Thought For The Day: Ian McKellen

"Gandalf is trying to do good. And basically I'm on the side of people trying to make this world a better place. Rather than keep it as it was, or even imagining a golden future. But simply getting through life without hurting too many people." [Are we in a better world than the one into which he was born?] "Entirely better, personally. At least in the country we live in, there's an acceptance and a generosity and inclusiveness which has allowed us to accept alien cultures and learn from them. And attitudes to gay culture, and then disability, I hope more than momentarily. In so many ways better, and I am so glad."

The Observer. 

One day I guess there may be one week where one of the Sunday papers doesn't run an interview with Sireena...

PS Ian talks very briefly about Vicious Old Queens, his forthcoming ITV sitcom with Derek Jacobi playing his other half.

"Well, you know, I just hadn't done a sitcom before. Hadn't worked with Derek before, oddly, even though we've known each other since Cambridge, and it seemed a bit of a lark, and the writing is funny, better than funny. And we are capable of absorbing each other's cantankerousness – the characters have been together for 50 years, so there's a basis of love which supersedes the viciousness, as with heterosexual marriages."

Fagburn predicts live sit-com disaster!