this is bbc news, the headlines: the bbc has found evidence of russian troops using civilians as human shields in their invasion of ukraine. families in villages just north of the capital kyiv say they were forced to leave basements where they were hiding. they say they were rounded up at gunpoint. in peru, a protester�*s been killed and several others injured in clashes with police. people there have been taking to the streeets for several days, demonstrating against the rising cost of fuel and food. they were blocking a major highway in the south of the country. ed sheeran has called for an end to what he described as baseless claims of plagiarism after winning his london high court battle over whether he copied another artist's song. the british singer said such cases were damaging the pop industry and coincidences

were bound to happen. it's almost three years now since a devastating fire tore through paris's notre dame cathedral. a massive restoration project is well under way to return it to its former glory. but in the meantime, you can go to a new exhibition where virtual reality will show you the cathedral�*s future, and its past. the bbc�*s tim allman has more. it was a moment that shocked a nation and stunned the world. one of the most famous and historic places of worship, consumed by smoke and flames. notre dame was rescued, and if all goes to plan, it will eventually be restored. but there is a way to explore this grand cathedral before the

doors reopen properly to the public. 50 doors reopen properly to the ublic. , ., , public. so here, visitors will visit a new _ public. so here, visitors will visit a new kind _ public. so here, visitors will visit a new kind of _ public. so here, visitors will. visit a new kind of exhibition, which we call augmented exhibition, because they will be able to do an incredible journey into history. fin journey into history. on special _ journey into history. on special computer tablets, you can go back in time and effectively witness key moments in history. see when the cathedral was first built. or even witness the coronation of napoleon. the designers have a bold ambition in mind. to create a _ bold ambition in mind. trr create a vanished world that was never presented either in drawings or in text or in cinema. we have to find something completely new, to immerse people in the past. the exhibition will _ immerse people in the past. the exhibition will eventually go on tour, visiting more than a dozen capital cities in the

next two years. a journey into the past, a promise for the future. now on bbc news, amol rajan interviews sir ian mckellen. just over four years ago, i drove to chichester to interview a titan of stage and screen. he was staring as king lear in the local theatre and he told me it would be his last big shakespearean role. i shouldn't have believed a word, because last year, at the age of 82, amidst the pandemic and some five decades after his first public turn in the role, sir ian mckellen played hamlet. it was typical of him, surprising, mischievous, your thespian charisma. pure thespian charisma. above all, it showed that in his ninth decade, he seems indefatigable.

undoubtedly one of the greats this country has produced, he is a pioneer, a game—changer, who rewrote the rules of acting and helped britain confront the truth about itself. known to a global audience for his portrayal of gandalf in the lord of the rings, it has been quite a journey for a boy from burnley born before the war. over six decades he has been called the area been called the heir to laurence olivier, starred in hundreds of productions and illuminated screens small and large. how good do you think you are? whenever i start rehearsing a play, i tell myself the fact that i'm the best actor in the world to play that part. along the way, his championing of gay rights has earned him the ire of many and the respect of many more. our conversation covered

everything from his life story to whether, for instance, non—jewish actors should play jewish roles, and the story behind the first same—sex kiss on the bbc. he has invited me to explore, if not explain, a life that charts the story of post—war britain. i have a simple quest, to find out who really is ian mckellen? camera a, b, c, d. ok, let's do it. sir ian... don't call me sir! why not? i thought you were rather proud of your knighthood. proud, yes, of course, but i do not want to be separated out from other people, i don't really like titles. there we are. thank you for talking to me. otherwise i will have to call you mr. that would be very

weird and it would also highlight the hierarchy difference. do you remember what it was like as an eight or nine—year—old falling in love with the theatre? you got amazing access, partly via your family, to the backstage and there is this contrast between the sheen and glory of what you saw on stage and dare i say it, sexy, illicit, not quite seedy, but the underworld element of what was happening backstage and you fell in love with that, didn't you? i was most intrigued, not by what i saw, but to wonder how it had been achieved. how do they do that? how did that curtain go up? how did that light go through that curtain, so we could see beyond? how much do they get paid? do they know each other well? i wanted to know what it was like! well, as an amateur actor, i could discover that. acting at school, primary school, and secondary school, i could find out what happened, how you put on a play.

my fate was sealed then, ijust wanted to live in this world. so, the production and how it got made had a magic and the sense of it as a profession, something you could earn a living with and learn from all these other people, and be embedded in a community? these people, when you saw them from the front, from the audience, were very special. time honoured, lancaster. i brought hither henry hereford, my son. they looked special, they wore make—up, the men! they painted their faces! the lights were so bright. this was intriguing. they were not like us and they were visitors to the town, and where did they go to? so, istarted reading the stage newspaper and then i began to understand, there are all these theatres, all over the place! i think if you had to define

what these little towns were like, in the north and elsewhere around the country, theatre would have to be a part of it. notjust professional theatre — there was the bolton theatre, school, of course, it was all available to you. and although to be an actor was an odd thing, my family would think to do, as a profession, my mother told her sister before she died, too young, that if ian became an actor, she would be happy because actors brought such joy to the lives of people. and i have held onto that. but you found a sense of belonging and freedom to be yourself as an undergraduate at cambridge, and you were part of this extraordinary generation who have gone on to great things in the theatre and on screen. although there's no drama faculty at cambridge,

i spent most of my time acting and we had our own amateur theatre. wasn't i lucky, itjust seems a natural progression, what had begun as a hobby, the fun of going to the theatre, by the time i was 20 and ready to earn a living, my hobby became my profession and then my life. before you could act professionally, in 1961, when i was starting out, you had to become a member of the union equity and their role was that and their rule was that you could only become a provisional member until you had completed 44 weeks of work as an actor. it was a real trade, wasn't it? it was, and are you taking this seriously, young person? all right, 44 weeks, see how you get on, and until you were a full member, you could not work on television,

in film or in london. that meant going out of london and working in the regional theatre, which is what i did and what derek did and judi dench did... it is what we all did, and expected to do and wanted to do because we knew, whether we had been to drama school or not, i didn't go, that is where you would learn your trade, that is where you are discovering your strengths and weaknesses. i just learned how to act. you did these hard yards of theatre for decades really, before you had this transformative moment in tv and film, but is one of the real reasons that you spent so long in theatre, rather than going for it on tv and film, that your first adventures in tv and film were tricky? do you remember your first ever tv performance, if i told you it was 1964 and you're halfway up a tree, could you remember where you were? yes, i think i was in the bbc television centre and pretending to be in india, i think.

there was the tiger! i walked up to it, took a single shot, fired and that was that. how big was it? oh, i would say, 11 feet. 11 feet. did these forays convince you television was the future? television? i had no idea. in those days that you would be recorded by four cameras, all on the move, and the actor, if he was wise, knew which camera was on him, so that he could respond to it. you were i think pushing the boundaries of what people thought you could do in britain, through your work in the theatre. your kiss on stage in edward ii, the marlowe play, the bbc put that on television and that was the first gay kiss. kind words and mutual

talk makes grief better. therefore with dumb embracement, let us part. that was quite a remarkable moment of cultural transgression. did you think of it at the time? i look back at that time and i think, goodness me, it was 1967 that homosexuality was decriminalised, that was a remarkable moment! yes, we had a passionate kiss, james and myself, for which i am always grateful! and it was broadcast by the bbc. the bbc was not out to shock or educate people, it wasjust doing a play that had had success at the edinburgh festival and two seasons in london, and christopher marlowe wrote that play, he was born the same year as shakespeare. it was not a new playwright, but it was the first play ever with a gay hero, nevertheless there it was

and i don't remember anyone complaining. of course since i have heard from people saying, i am so grateful to you for that kiss, which i was watching in indiana with my parents, and we had a good conversation about it afterwards and i am a happily married gay man. that was wonderful. i didn't do that play because i was on a mission to tell people about homosexuality and certainly not about my own, because i was closeted, i wasn't honest about myself. you were 20 years from coming out publicly, you had actually suffered the consequences professionally of being gay, because i think in 1979 you were due to star in an adaptation of howard pinter�*s betrayal

and the producer, i think he said to you, when you come over to america with your wife? i went to meet sam, and howard had to leave and i was left with his producer. we have nothing in common, we were talking and i referred to an upcoming visit to america and he said, about taking the family and my wife, and i said i am not married, i'm gay. i think sam may be the first person i came out to. when i was shown the door. literally? shown the door. leave. and of course i was not in the film. now, the interesting thing to me now is not that it happened, but where was harold pinter? harold pinter, a great humanitarian... nobel prize—winner... fearlessly honest...

open in his political views, went along with this judgment that i was inappropriate because i was gay, although he must�*ve known i was gay. and it was 30 years later, i think, shortly before harold died that i was in a restaurant in london and he came by, slightly tottery, and i stood up to greet him and he leaned into my ear and said, i am sorry about betrayal. did he? was it a premeditated decision when you went on a radio 3 show, i think it was, the third ear, and it was a publisher associated with the sunday telegraph and used two words, "like myself", in reference to homosexuality, was it a premeditated decision that that would be the moment? i don't know. it probably was, it probably was. i think that the moment

at which you use those two words, "like myself", was a very significant moment in post—war british history, because i think it gave a lot of other people confidence. in january, 1988 while taking part in a debate about the controversial section 28 bill which inhibited schools and local authorities from promoting homosexuality, mckellen finally went public in his own characteristically nuanced way. so, you would like to see clause 28 disappear? - i certainly would, it's offensive to anyone who is, like myself, homosexual, apart from the whole business about what can or cannot be taught to children. i probably thought, this would be a good debating point and it was, and i seem to remember that he shut up, really! oh dear, oh dear.

peregrine and i were both knighted on the same day! we stood next to each other. do you feel that the bbc has been an important part of your life? i can remember seeing my first television, the boat race, in a shop window. so, it was radio that i listen to as a child. which we as a family listened to, we sat down to listen to particular programmes. i first met anton chekhov and henrik ibsen and bernard shaw, not in the theatre, but on saturday night theatre, the saturday night play, every week. whatever people think about the policies and activities of this country, the bbc is the calling card. i want to go back to the acting, why is it that you often play secondary roles?

back in 1974, when you are already talked about as wigan�*s the answer to laurence olivier, you starred in king lear, but in uncle vanya, and a tiny role in others, like iris murdoch plays, what is this interesting paradox that you're upfront and at the back? if you're in the company of actors doing a different play every month or so, you do not want to play the main part every time, and sometimes the leading part is not appropriate for you to play, it is for someone else. that is built into how i think companies work and if everyone can be the same... i want to ask about the x—men, there is this fascinating thing about magneto, the character you play in x—men alongside professor x played by your great friend patrick stewart... stay where you are and put your hands over your head.

they have a different approach to civil rights movements. one of them is magneto who says we have to be aggressive and push the boundaries and be prepared to take people on, a bit like malcolm x. and the other is professor x, much more, perhaps, let us assimilate and work with people and come together. when you came out as gay, when you are knighted, there was a push back against you by the likes of derekjarman who said you had sold out byjoining the establishment. as you reflect on it now, do you feel you have decided, which is a better way to approach this, is it magneto or professor x and which are you? i'm on the side of professor x, they were deliberately designed to make people consider the two points of view when it came to changing society. yes, well, my dad was a pacifist. i'm not going out with a gun or a stick or a stone. there was violence against gay

people, who had been killed and still are on dreadful occasions, being killed for what they are. but that didn't come from us. stonewall was set up, co—founded by you to fight prejudice and bigotry, and today gay marriage is legal in this country — do you feel that the majority of what you set out to do you have done, which is a remarkable thing? it seems to have been totally successful. i'm not the only one who thinks that the laws in this country are superior to anywhere else in the world, there's nothing now in the law that needs hold back a young, gay man or woman. if they said come back as gandalf, would you do it if amazon did, or the bbc? i have been waiting for the call and it has not come.

there are going to be new stories from tolkien, on television, but i gather gandalf will not be a part of them. that's a shame. if he is... are you available? if there is one part that you cannot be too old for! i think he's 7000 years old! that was 20 years ago, you know. what i want to do now, professionally, is treat every job as if it is the last that i will ever do. you told me when i interviewed you for lear that you would never play shakespeare again! it is still there, rather embarrassingly, you played hamlet since. let me ask you one last philosophical question, helen mirren playing golda meir, there has been this interesting discussion about whether a jewish actor

should play a jewish icon, you played magneto, he isjewish and you are not ofjewish heritage, what do you think of that idea that you should havejewish people playing jewish characters, or indeed whether you need gay people to play gay characters? there are two things, isn't it? is the argument that a gentile cannot play a jew and is the argument therefore that a jew cannot play gentile? is there an argument that a straight man cannot play a gay part and if so, does that mean i cannot play straight parts, and i am not allowed to explore the fascinating subject of heterosexuality in macbeth? surely not. we are acting, we are pretending. are we capable of understanding what it is to bejewish? are we going to convince

ajewish audience that we are jewish? well, perhaps we don't need to, because we are just acting. let me ask you some quickfire question, what technology is indispensable? the gas stove. what social media platform do you favour? i don't know what that means. favourite sportsperson? rough. dickens or shakespeare? what do you mean? if you had to choose? choose the literature of one over the other, who would you prefer? that is not a sensible question. i agree. most people give bad answers. rowling or tolkien? tolkien, with gratitude. how much tea and coffee to drink? i have not drunk tea ever in my life really, coffee

i stopped drinking 13 months ago, along with alcohol. do you eat meat? no, apart from bacon, pork pies and sausages. on occasion. would you like to go into space? no, i have been into space in my imagination. when did you last cry? probably when i was rehearsing or in a performance. i can get myself into it, i could do it now. it wouldn't be a big feature of my ordinary life. for almost 70 years, ian mckellen has delivered era defining performances across the globe and it strikes me he is far from finished. but as he looks back on his game changing life and times, i have one last thing to ask him. final question. what advice would you give to that young boy in the north west of england fascinated by theatre and wondering where

he fits in the world? make sure you enjoy yourself, and that does not mean you don't have to work hard or do things you do not like in order to get better, but find your enjoyment in working hard and make sure before you go on stage that you do up your flies. ian mckellen, sir ian mckellen... i am not to say sir, thank you so much for your time. thank you so much. i really appreciate it.

hello. i think skies like this on thursday — large cumulus clouds — and over the high ground, certainly the possibility of some wintry showers. but wherever you are on thursday, there's a chance of catching a little rain, but there'll be lengthy sunny spells, too, so it's not all bad. but the weather is unsettled, and you can see low pressures there moving off the atlantic in our direction. one such area of low pressure currently crossing the uk, giving a spell of some very windy weather from northern ireland through the irish sea, but particularly windy around the lancashire coastline around merseyside. northern parts of wales, gusts of wind here approaching 60 mph for a time during the early morning, and also across the highlands of scotland, the cold northerly wind bringing a covering of snow across the hills there. now the temperatures early on thursday morning, three celsius in aberdeen, eight celsius in london. and then this is the picture

through the day — the low pressure is out in the north sea by this stage, but on the backside of it, the winds are coming in from the north. so it's a cold wind, a really gusty wind, it really will feel very chilly. these are the gusts of wind approaching, 40—50 mph in places. so with temperatures of only around seven celsius, only seven there in newcastle. and again, i said those showers could be wintry across the high ground. further south, i think the sunny spells will be most prolonged, so actually feeling pretty decent in the southwest. this is the following night, so thursday night into friday, the possibility of rain grazing the south of the country. here, temperatures will be four celsius, but for the rest of us the following night, it will be quite frosty. so a chilly start to friday morning, the possibility of some rain along the southern counties, and also the possibility of further wintry showers across scotland, mostly across the hills there.

but i think, again, lots of sunny spells on the way, and disappointing temperatures between 8—12 celsius so below the average for the time of the year. here's the outlook, then, as we head over the next few days and into the weekend — it will calm down, i think saturday is actually not a bad day for most of us. sunday will become more unsettled once again. that's it from me, bye—bye.

welcome to bbc news — i'm lucy grey. our top stories. the bbc finds evidence of russian troops using ukrainian civilians as human shields in villages just north of kyiv. and they put them in that school, and they held them as human shields. thousands remain trapped in the city of mariupol — as the ukrainian government urges people in the east to flee. another demonstrator is killed in peru — as protests over the rising cost of fuel and food continue. and — the shape of victory — ed sheeran wins after he was accused of ripping off another artist's song.