Throughout the tour, listeners will hear anecdotes and personal stories about McKellen’s time on stage and the history that has shaped London’s world-famous theatre district. This is an opportunity to experience the West End like never before.

The tour begins and ends at TKTS in Leicester Square where free WiFi is available to download the app.

Ian McKellen said: “I know myself when I’m in a strange city that wandering around with your nose in a guidebook isn’t the best way to appreciate what’s going on. The important thing when you’re walking around a city like London is to look up and down the alleyways and round the corner. With a guide in your ear all this is much easier.”

VoiceMap is an audio tour app that uses GPS to play stories about your surroundings at exactly the right time. As you walk it uses your location and offline maps to play audio automatically. Once downloaded, the tour is not reliant on data or WiFi.

How to download Official London Theatre Audio Tour with Ian McKellen

1. Install VoiceMap for iPhone or Android
2. Sign up with email or Facebook, then look for “Theatreland Tour with Ian McKellen” in the London menu
3. Download all the files with WiFi, then put on a headset and start walking
4. VoiceMap works offline and doesn’t require any data

TKTS, which is run by the Society of London Theatre, has been in the heart of Leicester Square for more than 30 years, offering fantastic discounts, amazing choice and great customer service, and acting as a central box office for all of London’s biggest shows.

IAN MCKELLEN: Audio tours of London’s Theatreland with the British legend now available. Photo: Matt Humphrey

The post Ian McKellen’s free London Theatreland audio tour appeared first on StageZine.

PINTERLAND: (left to right) Sir Partick Stewart, Sir Ian McKellen, Billy Crudup, Shuler Henlsey. Photo: Joan Marcus

NO MAN’S LAND
Written by Harold Pinter
Directed by Sean Mathias
Cort Theatre
138 West 48th Street
(212) 239-6200; http://www.twoplaysinrep.com/

By David NouNou

To enter into Pinterland, one has to leave the comforts of the real world as one knows it, and be ready to enter another world that only makes sense in the mind of Harold Pinter. It’s a no man’s land, a netherworld that exists between reality and reminiscences. Nothing much happens, but somehow the characters’ lives do change. Through the volley of words, the characters ever so slowly morph into someone else. One’s attention can’t waiver even for an instant. Although all the words are common, everyday ones, we never know which set of words is going to trigger off the chain of events.

Set in Hampstead, a part of North London, Hirst (Patrick Stewart), an alcoholic, upper-class intellectual, meets Spooner (Ian McKellen), a down-on–his-luck poet who Hirst meets at a pub one evening and invites him over to his posh home. It appears that they may have met at Oxford; they are both in their sixties and reminisce about shared acquaintances and relationships. In this home also live Foster (Billy Crudup), an amiable “secretary”; and the thuggish Briggs (Shuler Hensley), a manservant. For Hirst, Foster and Briggs live in a comfortable, unchallenged world.  On this evening, Spooner seems to be the interloper who could change this comfy existence.

Let’s face it, for most Americans, Pinter is a tough pill to swallow. However, when you are in the presence of theatre magicians the likes of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, it’s theatrical heaven. The chemistry between these two actors is palpable. These two men are such perfectionists; they can finish each other’s sentences. Not to take anything away from Billy Crudup and Shuler Hensley, for they are formidable actors in their own right, but the stage belongs to McKellen and Stewart. Mr. Crudup and Mr. Hensley are better served in the alternating twin rep in Waiting For Godot. Their talents are fully realized there.

Sean Mathais, the director, has managed to distill the humor and pathos from both plays. For Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot and Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land seem like a perfect combination to be done in repertory. They both require four actors and they complement each other; they both deal with the possibility of reality and the imaginary. Time is not important and reminiscences could be self delusion. While in Godot it feels like one is repeating the same day in purgatory, in No Man’s Land it feels like spending a night and day in a hellish dream that keeps pulling us into its vortex.

CHEERS: Sir Patrick Stewart toasts Sir Ian McKellen in ‘No Man’s Land.’ Photo: Joan Marcus

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published December 6, 2013
Reviewed at  press performance on December 4, 2013

The post Pinter’s ‘No Man’s Land’ a hellish dream appeared first on StageZine.