Ian McKellen Makes Shakespeare the Hottest Ticket???

Is Shakespeare the hottest ticket this season? Trevor Nunn’s Royal Shakespeare Company production of King Lear, which transfers to the New London theatre for a limited season from 15 November 2007 to 12 January 2008, has already sold out. (Of course, that’s no doubt to its title star Ian McKellen – The Seagull, running in rep with King Lear, is also a sell-out, at least for the performances in which McKellen, who shares the role with William Gaunt, appears.)

Meanwhile, Patrick Stewart’s “Macbeth of a lifetime” is causing a box-office rush at the Gielgud Theatre, where it’s just opened for ten weeks only. At the Donmar Warehouse, public booking doesn’t open until 15 October 2007 for Michael Grandage’s much-anticipated staging of Othello - starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ewan McGregor and Kelly Reilly and running from 4 December 2007 (previews from 29 November) to 23 February 2008 (See News, 11 May 2007) - but members of the theatre’s Friends scheme, who have only been allowed to purchase a maximum of four tickets each, have already made it a near sell-out.

And at the National, tickets are flying out the door for the initial booking period of Nicholas Hytner’s production of Much Ado About Nothing (See News, 25 Jul 2007), which stars Zoe Wanamaker and Simon Russell Beale as Beatrice and Benedick and joins the NT Olivier rep 18 December (previews from 10 December).

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