Shirt...

...Blakiston Seven

Introduction

It was time for 2023’s London Film and Comic Con - Spring (LFCC-S). Dufus was away celebrating his girlfriend’s birthday, so it was only Shirt that made plans to attend. Announced on the Saturday were multi-Sherlockian guest star, Charles Edwards; ‘Elementary’ Moran, Vinnie Jones; and Thirteenth Doctor companion, Mandip Gill; with Sunday featuring King Yrcanos himself, Brian Blessed; Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker; and Granada guest star, Caroline Blakiston. Therefore, a weekend ticket was booked for both days. However, a couple of weeks before, Charles Edwards was a cancellation due to work commitments.

Saturday

Aware that he might need virtual queueing tickets, Shirt made his way to Olympia, arriving half an hour before the entrance opened. Having had his bag checked, his ticket scanned, and a weekend wristband put around his right wrist. The queue inside the first hall was three-four people wide and stretched back for a medium distance. However, at 9am, it began moving, and after around five minutes, Shirt was entering the main hall.

Referring to a map printed off at home, Shirt made his way straight across the hall to the signing areas, picking up virtual queue tickets for Mandip Gill, Sacha Dhawan and Vinnie Jones. The first person that he wanted, Christopher Fairbank, who as well as being in the Doctor Who story ‘Flatline’ and ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’, was also in the Sherlockian TV Movie ‘Hands of a Murderer’ in which Edward Woodward’s Holmes is set against Anthony Andrews’ Moriarty, had only a short queue, so Shirt joined it. After around ten minutes wait, Shirt was handing over a photo of Christopher in ‘HoaM’ that he had got printed. Christopher could not immediately recall the part until Shirt mentioned Edward Woodward.

Moving off, Vinnie Jones was not yet at his table, and so Shirt moved off to the Comic Artists section. First up was Lee Sullivan, who signed Shirt’s ‘A Cold Day in Hell’ graphic novel, which somehow had not already been signed by him on a previous meeting. Fellow comic book creator, Tony Lee, teased Lee about being the last signature, with Lee adding ‘The Last’ to his signature. Next up was JL Straw, met by Shirt at a previous event, from whom he purchased a signed A3 print of Sherlock Holmes from her 'The Young Sherlock Holmes Adventures'.

It was then time for a panel featuring Sylvester McCoy, in which Sylvester did his usual trick of coming into the audience to answer questions (and mention that he was in ‘The Hobbit’).

Back at the main signing area, Vinnie Jones was still seemingly delayed, but after a short wait Shirt managed to join the queue for Mandip Gill getting a photo of her as Yaz signed, after waiting for around five minutes whilst the attendee in front showed Mandip a photo of her wedding dress. Vinnie Jones had now arrived, but was seemingly signing with little chat, and given that a selfie would not be included in the £65 autograph cost, Shirt decided to forego him. However, he was just in time to join the queue for Sacha Dhawan, who he had previous met at a Sherlocked Convention in 2017, who signed a photo of himself as the Master, adding ‘THE MASTER’ after his name.

Having met everyone that he wanted, Shirt then began browsing the stalls, buying two Sixth Doctor themed prints from The Zero Room, and some postcards from Spirit Sinema.

It was lunchtime, and so Shirt left Olympia, and made his way to nearby Shepherd’s Bush for lunch, then made his way home slowly, via Notting Hill and Naughty Asteroid, ready for the next day’s escapades.

Sunday

Arriving later than planned due to there being no trains from his home station, Shirt was able to walk straight into the main hall. Checking the signing area, there was no sign of 1980s Davros, Terry Molloy, who Shirt had wanted to sign a poster for the ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’ stage tour in which he appeared as Watson to Colin Baker’s Holmes. Given this, Shirt decided to wait to another occasion to get Colin to sign it. The main person that he wanted, Caroline Blakiston, best known as Mon Mothma in ‘Return of the Jedi’, but who also appeared as a Dowager Duchess in the Granada dramatisation of ‘The Three Gables’, was away at a panel, with Dermot Crowley, her ‘RoJ’ co-star, so Shirt simply stood marvelling at the number of different photos that Julian Glover had on his table, covering ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Star Wars’, ‘Game of Thrones’, ‘Harry Potter’, ‘Indiana Jones’ and ‘James Bond’.

After around ten minutes, Caroline and Dermot returned, and Shirt joined what seemed to be a short queue. However, when he was one person away from the table, the attendee in front of him, produced eleven large photos along with the four he picked up from the table. As Shirt rolled his eyes, he saw Sylvester McCoy pushing into the queue at the next table to say ‘Hi’ to his friend, Dermot. Eventually, Caroline finished signing all the photos, but needed a break to rest her signing hand, and have a sip of her coffee.

‘Please don’t tell me that you’ve got twenty photos for me to sign’, she asked as she beckoned Shirt forward.

‘Just the one’, said Shirt cheerily, placing down a photo of Caroline as the Dowager Duchess. This proved to be a difficult photo to sign without obscuring Caroline’s face, but they came up with a way together.

Thanking Caroline, Shirt walked off to look at the stalls again, as the hall was much less busy than the previous day, purchasing a ‘Fantasy Factory’ badge from Spirit Sinema.

It was then time to make his way to Photo Area A to get a paid for photoshoot with Colin Baker (Shirt’s seventh guest of the weekend). Unfortunately, on approach (and quite a way away) it was clear that the previous photoshoot was overrunning with the dulcet tones of Brian Blessed emanating from inside, when he should have been back at his table signing by now. They were just finishing Brian’s solo shoot, and then undertaking a duo shoot with Sam Jones (Flash Gordon himself), and a few solo shots with Sam. After about ten minutes, Shirt was called forward to form a queue for Colin, and on having his ticket scanned, entered the photoshoot area to find Colin and Sam deep in conversation. Having been broken up, Colin moved into the main photo area, and after around ten others, it was Shirt’s turn. Colin welcomed Shirt as a friend, pulling him in for a hug. The photo was taken, and two minutes later it was spat out of the printer and given to Shirt, who made his way back into the main hall.

Shirt decided that it was time to make his way home, again via Shepherd’s Bush for lunch, after what had been an exhausting, but fun, weekend.

[PL]