Ian McKellen's a world-class act

                
                
RICHARD SWAINSON
REVIEW: It is unlikely that any who attended Sir Ian McKellen's sold-out one-man show on Saturday night would have entered the Clarence St Theatre in ignorance or indifference to William Shakespeare.
If such a person were in attendance though, they would have exited a born again convert to the Bard.
In its 150 years, Hamilton has never seen his like tread our boards before.
The second half of the programme was more than just an awe-inspiring demonstration of acting versatility. It was a world-class workshop on the depth, worth and ongoing relevance of great literature.
Theatre does not get any better than when the planet's leading exponent of the craft pays your small metropolis a charity visit.
The soliloquies had no lesser power for the fact that the thespian knight followed them with bucket in hand, auctioning off his autograph and image in the lobby in the best of possible causes.
Seeing Sir Ian briefly reprise his trademark role of Richard III was to be expected. As chilling and exciting as this was for sheer power, it was rivalled by the moment he strode into and through the audience giving us Henry V's pre-Agincourt pep talk, or sat as musing Hamlet upon the stage's solitary chair, contemplating the nature of theatre itself.
Playing Romeo to his own Juliet, Sir Ian was love struck, witty and wise.
In an extract from Cymbeline he reflected on mortality and death, a complement to the Hopkins recitation that so movingly closed the show's first section.
In giving us Coriolanus' rapprochement with a foe, he slyly suggested a gay subtext in the Bard's verse.
As Sir Thomas Moore, in a part he was the first to play, Sir Ian gave us an ode to justice and tolerance, a plea to embrace cultural difference and counter prejudice with humanity.
Only at the very outset of the performance did the great actor's voice falter. Opening the evening with a Tolkien reading that he admitted afterwards to not having quite committed to memory, Sir Ian soon warmed to the task at hand, relating stories about The Lord of the Rings and the on-going production of The Hobbit and generally impressing with his knowledge and love of the English author's work.
Taking questions from the floor, his amusing anecdotes name checked everyone from Elizabeth Taylor to Nelson Mandela.
Whether you were the large gentleman who got to kill Gandalf with his own sword, the couple whose 60th wedding anniversary was marked with an especially dedicated Shakespearean sonnet or just privileged enough to be in the audience, it was a night to never forget.
原址：http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/entertainment/your-waikato/6913727/Ian-McKellens-a-world-class-act