THIS is Sir Ian McKellen as you've never seen him before.

Gone are his costumes for X-Men and Lord of the Rings and he appears to have turned yellow.

Sir Ian is the latest in a string of stars to appear in an episode of comedy series The Simpsons.

The former Bolton School pupil bumps into Homer Simpson and his family during their visit to London and they give him lots of bad luck.

Sir Ian is starring in Macbeth and the Simpsons' constant mentioning of "the play" results in the Hollywood star being doused with water and zapped by lightning. An anvil then falls on his foot and an entire marquee falls on him.

But at least the Simpsons recognise Sir Ian - they mistake Prime Minister Tony Blair for Mr Bean!

Blair and Sir Ian appear alongside Harry Potter author JK Rowling and Monty Python's Eric Idle in a special episode of The Simpsons set in Britain called The Regina Monologues.

Sir Ian, along with the other special guests, gave his voice to the episode, which is part of the 14th series of the show. Not surprisingly, he is the first person from Bolton to ever appear on the show.

It will be aired on Friday January 9 at 8pm on Sky One.

Meanwhile, Sir Ian says he is somewhat bemused by the toy images of himself as Magneto in X-Men and Gandalf in Lord of The Rings that are on shop shelves.

"To have lots of dolls made of two characters that I have played, or to find little representations of myself falling out of a cornflakes box or on a Burger King mug are not necessarily desirable things, but when they happen you just sort of hug yourself with delight," he said.

McKellen is not following reports of The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King's record-breaking box office performance because he is convinced it has nothing to do with him.

"I have no personal financial interest in the outcome so I think it would be a masochistic act to read the box office returns," he said.

"As we've been going around the world we've been saying to ourselves, this is all very well, with wonderful things to remember for the rest of our lives, but actually do any of us need to do this? Would it make any difference if we all just stayed at home?"