A very lovely production that offers a range of tributes to the actor's work. It truly feels like a memoir come to life.

*SPOILERS HERE*

The stories, jokes, and audience participation offer a lot of laughs and heartfelt moments, giving the audience an insight into the legend that is Sir Ian McKellen. He balances bragging and appreciation very well, while offering serious takes on political issues, such as his experience growing up as a gay man. The audience participation was a nice touch, especially considering his appreciation of pantomime earlier on in the show.

However, the frequent performances of poems, extracts, and monologues felt rather excessive, especially in the first act. Opening with an extract from 'The Lord of the Rings' was lovely, even more so considering it was a book reading and not an extract from the film script, but as the performance went on the homages to McKellen's previous roles and beloved poems became simply overwhelming and lost a lot of my attention. That being said, the moments of nostalgia and stories previously mentioned regained my interest. Act 2 handles the balance of extracts and fun far better with only some of the Shakespeare plays getting a monologue performance. The ending felt too teased out, with a long Macbeth performance, which seemed to signify the end, followed by another monologue, which also seemed to signify the end, followed by the box joke which seemed to signify the end, followed by the addition of a sticker to the box which actually was the end felt far too clunky and needed to be streamlined for impact.

Overall an enjoyable, heartwarming performance, but definitely would be far more appreciated by a fan of McKellen himself, rather than someone who just recognises him from 'The Lord of the Rings' or 'X-Men'.