Veteran British actor Sir Ian McKellen says a fat suit that he wore to play the famously portly Shakespearean character Falstaff saved him from even worse injuries when he fell from a London stage in June.

In an interview for Saga magazine, he revealed he was still recovering from the experience, with his neck in a brace and right hand in a splint.

The actor who won worldwide fame for his role as Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy said he was being cared for by friends.

“I was wearing a fat suit for Falstaff and that saved my ribs and other joints,” he told the magazine which is marketed at older readers.

“So I’ve had a lucky escape really but… tell Saga readers to watch their step!”

The actor had been performing in a fight scene in Player Kings – a new play combining Henry iV, Parts 1 and Part 2 – at London’s Noel Coward Theatre when he lost his footing.

It was reported at the time that he had cried out in pain, calling for help, and a staff member rushed to assist him. He was taken to hospital and the play was cancelled for the rest of its London run.

“I’ve relived that fall I don’t know how many times. It was horrible,” McKellen told Saga.

“It was in the battle scene. My foot got caught in a chair, and trying to shake it off I started to slide on some newspaper that was scattered over the stage, like I was on a skateboard.

“The more I tried to get rid of it, the faster I proceeded down a step, onto the forestage, and then on to the lap of someone in the front row.

“I started screaming ‘help me!’ and then ‘I’m sorry! I don’t do this!’ Extraordinary things. I thought it was the end of something. It was very upsetting.”

His chipped vertebrae and fractured wrist had still to heal, he said, and he was staying ay home a lot more because he was nervous “in case someone bangs into” him.

“I’ve got agonising pains in my shoulders to do with my whole frame having been jolted,” he added.

But it appears he is in good hands during his recovery, being looked after by “beloved friends next door” and “four young friends, one gay couple and one straight couple” who shop and cook for him.

Pondering the incident, the actor, who was praised for his “age-blind” performance of Hamlet in recent years, added: “I have to keep assuring myself that I’m not too old to act and it was just a bloody accident.”

“Work is a way of… not denying getting older, but of taking my mind away from it,” he told Saga.