Sir Ian McKellen, 84, sports a jazzy Casablanca green coat and long beard as he celebrates West End show Player Kings’ rave reviews at after party

The Telegraph

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After his tour de force 80th-birthday show, his ‘age-blind’ Hamlet and his Mother Goose, I hesitate to say “This is it – Ian McKellen’s swansong!”. 

At 84, there’s clearly life in the acting titan yet (and long may it be). Even so, an unmistakable aura of elegy and mortality hangs over his largely delightful and affecting turn as old Jack Falstaff, who, with his shaggy beard and wispy white hair, inevitably recalls Gandalf but has a gargantuan belly and little of the wizard’s wisdom. 

Time Out 

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Ian McKellen and Toheeb Jimoh are phenomenal as a deluded Falstaff and dangerous Hal in Robert Icke’s elegant take on ‘Henry IV’

Yes, the presence of soon-to-turn-85 stage and screen legend Ian McKellen tackling Shakespeare’s great character Sir John Falstaff is the big draw in ‘Player Kings’.

But Robert Icke’s three hour-40-minute modern-dress take on the two ‘Henry IV’ plays does not pander to its star, and is unwavering in its view that this is the story of two deeply damaged men, linked grimly together.

The Guardian

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At just over three and a half hours, it is far shorter than the RSC’s 2014 twin productions starring Antony Sher as Falstaff (irrepressibly, magnificently jovial), which were almost three hours apiece. The necessary truncations here mean that its pace is faster but there is less development of its themes.

Certainly, McKellen is well worth seeing for his showmanship (when is he ever not?) and if this is part of a growing wave of “commercial Shakespeare” shows, led by big name stars in the West End, it is an attractive addition.

Evening Standard

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This is a four-star, almost four-hour Falstaff – a condensed version of Henry IV parts I and II that’s a luxurious feast for Ian McKellen and for audiences. 

Our greatest living classical actor attacks the part of the gluttonous, cowardly knight – one of the few male Shakespearean biggies he’s not previously ticked off – with relish and superb comic timing.

iNews  

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With a running time of three and three-quarter hours – Icke’s slick modern-dress adaptation streamlines the two plays into one – Player Kings tests the stamina of audience and actors alike and while we lesser mortals might flag, McKellen’s boundless energy – not to mention line-learning capacity – is continually astounding.