Wiltshire Creative, Malvern Theatres, Sheffield Theatres and HOME in association with MGC (Michael Grandage Company) have announced that Ian McDiarmid will star in the world première of Julian Barnes’ The Lemon Table, directed by MGC’s Artistic Director Michael Grandage.
The production, which McDiarmid has adapted for performance, will open at Salisbury Playhouse (part of Wiltshire Creative) on 15 October 2021, with a preview on 14 October, before touring to Sheffield Theatres, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford, HOME in Manchester, and Malvern Theatres.
In The Lemon Table, Julian Barnes brings his unsentimental, wryly comic perspective to the complicated business of ageing, with its attendant and often bizarrely fluctuating emotions.

Olivier and Tony Award-winning Ian McDiarmid and Michael Grandage have collaborated to bring The Lemon Table to the stage for the first time. In McDiarmid’s one man performance we encounter a spectrum of bitter-sweet pleasures, wild eccentricity and dark secrets.
The Lemon Table sees McDiarmid and Grandage renew their long-term creative collaboration, having previously worked together on productions including The Doctor’s Dilemma (Almeida Theatre and UK tour), The Jew of Malta (Almeida Theatre and UK tour), Henry IV (Donmar Warehouse and UK tour), and John Gabriel Borkman (Donmar Warehouse).