Saved by a fat suit – Sir Ian McKellen on his fall during a West End show

Sir Ian McKellen has talked about his recent fall in an interview with our own Saga Magazine and revealed that a fat suit saved him from even more serious injury.

In June, Ian (he hates people using his title), 85, was playing John Falstaff in Player Kings, a condensed version of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Parts I and II in the West End, when he fell off the stage.

"I’ve relived that fall I don’t know how many times. It was horrible," says the Lord of the Rings actor.

"It was in the battle scene. My foot got caught in a chair, and trying to shake it off I started to slide on some newspaper that was scattered over the stage, like I was on a skateboard.

"The more I tried to get rid of it, the faster I proceeded down a step, onto the forestage, and then on to the lap of someone in the front row.

"I started screaming, 'Help me!' and then 'I’m sorry! I don’t do this!' Extraordinary things. I thought it was the end of something. It was very upsetting."

"The end", he clarifies, didn’t mean "my death. It was my participation in the play. I have to keep assuring myself that I’m not too old to act and it was just a bloody accident.

"I didn’t lose consciousness, I hadn’t been dizzy, but I’ve not been able to go back and they still played without me. (His understudy David Semark replaced him.)

"I don’t feel guilty, but the accident has let down the whole production," he sighs. "I feel such shame. I was hoping to be able to rejoin the play on the tour, but I couldn’t."

He revealed he is still in a neck brace and his right hand remains splinted.

"My chipped vertebrae and fractured wrist are not yet mended. I don’t go out because I get nervous in case someone bangs into me, and I’ve got agonising pains in my shoulders to do with my whole frame having been jolted.

"But I was wearing a fat suit for Falstaff and that saved my ribs and other joints. So I’ve had a lucky escape really but… tell Saga readers to watch their step!"

"Work is a way of… not denying getting older, but of taking my mind away from it," he says. Now, laid-up, he’s being cared for by "my beloved friends next door – there’s a door connecting our houses. And four young friends, one gay couple and one straight couple, shop and cook for me.

"I couldn’t manage without them. If they weren’t there I suppose I’d have to employ somebody to do that or go to a [convalescent] home for a spell."

The friends are regulars at The Grapes, the pub near his house, which he part owns. "Not going to its pub quiz on a Monday night is what I miss most right now," he jokes.

"We’re a useless team. I used to be the quizmaster but I was sacked by my colleagues because they thought there were too many questions about Shakespeare. Now we have to answer questions about football."

Happily, despite being holed up, plenty of Ian’s work is currently out there. A film version of Hamlet, in which Ian stars as the Danish prince, directed by Mathias during lockdown, is showing in cinemas worldwide to rave reviews. 

Since his on-stage accident, he’s become a social media star, after his friend Sir Anthony Hopkins posted a viral video on TikTok attracting – to date – almost 414,000 views.

It shows the pair – friends since they worked together at the National in the 1970s – dancing (before the accident) to a Leonard Cohen song in identical check Gucci jackets.

"Hannibal [as in Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter role in the The Silence of the Lambs] and Gandalf!" is a typical delighted response.

He has been informed a new spin-off from The Lord of the Rings is planned, focusing on the character Gollum. "They’ve said they hope Gandalf will be required, but sometimes these things happen and sometimes they don’t."

Ian says he’s become a better actor throughout his career. "But you still feel you can improve. I advise people to come and see Ian McKellen at the end of [a show’s] run, not on the first night, because I’ll be much better."

Does it annoy him that he hadn’t yet perfected Falstaff? "Yes! It’s unfinished business. There are suggestions we’ll do [the play] again, but we’ll see…"

In September we’ll be able to see him in The Critic, a film written by Patrick Marber, co-starring Gemma Arterton, Lesley Manville and Mark Strong.

Set in Thirties London, Ian plays the waspish theatre critic Jimmy Erskine, caught in a web of deception as he fights to save his job after his homosexuality (illegal until 1967) is uncovered.

"I didn’t do it to get any revenge on critics– they’ve always been rather nice to me, probably too nice early in my career," he says.

"What attracted me was the screenplay was fullof mystery and stylishness. Jimmy’s a monster,an absolute bounder, but that makes him attractive to watch, even if you wouldn’t want to spend an evening with him.

"Certainly, while Jimmy seemingly brims with malevolence, you understand how he’s damaged from constantly hiding his sexuality from the world."

Burnley-born Ian (he grew up in Wigan, then Bolton) – who says he knew he was gay for as long as he can remember and whose greatest regret is both his parents died (his housewife mother when he was 12, his engineer father when he was 24) before he could come out to them – remembers those times all too well.