Ian McKellen's Hamlet, aged 81: it's madness but there's method in it

Eyebrows were raised over the casting for the young Prince of Denmark, but it could give the play new life

At first it seems preposterous. Aged 81, Ian McKellen has announced he is to play Hamlet. Who knows what age he will be when Sean Mathias’ production is finally able to open at the Theatre Royal Windsor?

We think we know how old Hamlet is at the end of Shakespeare’s play. The not altogether reliable gravedigger says that the prince is 30. Which makes him a year younger than McKellen was when he opened in the part at Nottingham Playhouse, wearing a fringed leather jerkin, alongside a psychedelic ghost. Of the twin Shakespearean peaks, he is now much nearer the summit approached by an actor late in life: he has played King Lear three times.

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