{"id":61307,"date":"2012-08-30T09:45:58","date_gmt":"2012-08-30T14:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=61307"},"modified":"2012-08-30T09:46:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-30T14:46:00","slug":"sir-ian-mckellen-plays-another-magician-at-the-london2012-paralympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2012\/08\/30\/61307-sir-ian-mckellen-plays-another-magician-at-the-london2012-paralympics\/","title":{"rendered":"Sir Ian McKellen plays another magician &#8211; at the London2012 Paralympics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"intro\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2012\/08\/30\/61307-sir-ian-mckellen-plays-another-magician-at-the-london2012-paralympics\/paralympics-sir-ian\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-61308\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-61308 no-lazyload\" title=\"paralympics sir ian mckellen\" src=\"http:\/\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/paralympics-sir-ian-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>London2012&#8217;s Paralympics got started last night with an opening ceremony which included Professor Stephen Hawking, Queen Elizabeth II and Gandalf himself &#8211; only this time in the role of Prospero.\u00a0 <em>The Tempest<\/em> has been a running theme for London2012 &#8211; the bell\u00a0housed in the Olympic\u00a0Stadium and rung in July&#8217;s opening ceremony\u00a0 is inscribed with a\u00a0line from Shakespeare&#8217;s play, &#8216;Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises,&#8217; and in the Olympic closing ceremony actor Timothy Spall\u00a0(as Winston Churchill!)\u00a0gave the speech from which that line is taken.\u00a0 Continuing the theme,\u00a0Sir Ian appeared in a stunning blue and golden robe, holding one of Prospero&#8217;s books, and bid actress Nicola Miles-Wildin, in the role of Miranda, to &#8216;shine your light on the beautiful diversity of humanity.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Diverstiy was appropriately and wonderfully represented in this ceremony, with 141 disabled performers taking part, including 27 wheelchair users &#8211; 6 of whom were flown into the stadium in golden chairs!\u00a0 Sir Ian was quoted in British press as saying, &#8216;I\u2019m the least sporty person I know, but thrilled to have a small part to play in\u00a0 the Paralympic opening ceremony in praise of endeavour and enlightenment.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>You can read a description of the ceremony and Sir Ian&#8217;s role <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/sport\/olympics\/paralympic-sport\/9507553\/Paralympics-2012-a-stirring-journey-to-enlightenment.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter\">here<\/a>, and can see some highlights <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vBmmA7rfliw\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>London2012&#8217;s Paralympics got started last night with an opening ceremony which included Professor Stephen Hawking, Queen Elizabeth II&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":61308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,1300,4,49,91,148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-hobbit-cast-news","category-hobbit-movie","category-mckellen","category-events-other","category-hobbit"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/paralympics-sir-ian.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-fWP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61307"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61318,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61307\/revisions\/61318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}