Rebecca Moore wonders why we get so excited about meeting famous people

Last week, actor Ian McKellen visited Oxford and gave a talk at the Oxford Union. You won’t have missed this if you were within shouting radius of Cornmarket last Tuesday: the queue of excited students snaked around the block.

That evening, the outside temperature was so cold I needed four layers to bike home and I passed all of them shivering and chatting.

People – including friends of mine – queued for up to four hours to see McKellen.

Of course, they didn’t just want to see him, they wanted to hear him talk.

I imagine many of them especially wanted to hear him utter his famous ‘you shall not pass’ which he apparently did to great applause.

But – really – what most of them wanted, what most of us ever want when we long to meet our favourite celebrities – is to simply be in their presence. To say, I WAS THERE.

I saw the whites of his eyes, I shared air with them.

We were so close we’re now practically related. I shook my head at them, not quite understanding what on earth they were doing wasting hours of their lives to wait in the cold in order to hear some actor wax lyrical about himself and his views on life.

Of course, I was being grumpy about it. Ian McKellen isn’t just ‘some actor’, he is a supremely talented guy, who manages to moonlight as Gandalf and who has very interesting things to comment on gay rights.

Attendees came away having had a very engaging hour.

But still, four hours of queuing to see one hour of actor? Are we a world so obsessed with celebs that we are prepared to queue in the cold just to share oxygen with the revered few?

I’m a terrible queuer.

I just don’t do it. As I was debating who or what I would queue for four hours for, I couldn’t think of anything or anyone. Except maybe – maybe – my dead father. For him I may make an exception.

I met quite a few very famous people in my time – and shared meals with some, been backstage with others – and it never fails to surprise me when I find myself recounting these tales to friends as though these facts somehow make me a better person.

Well, maybe not a better person. But less of a lesser person, perhaps?

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