Hollywood star’s praise for city
HE SAYS MANCHESTER LIFE IN THE PAST WAS SO ‘MISERABLE’ IT PROMPTED PEOPLE FROM OUR CITY TO ‘CHANGE THE WORLD’
HOLLYWOOD actor Sir Ian McKellan says Manchester’s amazing history is down to one thing: it was a miserable place to live.
The world-renowned actor - famous for playing Gandalf and Magneto - was in town to launch a People’s History Museum’s exhibition celebrating the city’s gay history.
The Wigan-born celebrity - who is a regular at Manchester Pride - recalled his great, great grandfather Robert Lowes, a clerk who toiled in Manchester during the Victorian era and led a campaign to persuade bosses to give workers half a day off on Saturdays.
It was the birth of the weekend as we know it.
Talking in the museum’s Engine Room, Sir Ian said: “It wasn’t a surprise to me that such a radical figure had come out of Manchester.
“So much that is radical - both politically and socially - has come out of Manchester. The Suffragettes and right through to the gay rights movement.
And asked why the region had given rise to new ideas, the actor added: “What was it about Manchester that made us want to change the world? I think probably because the world in Manchester was a pretty miserable place,” he surmised, prompting a chuckle from the audience. “The standards, or lack of them, apply to workers conditions and the strength of the unions which helped to put that right.
“That sort of radical, non-conformist passion defines this city, and therefore helps to define the country.”
Sir Ian was talking at the launch of the Never Going Underground exhibition to mark 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexual acts in England and Wales, running at the Leftbank museum until September 3.
McKellen, who travels the world speaking with young people in schools about LGBT rights, added: “I hope the exhibition can go across the country where the message needs to be told, and it should go into Scotland and it should go into Wales and the far reaches of England.
“And then it should end up in the north of Ireland, where they still don’t allow gay people to get married,” he said emphatically, to a heartfelt cheer from the audience.
“We can be proud to live in our country as gay people. And we can be proud, most of all – absolutely, believably and truthfully and honestly – of Manchester.”