Ian McKellen to return to the stage in 'Lear: A Reimagining' at the new Yard Theatre

Shakespeare's classic play about power, family betrayal, and madness is reimagined by Yard artistic director Jay Miller and playwright Simon Stephens.

Ian McKellen is set to return to the stage in Lear: A Reimagining, as the newly reopened Yard Theatre announces its first season.

Shakespeare's classic play about power, family betrayal, and madness is reimagined by Yard artistic director Jay Miller and playwright Simon Stephens. McKellen was last seen on stage in June 2024 in Player Kings at the Noël Coward Theatre, and he last performed King Lear in 2017 at Chichester Festival Theatre — in a production that later transferred to the West End and New York.

The new Yard is more than twice the size of the original, which opened in 2011 in a Hackney Wick warehouse built with a team of 50 volunteers, a £9,000 Arts Council England grant and materials reclaimed from the Olympic Park.

Other shows in its first season include a 50th-anniversary revival of Ntozake Shange's for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf directed by Diane Page, Holly Robinson's adaptation of Mrs Dalloway, Malmö Stadsteater's adaptation of the world premiere of Jackie Collins’ bestselling novel The World is Full of Married Men, Sex Education's Troy Hunter's There's Something About Adam Black, and Edinburgh Festival Fringe hit Philosophy of the World by In Bed with my Brother.

Founder and artistic director Jay Miller said: “In 2011 I opened The Yard as a DIY theatre that was supposed to be here for six months. On The Yard’s 15th anniversary, I’ll open it again. Same spirit, this time in a better, bigger theatre.

"In the twelve months we’ve been closed, we’ve been playing with shows that pop. A debut play by Troy Hunter; toy dolls playing with Jackie Collins; a brilliant actor playing in ways he’s never played before. Virginia Woolf, Ntozake Shange, and the world’s worst band, all on the same stage in the same season. They said it wouldn’t happen. It’s happening. Deep breath in.”

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Photo credit: Ian McKellen. (Photo by Guy J Sanders)