Sean Mathias’s film of the stage comedy Frank and Percy, with Ian McKellen and Roger Allam as two Hampstead dog walkers who fall in love, had its world premiere at the festival.
Frank and Percy, Sean Mathias’s film of Ben Weatherill’s stage comedy, had its world premiere in NFT1 at BFI Southbank on the South Bank on Tuesday 13 October 2026. Ian McKellen plays Percy and Roger Allam plays Frank.
McKellen, born in Burnley in 1939, holds six Olivier Awards and a Tony and is known worldwide as Gandalf. Allam, born in Bow in 1953, created Javert in the original London Les Misérables and played DCI Fred Thursday in Endeavour.
Mathias was born in Swansea in 1956. His 1989 revival of Martin Sherman’s Bent, with McKellen, moved to the National Theatre the following year.
The play opened at the Theatre Royal Windsor in June 2023, and transferred to The Other Palace in London that September. Sherman adapted it for the screen. A widower and a bachelor meet walking their dogs on Hampstead Heath, and their talk turns to friendship and then to love.
The premiere was part of the Love strand of the seventieth BFI London Film Festival. Stephen Fry and Joanna Lumley lead the supporting cast. Icon Film Distribution brings it to British cinemas in early 2027.