Shirt...

...Day Four (in the Large Endings’ Hoose).

After Large Endings’ Day 1, 2 & 3, the obvious next step was ‘Large Endings Day 4’. However, there was to be a change of venue, Seventh Galaxy Events were moving it from the school frequented on the previous three occasions, to a hotel in Slough (Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough! It isn't fit for humans now). However, the announcements of LE Doctor Watson, Richard Earl; Tracey Childs; Jake McGann; and the whole of the ‘Counter Measures’ team; meant that Shirt decided to make the trip.

Proving that he does not learn from his mistakes, Shirt had fallen over on an icy patch leaving work a few days before the event, aggravating his elbow injury from two years (almost to the day) before. Therefore it was a painkiller-filled Shirt who made his way to London Paddington, with slightly less items for signature than he had originally intended.

Catching a train, Shirt relaxed for the half-hour journey to Slough. On arrival, he made his way to the taxi-rank, and joined a small throng also on their way to the convention. The taxis were like small minibuses, and so a group of four having got into the first, three people were left in the queue. Shirt was slightly excited to see that at the head of the queue was Lizzie Hopley (brief audio companion to the Eighth Doctor, and multiple LE guest-star).

She made to get into the taxi, but the driver encouraged Shirt and the other woman waiting to get in also, as they were all going to the same place. Lizzie seemed unable to argue with this, and so all boarded, the taxi trundled off on its ten minute journey.

Shirt was sitting directly opposite Lizzie, and spent the journey trying not to stare at her, instead looking out at the ‘sights’ of Slough, whilst surreptitiously texting Chalky – ‘Guess which LE companion I’m in a taxi with’.

On arrival, the fare was split three ways, meaning that each of them ended up paying only £2.

Entering the hotel, Shirt queued up to register, getting his registration pack with wristband and convention programme. Moving to a nearby table, he bought autograph vouchers for Ms. Hopley and Jake McGann. Having wandered around and worked out where most things were happening, Shirt took a brief look at the Large Endings stalls. This completed, he engaged in a drawn-out text exchange with Chalky, in which he finally guessed Lizzie Hopley, from Shirt’s cryptic clues, moaning ‘I was never going to guess that in a million years’.

Entering the panel room, Shirt took a seat towards the back. On stage was Nicholas Briggs, trying to fill in, as Paul and Jake McGann (the participants in the first panel) had not arrived yet. Having demonstrated what a diplomat he would have made when asked about how Tom and Lalla agreed to work together, and answered lots of questions along the lines of “Can we have another series of (‘Dalek Empire’/’Cyberman’/’Gallifrey’, etc) ?”. The answers were mainly “We have no plans at present”, often followed by “The ranges without the Doctor in, don’t sell as well”.

Finally fifteen minutes late, Paul and Jake McGann stumbled into the panel room, their sat-nav having directed them into a field. Sitting down, Paul spoke at length about “Night of the Doctor” – how he had asked Nick Briggs’ opinion on whether he should do it; how he had decided to keep it from the other Doctors (even when filming ‘The Fiveish Doctors (Reboot)’), particularly given their reaction to being told by Tom that he was in the anniversary episode; and his pleasure that his LE companions got a name-check. He also let Nick Briggs read out the texts from Steven Moffatt asking if he would be interested in reprising the part and one received on his birthday stating that the minisode was having to be released earlier than intended to stop it being leaked. He also described feeling a ‘fraud’ as the Doctor, having only filmed for less than a month in the role (even including the one day on ‘NOTD’). The session then opened up, with Paul and Jake speaking enthusiastically about working with Carole Ann Ford and Sheridan Smith, and Jake speaking about his future acting plans.

Session completed, and Shirt made his way to the main Large Endings signing area just outside the panel room, and joined a queue for regular LE guest star, Steven Wickham. Steven it seemed was not being paid for his attendance, and so was charging £10 per person for as many items as the person wanted. This was almost whispered to each person when they reached the front of his queue. The queue moved slowly, mainly due to a ‘Joseph’ fan from Russia. Eventually, Shirt was getting a variety of covers, from ‘Bernice Summerfield’, the ‘Doctor Who’ main range, ‘Seven Keys to Doomsday’ and two DVD covers – “The Twin Dilemma” (in which he’s a Gastropod) and “Red Dwarf VI” (in which he’s Lister’s Gelf Bride).

Just as he was finishing with Steven, Richard Earl came and sat next to Steven. However, he had not been provided with any pens for signing, so Shirt agreed to come back later.

Next up was Julian Wadham (LE’s ‘Steed’ in ‘The Avengers’), at the other end of the room. Getting Julian on two CD sleeves, ‘The Fourth Wall’ and a ‘Blake’s 7: The Early Years’ CD already signed by Jan Chappell, Shirt also managed to get him to sign an ‘Avengers’ publicity photo. Julian’s co-star, Anthony Howell, had not arrived yet, and so Shirt returned to Richard Earl.

Richard seemed pleased at the wodge of ‘Sherlock Holmes’ covers produced by Shirt, signing his way through them, including the new ‘The Ordeals of Sherlock Holmes’ boxset.

Returning to the other end of the room, the ‘Counter Measures’ team had arrived, and so Shirt joined queues for Karen Gledhill, Pamela Salem, Hugh Ross and Simon Williams in turn, getting his ‘1963: The Assassination Games’ CD cover signed by them all, his ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ DVD cover by Karen and Pamela, and his ‘Robots of Death’ DVD cover by Pamela. The fan in front of Shirt for Pamela was unsure whether she had been in ‘The Face of Evil’, and when Shirt was unsure had to ask Pamela herself (she’s a voice – apparently). Whilst getting his ‘Guardians of Prophecy’ sleeve signed by Simon Williams, Shirt hoped that Simon would not ask about his Welsh accent in the story, ‘cutting him off at the pass’ by instead asking him about his appearance on ‘Pointless Celebrities’ with Colin Baker.

Moving a little to the left, Shirt joined a queue for Tracey Childs, getting her to sign all of the new Klein trilogy, as well as ‘The Adventure of the Perfidious Mariner’ and ‘The Ordeals of Sherlock Holmes’ boxset. She spoke enthusiastically about working with Sylvester McCoy in the main range and with Nick and Richard in ‘Sherlock Holmes’.

Returning to the hotel lobby, Shirt found where the sponsored guests were signing. First up was Jake McGann, who Shirt decided to get in his ‘Companions’ book. He then had to wait while Lizzie Hopley had her photo taken with three UNIT troops, the delay being due to the event photographer being even more of a perfectionist than Zygon Curry usually is.

Lizzie finally retook her seat, and Shirt placed his ‘Companions’ book in front of her.

“Hello again”, he said.

Lizzie’s blank look indicated that she had completely forgotten her ten minutes trapped in a minibus-taxi with Shirt.

“Can you sign it to Shirt ?”, he asked, adding “If you can find a space”.

Book signed, and Shirt was making his way into the restaurant where Paul McGann was signing, for a surprisingly short queue. However, not having bought an autograph for Paul, Shirt by-passed this, instead moving to a second group of sponsored guests, handing over payment before getting Jamie Glover to sign his ‘An Adventure in Space and Time’ DVD sleeve (in which he plays ‘William Russell’).

Moving to the hotel bar area, Shirt took the opportunity to sort out his covers. Returning to the signing area, he made his first purchases of the day – ‘Lurkers at Sunlight’s Edge’, ‘The Doomsday Quatrain’, 'Protect and Survive’, and ‘Black and White’ (to fill in his Seventh Doctor gaps). He then moved to John Banks, getting ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and main range covers signed (including some of his newly gained CDs).

Pushing a door labelled ‘Large Endings Guests’, Shirt wandered down a corridor to a room containing Large Endings writers. The room was only half-full, but Shirt got Andrew Smith to sign ‘Vengeance of the Stones’ (Andrew revealing that he took the photograph of the Stones on the cover) and Jonathan Barnes to sign ‘The Ordeals of Sherlock Holmes’ and 'Persuasion'. Shirt then had a short chat with Jonathan about writing new SH stories.

Returning to the signing area, Shirt phoned Chalky to see if there were any offers he wanted to take advantage of. It was agreed that Chalky would phone back when he had looked on his shelf. It was lunchtime, and so Shirt left the hotel, and wandered off in the direction of the town centre, coming across a small supermarket about five minutes walk away, where he bought lunch, which he ate as he slowly walked back to the hotel.

Back in the signing area, Anthony Howell, was now sitting next to Julian Wadham, who was looking slightly put out that everyone had already got his autograph. Shirt therefore got his ‘The First Sontarans’ and ‘The Lady of Mercia’ covers signed by Anthony, before walking to the writers area again. Marc Platt was now there, and signed a large number of Shirt’s covers, before Shirt joined a queue for Paul Cornell who signed Shirt’s ‘100’ (apologising for his story) and his ‘Scream of the Shalka’ DVD cover. Shirt had been looking everywhere for Paul’s IDW comic-book special, ‘The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who’ without success.

Lunchtime was over, and so Shirt settled in for the first panel of the afternoon – ‘Sherlock Holmes’, with Nicholas Briggs, Richard Earl, Ken Bentley and Jonathan Barnes. They all spoke enthusiastically about working together, with Ken speaking at length about the first time that he directed Nick as Holmes, in the stage-play ‘The Stonor Case’ (ACD’s dramatisation of ‘The Speckled Band’), when Nick had lost his temper and stormed out of rehearsals due to the ineptitude of a fellow actor. Jonathan spoke in more detail about how he goes about writing Doylean narratives, and it was confirmed that the next releases will be six downloads of canonical stories.

Panel completed, and Shirt took the opportunity to meet Lisa Bowerman, who was just finishing a large slice of chocolate cake. Lisa greeted him like an old friend, before admitting to the fan in front of Shirt that she had forgotten his name. Other man having moved off, Lisa looked at Shirt intently:

“Shirt ?”, she slowly offered, being very pleased to be told that she was right.

A stack of Benny covers signed, and Shirt moved back into the panel room in time for a panel with LE sound designers, including David Darlington, Martin Montague and Steve Foxon.

Moving back to the signing area, Shirt purchased four ‘Companion Chronicles’ for Chalky that had been requested by text. Matt Fitton helped Shirt by producing some of the requested CDs from boxes, and seemed a little put-out when Shirt only purchased some of them. To add insult to injury, Shirt then got him to sign several CD covers. Due to Matt not having a pen for signing, Shirt had to get him to sign with a silver Sharpie that he had with him, but which was running out.

A quick pop into the writers room, and Shirt got one of the CDs signed by Peter Anghelides (the writer) before confusing Lisa Bowerman (the director) who had finally remembered Shirt’s name by asking her to sign the same CD ‘To Chalky’.

“Where’s he then ?”, she asked.

Shirt muttered something about having children to care for.

On stage, a ‘Counter Measures’ panel was in full-swing, but instead Shirt followed two fans who were going off in search of Nicholas Briggs’ autograph. Waiting outside the green-room, the fans managed to find a steward that they knew who took in their covers and Shirt’s ‘The Ordeals of Sherlock Holmes’ for reluctant signatures.

The final panel of the day was entitled “Acting for Audio”, and featured Tracey Childs, Lisa Bowerman, Steven Wickham, John Banks, Tom Chadbon & Simon ‘Dorium‘ Fisher Becker. Due to the large number of people, Nicholas Briggs only managed to get through a few questions. The lunch got a mention, as did the booths, the standard of the scripts and the efforts of all concerned to be asked to play another (or the same) part in the future. Simon also made a self-deprecating joke about himself and Steven being on the same side of the stage. Tom Chadbon also revealed that the complex nature of the copyright on “City of Death” means that we are unlikely to see Duggan in an LE audio.

Following a quick ‘goodbye’ from Nick Briggs, Shirt made his way out of the hotel. Due to the large number of people waiting for taxis, Shirt decided to walk the 25 minutes back to the station.

Doing so with a minimum of wrong turns, Shirt bought some food from a nearby Tesco, and settled back on the train back to Paddington, musing on a very enjoyable, if tiring day.

[PL]