Programmes are HOW much?

Saturday 23 May 2015
 


The Audience take their seats

To Wembley Arena for the first  show of the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular UK Tour. Of course, when my husband booked the tickets, we had no idea that our local football team would be in the League Two playoff final the same afternoon. This made for an interesting journey in a train full of Wanderers fans in blue.  On arrival at Wembley, we went in search of a cup of tea, and soon cane across someone wearing a fez - we had found 'our people' at last.
 
Once we arrived at the Arena, we  located our seats, and then husband went off in search of a programme - a large, glossy 32-page brochure, but hardly worth the £15 he told me he was charged for it. 
 
At the appointed hour, we heard the metallic tones of Nick 'Voice of the Daleks' Briggs ordering us to turn of mobile communications devices and not to use flash. "Get lost Nick, you bald git', I muttered under my breath  [I can't help it - Pavlovian response from 22 years ago] and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, aka 'the Doctor Who House Band' were off, with A Good Man?
 

The show was introduced by Peter Davison, who made a number of jokes about the unexploded World War II bomb which had been found the day before, leading to the evacuation of the building, and wreaking havoc with the set up. He also joked about Colin Baker being on stand-by to take over from him in the event of an emergency, and the Doctors being 'like a family - some more so than others.'
 
With ten years of Murray Gold's music to choose from, the programme naturally had to be selective, and the emphasis was on more recent music, predominantly from the Twelfth Doctor's first season (series 8). However, there were also some favourites from previous series, including Song of Freedom and the themes from the first four companions of the new era: Rose, Martha, Donna and Amy. And then the Daleks took over, forcing conductor Ben Foster to play their quasi-Wagnerian operatic chorus. The first half of the show concluded with the music from the 2014 Christmas Special.
 

After the interval, Cybermen roamed the stalls for All the Strange, Strange Creatures. I was slightly disappointed that there weren't more monsters in the auditorium, as there had been at the Prom - though there were some Ood, the Teller and The Foretold on the stage at various points. The second half continued the companions theme with The Impossible Girl and then 66 Seconds from Mummy on the Orient Express. These were followed by The Pandorica Suite, which was a nice chance to see some of Rory on the big screen,  and then Abigail's Song, sung by soloist Ellin Manahan Thomas before we got to the fiftieth anniversary This is Gallifrey, another favourite of mine.  Death in Heaven Suite brought us back up to date before the show rounded off with the best and most famous theme tune in the world.

All in all a very enjoyable afternoon.  But £15 for a programme?

 
 

Happy Birthday, Doctor!

Today is the 51st anniversary of Doctor Who.

A year ago, I was at the ExCel Centre for the Fiftieth celebrations.

Not surprisingly, for an event with several thousand attendees, a certain amount of queuing was involved. Initially, we joined the other ‘Weeping Angels’ in a holding area. After a while we were allowed to proceed to the registration hall. En route we passed a number of cafés, but decided not to stop for breakfast until after we had registered. This proved to be something of a mistake, as although registration was swift – our tickets were scanned and we were handed our badges and lanyards, we were then held in a huge queue in the hall for half an hour.

 Once we got moving again we grabbed a drink and a pastry and made our way to the ‘Classic Lounge’ for a panel with Frazer Hines and Debbie Watling. The Classic Lounge area was at some distance from the main hall and exhibition area and felt like an old-style convention. Frazer and Debbie were good value, as ever. The recent recovery of tapes of Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear provided a talking point. Debbie Watling revealed her nervousness about the helicopter scene in Enemy of the World. She got Frazer to promise he would let her sit in the middle, but on the take he outran her, leaving her with the precarious outside seat. It was so cold on the location for the supposed Australian beach that Frazer’s knees turned blue. His then girlfriend, Susan George, who was visiting, had to massage them back to life (or at least that was his excuse).

Our next event was a Panel in the main auditorium. After queuing for a while, we finally took our seats for what proved to be a Panel with the surviving Doctors from the ‘classic’ series: Messrs Baker, Tom; Davison; Baker, Colin; McCoy and McGann. This Panel was hosted by Nicholas (‘Get lost Nick, you Bald Git’ – you see, I can’t stop myself) Briggs. There was also a sign language interpreter on stage, and the Doctors, having discovered the previous day that the sign for ‘Nicola Bryant’s cleavage’ (Peter Davison’s last sight before regeneration) was rather entertaining, took mischievous delight in mentioning it as often as possible. Unfortunately, this Panel, which had started late, ended at the scheduled time, leaving us feeling slightly short changed.

We remained in our seats for another Panel, this time with the current team: producer Marcus Wilson, Steven Moffat, Jenna Coleman and Matt Smith. Steven Moffat once again exhibited his talent for giving nothing whatsoever away, though he did joke about Matt leaving ‘to pursue a career in musical theatre.’ (Matt appeared in ‘American Psycho’ the musical.)

After a quick lunch (the organisers had made sure there were plenty of catering outlets, with one hall devoted to food stalls supplementing the ExCeL’s in-house facilities), we ventured into the main exhibition area. (We had avoided the area earlier, as Graham Norton was doing a live broadcast of his Saturday morning Radio Two Show. That man’s ability to gatecrash Doctor Who is remarkable.) Once inside the exhibition hall we found a costume and prop exhibition, which included both classic and new series, as well as The Sarah Jane Adventures and An Adventure in Time and Space. There was also an opportunity to play with a ring modulator in order to talk like a Dalek. My companion took the opportunity to recite a risqué limerick. There were also demonstrations of make-up and workshops on how to walk like a monster, as well as some smaller panels. I caught the end of one panel with Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton. The merchandising area offered anything you could possibly want, from books, audios and DVDs, to expensive limited edition sonic screwdriver sets and replica Doctor coats. 

Our next event was another Classic Lounge panel, this time with William Russell and Carole Ann Ford. This was interesting, but slightly marred by a problem with William Russell’s microphone. After that, there was a special effects demonstration with Danny Hargreaves in the main auditorium. However, as we had already seen a similar demonstration in Cardiff, I was persuaded instead to go to a screening of the final episode of The Three Doctors, with live commentary by Terrance Dicks. This was very entertaining, although the reminiscences in the commentary bore little relation to what was actually on the screen. After a final look round the exhibition, we left the event. It had been fascinating, though not quite as enjoyable as the previous year’s Cardiff event, which had had the added attraction of taking place in a Doctor Who location – the Millennium Centre - and had also provided the once in a lifetime opportunity to visit the TARDIS set at the Upper Boat studio and play with the console.

In the evening we returned to the ExCeL Centre for a live screening of Day of the Doctor. This naturally enough involved another long queue. In front of us in the queue was someone dressed as a Time Lord, and I was a bit worried that we would end up sitting behind him, but in the event we had a good view. The screening was introduced by a short panel, which included Dalek operators Barnaby Edwards and Nicholas Pegg. Most of the other ‘celebrity’ guests had decamped to the BFI -we had earlier passed Colin Baker on an escalator as he was leaving the event to go to the screening there. Nevertheless, The Day of the Doctor was the highlight of the day – a truly wonderful episode.

Queuing for the 'Day of the Doctor' screening

See you at the Sixtieth Anniversary!

I set foot in the TARDIS

2012
 

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 50^th anniversary next year. Perhaps with some previous Doctors in attendance as well…

I go to my first Convention

The Thirtieth Anniversary convention, Panopticon 93, was the very first Doctor Who convention I attended, just two years after marrying into fandom.  I really was not sure what to expect, but took along some jelly babies for emergencies.  It was held at a hotel in Hammersmith, which charged what I thought was an extortionate amount for a pot of tea. 

This was during the time when Doctor Who was off the air and unfashionable.  The convention was run by fans, for fans, most of whom were male. The event was hosted by Nicholas Briggs, now known as the voice of the Daleks, who encouraged the audience to shout ‘Get lost Nick, you bald git’ every time he appeared. (This has proved a hard habit to break.)  The highlight of that event was an appearance from Tom Baker – the first time I had seen him live in his full and entirely bonkers glory. 

One of the fascinations of the event was the dealers' room. In those days Daleks and Sonic Screwdrivers weren't available at all good retailers.  If you wanted merchandise, you got it at a convention, or by mail order. (For younger readers, 'mail order' involved sending off a thing called a cheque in the post, and waiting 28 days for delivery.]  We were particularly struck by one piece of merchandise: a cabinet for storing your Doctor Who VHS cassettes, that looked like a TARDIS.  It was quite expensive for us, but we needed somewhere to keep all those tapes, so it would earn its keep.