When we heard that the BBC were arranging an official
convention – in Cardiff- we knew we had to go. Remembering that Panopticon 2003
had been bit of a let-down, I deliberately set my expectations low and
booked into the posh hotel. My idea was that we would have a pleasant weekend
away even if the convention was a disappointment. I need not have worried.
Breakfast on the morning of Saturday 24 March was enlivened
by the sight of Nick ‘Voice of the Daleks’ Briggs in a claret velvet jacket,
selecting a banana from the buffet. Bananas
are good, as Steven Moffat’s scripts are wont to say. I first encountered Mr
Briggs at Panopticon 1993, when as host, he encouraged the audience to shout
‘Get lost Nick, you bald git!’ at him. The residual Pavlovian training was very
strong, but I just about managed not to shout it out at him in the hotel dining
room.
The Convention timetable had two tracks: Ood and Silurian,
with the same events running at different times for each group. As Silurians,
we had a slightly later start than the Ood.
We walked to the Millennium Centre and joined the massive queue outside
the ‘Silurian’ entrance. Convention crew
in yellow t-shirts patrolled the queue and scanned our tickets. We couldn’t help feeling that they should
have had Judoon to do this, but there was no sign (yet) of the Rhino police,
although there was a Silurian wandering around. It was a glorious day, and Murray Gold’s
soundtrack was playing, so the time passed quite pleasantly. Before long we
were inside, collecting our goody bags. As well as our passes, the bags contained
the programme, a DVD of Series 5 volume 1, and souvenir postcards. We were also
given a wrist band for the 9.30 a.m. Special Effects Studio session, so we
joined another queue for entry to this. But just as we reached the front of the
queue, they decided the room was at capacity, so we were turned away and given
tickets for the 2.00 p.m. show instead. In
fairness, this was the only organisational hiccup we experienced.
Foiled, we returned to the foyer to watch the prosthetics
demonstration by Millennium FX instead. I then made the serendipitous discovery
that it was possible to buy a coffee at the foyer café and drink it at a table
with excellent view of the demonstration. This is a luxury I had not experienced at any
previous Doctor Who convention,
catering not normally being a strong point of such events. This particular demonstration focused on the Scarecrows from Human Nature/Family of Blood. Monster
regular Ruari Mears demonstrated the Scarecrow walk both in and out of costume.
It looked incredibly camp without Scarecrow mask on. A member of the audience
was also given the opportunity of trying on a Scarecrow mask and walking with
the very restricted vision that entailed. Ruari also told some anecdotes about
what happens when a Cyberman sneezes inside his helmet (yuk – almost put me off
my coffee!), and how as an Ood in The
Satan Pit he missed the turning in the ducting and fell right out of the
rig.
After the demo it was time to joint another almighty queue
to get to Donald Gordon Theatre for our first panel of the day: Meet the Stars.
Signs on the way in forbade the use of
cameras, but the stewards said that it was OK to take pictures without flash. I
dutifully turned off my flash, though I noticed quite a view flashes going off
in the auditorium without anyone being exterminated or asked to leave. The interviewer was Jason Mohammed (a news and
sport presenter for BBC Wales, who played TV News Anchor in the 2007 Christmas
Special.) The panel guests were Arthur Darvill, Karen Gillan, Matt Smith,
Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner (the new-ish executive producer). I don’t
know whether the current TARDIS crew end Executive Producers have ever all
appeared on stage at a UK convention before – certainly not for a very long
time. The Panel highlights were probably
the questions from the audience. One little girl’s question to Matt Smith was
‘Would you like to come to the cinema with me tonight?’ He gracefully declined,
explaining that his family were visiting that weekend. Another fan, seated near
the front, somehow managed to get Matt to offer him a jammy dodger from the
plate on stage, and then went up on stage for a hug. At one point Matt suffered
a slip of the tongue and started talking about ‘Doctor Ho’ – which would be a
different show entirely. ( I expect to see a video of this on YouTube sometime
soon!) Someone asked Arthur Darvill what it was like being Rory in the street,
and he replied, reasonably enough, that he was Arthur when he was out in the
street. One member of the audience asked
Matt how the Doctor made a new sonic screwdriver and Matt came out with a
brilliant explanation in fluent technobabble, which shows that he probably
doesn’t need the scriptwriters at all. Steven Moffat was visibly impressed. A
Silurian and a Judoon joined the party on stage at one point, causing Karen to
jump.
We stayed in our seats for the next panel, which was
‘Creators and Directors’ hosted by Gary Russell. This was based on one particular episode, The Girl Who Waited. The guests included the writer Tom MacRae,
producer Marcus Wilson and the designer of the Handbots. They were later joined
on stage by a Handbot. This Panel revealed some of the trickery behind the
filming. You may recall a scene in which Rory walked through a door which
closed behind him, then he pressed another button and opened it again to reveal
a different room. This was achieved by
the low-tech method of lots of people just out of shot who ran over as soon as
the doors closed and moved things around, rather like the old lift joke from Candid Camera and Beadle’s About.
During the lunch break we went out to get some fresh air,
leaving the Millennium Centre for the delights of a sandwich at RTD’s favourite
coffee bar, Coffee Mania.
On our return we finally got to see the Special Effects
demo, hosted by Danny Hargreaves, the undoubted star of Doctor Who Confidential . He demonstrated the ‘air woofer’ which
can fire all sorts of fake debris. A
volunteer from the audience was entrusted with the job of firing a big gun at a
Cyberman, whilst another young volunteer pressed the red button that set off
charges on the Cybersuit just at the same time as the shot was fired, to make
it look as if the Cyberman had been hit. We also had a demonstration of fake
snow falling and X-Factor style smoke.
Danny demonstrated his scary- looking paintball gun that generated sparks on a
wall. He explained that this had been designed to look like a submachine gun
because it was ‘cool’. He mentioned that one of his favourite jobs had been
blowing up the military base on Torchwood:
Miracle Day. This had been shot on a real military base, and men with guns
had given him strict instructions not to blow anything up. As he explained, he
didn’t actually blow it up, he just set it on fire slightly and burnt it a
little bit. After the demo finished, the Cyberman posed for photos with fans,
while Danny was happy to provide individual career advice on how to get to blow
things up for a living.
We then had some time to visit the costume exhibition. This
was familiar from the Doctor Who
Experience at Earl’s Court, although with some more recent additions,
including the King and Queen from the 2011 Christmas Special. One of the peg
dolls from Night Terrors was actually
an actor in costume, who moved from time to time to freak visitors out.
We returned to the main auditorium for the final panel:
Doctor Who Uncut – hosted by Dalek
operator Barnaby Edwards. The guests included Steven Moffat, Caroline
Skinner, Production Designer Michael Pickwoad, Director of Photography Stephan
Pehrsson, Director Julian Simpson and Casting Director Andy Pryor. The
highlight of this session was the preview screening of the Series 7 (Fnarg+2?)
trailer. Steven Moffat spent most of the Q & A trying not to give away any
secrets in response to some carefully-loaded questions from the fans. One question he was able to answer was ‘will
there be a Sherlock / Doctor Who crossover?’ The answer was
no, because a)they would end up punching each other; and b) Sherlock would no longer work if the
rational certainties of Sherlock’s world were undermined by the Whoniverse.
That ended the formal business of the convention, and we
went off to dinner in Bellini’s (Margaret Slitheen’s favourite restaurant),
escaping before the hen parties got too rowdy.
The following morning we saw Ian McNeice (Winston Churchill)
and Mark Sheppard (Canton Delaware III) at breakfast. Ian McNeice appeared to
have come dressed as his character from Doc
Martin. As our set tour wasn’t until
late afternoon, we walked into the city centre to avoid getting caught up with the
Sport Relief Mile, which was taking place just outside the Millennium Centre. On
returning in the afternoon, we were in time to see a Black Dalek that had
completed the event proudly wearing his Sport Relief medal and shooting at
children in the crowd (with a water pistol in his sink plunger).
The final event of our Who weekend was the coach trip to see
the TARDIS set at the studios at Upper Boat. We were given either red or green
wristbands, as the tour would be in two groups. We arrived slightly early,
before the previous coachload were quite ready to leave, but we were allowed to
get off the coach, with the strict injunction not to ‘go wandering off’. Now,
where have I heard that before? As we had red wristbands, we were directed
first to the ‘Blue Box Café’. This could
be a reference to the TARDIS, but it is genuinely a blue box, well, a Portacabin.
Inside, they sold Starbucks coffee and had a screen showing A Good Man Goes to War. After about half an hour, it was our turn on
the set. What can I say? We were on the
real TARDIS set, and they let us touch it, and everything!
I had been expecting the convention to be very strict and
formal, rather like the last Panopticon
I attended (2003), with jobsworth stewards and injunctions not to touch the
replica TARDIS console. In fact, the stewards were very friendly and helpful,
and there was a very relaxed atmosphere.
We were allowed to play with the real TARDIS set, and no one minded when
bits fell off (a common occurrence during filming). The queues were long, but
moved swiftly, and even the sun shone for the whole weekend. The only quibble I would have is that the
guest actors were only available for photo/autograph opportunities, which I did
not bother with, and did not participate in the Panel sessions.
I hope that similar events are organised for the 50th
anniversary next year. Perhaps with some previous Doctors in attendance as
well…
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