Sir Ian McKellen: Don’t bother reading Shakespeare
By Patrick Forster for The Telegraph, 27 October 2015
Reading Shakespeare is a waste of time, and people should instead celebrate our greatest playwright by watching his plays at the theatre, according to Sir Ian McKellen.
In an intervention that is likely to win him fans among GCSE students across the country, but is unlikely to please the wider arts establishment, Sir Ian said that forcing people to read the works of the bard served only to reinforce the notion that his plays were there to be studied, rather than enjoyed.
The actor, famed for his portrayal of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings films, said: “I don’t think people should bother to read Shakespeare. They should see him in the theatre. Reading just reduces him to an examination subject.”
Ian McKellen is wrong about Shakespeare. He’s best read on paper
By Harry de Quetteville for The Telegraph, 27 October 2015
I have news for Sir Ian McKellen. Shakespeare at the theatre can be a monstrous bore too. Oh Lord, can it.
The actor, best known for playing a grumpy old bloke with a beard (that’s Gandalf, not Lear, but such is the reputational price of Hollywood stardom) has just suggested that the Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies should be seen and not read. The Bard, bound? “Don’t bother,” says McKellen. It’s a waste of time. “Reading just reduces him to an examination subject.”
Well, that’s all right for him to say. The aged actor must have spent many hundreds, if not thousands, of hours, studying, in immense detail, Shakespeare’s every written word – as “publifhed according to the TrueOrginall Copies”. Few people on the planet can have a greater familiarity with the printed words, and their meanings, of the great Elizabethan playwright. As a result, he will know better than anyone that to do Shakespeare justice, actors and directors must first have some kind of grip on what he’s banging on about. And I’m here to tell him that the same goes for those of us in the audience, too.
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