teaching drama, something that is "shameful".
Player Kings will be going out to the regions after its West End run, and Jimoh says he shares McKellen’s drive to save regional theatres hoping that his stage work will continue after this production.
He clearly looks up to McKellen particularly taking on such a huge and demanding role in his 80s.
None of us in the cast are allowed to say we are tired or exhausted he adds if Sir Ian doesn’t say it first. No chance of that.
Player Kings is in at the Noel Coward Theatre in the West End until the June 22.
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