Doing for a London-based theater what he wouldn’t do for wizard nerd (and Napster founder) Sean Parker, Ian McKellen has announced that he’ll once again be bringing Gandalf the Grey back to life. It’s been a minute—i.e., three years—since McKellen last played the weathered old wizard, but audiences will get a chance to see him put on his robe and wizard hat one more time, as part of a one-man fundraiser the actor is performing at London’s Park Theater in June.
Titled “Shakespeare, Tolkien, Others & You,” the show will see McKellen discuss his storied career and reprise a number of his most beloved roles, including good old Mithrandir. (Or Stormcrow, if you’re feeling nasty.) Proceeds from the show will go to the Park, with McKellen praising the theater’s impact and hoping that he’ll help to bring in some of the $300,000 it requires to operate annually.
Few actors have embodied a beloved fictional character more deftly or fully in recent memory than McKellen’s Gandalf. Say what you like about the latter entries in Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth series, but McKellen was a perpetual delight, mixing stern authority with winking amusement every step of the way from The Shire to the Lonely Mountain or Mordor. (And back again.)