Ian McKellen plays L.S. Lowry in a documentary that uncovers a collection of unheard tapes | Ian McKellen

Fifteen years ago, Sir Ian McKellen was among the leading arts figures who criticized the Tate for not displaying its collection of paintings by LS Lowry in its London galleries, and wondered whether the “Matchstick Men Painter” had been marginalized as too northern and provincial.

Now, 50 years after Laurie’s death, McKellen is starring in a BBC documentary that will reveal a trove of never-before-heard audio tapes recorded with Laurie in the 1970s during the last four years of his life.

The interview is the longest the artist has ever conducted and was recorded in his living room, his “private sanctuary.” The tapes are said to reveal Lowry’s original voice, which McKellen will lip-sync on screen.

The Lancashire-born actor described the role as a “unique privilege”.

McKellen said: “These tapes reveal a deep insight into the artist’s thoughts – his ambitions, his regrets and his sense of humour. Anyone like me, who admires his paintings and drawings, will be fascinated and delighted by the artist’s return to life through his own words.”

Lowry is admired for his unique depiction of working-class urban life, mill scenes and industrial landscapes, filled with idiosyncratic matchstick men. He learned his craft in the evenings at Manchester Municipal Art College and then at Salford School of Art while working as a rent collector by day.

The tapes offer personal insights as he reminisces about his life and discusses the experiences that shaped him since his childhood. The filmmakers noted the “surprising exchange” between the mysterious artist and a young admirer – Angela Barratt – whose interviews “captured Laurie at his most intimate and contemplative moments.”

The documentary, titled LS Lowry: The Unheard Tapes, is also described as a portrait of urban life in northern England in the twentieth century, exploring the transformation of Salford and Greater Manchester, an area that Lowry photographed prolifically and whose changing industrial landscape profoundly influenced his work.

“It is fortunate that these compelling recordings of the interviews have survived and are being used in this way,” said Richard Grosek, representing the Lowry family.

Of McKellen, he added: “It is difficult to imagine any other actor better equipped to channel the rhythmic gravitas of Mr. Lorry’s distinctive Lancastrian tones.”

Michael Simpson, director of visual arts at the Lowry, a theater and gallery in Salford, which now holds the tapes, said they reveal “an artist of intelligence, contradiction and perhaps surprising depth, far removed from the myth of the ‘common man’”.

In 2013, Tate Britain finally mounted a major Lowry exhibition, which was described as the first of its kind mounted by a public institution since the artist’s death.

Lowry’s long-time admirers include Julian Spalding, who held exhibitions of his work as a gallery director for the cities of Sheffield and Manchester at a time when he says the artist was being “excluded” from London galleries and dismissed as a provincial northerner.

Spalding has long accused the artistic establishment of showing an arrogant elitism towards Lowry because he was from the north of England and popular with the public. He added: “Lowry was not allowed to be in the picture at all. But he is one of the big figures in 20th-century British art – and he has been completely sidelined.”

Annabelle Smith will play Angela, who appears at the Royal Court Theater in The Shitheads.

BBC Arts Arena documentary LS Lowry: The Unheard Tapes It will be released on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer soon.