Dufus & Shirt...

...The Chase is Afoot

Spirt Sinema had announced a return visit from Shirt’s favourite radio Holmes, Clive Merrison, so a ticket was swiftly booked by him, and Dufus wanted to accompany him, so another was also booked. In the time between booking the tickets and Dufus coming down, Shirt had also managed to arrange tickets for a recording of a celebrity edition of 'The Chase’, the ITV quiz show hosted by Thirteenth Doctor companion actor, Bradley Walsh (rather than the Hartnell Dalek story). Dufus came down late on the Friday evening, so after a little bit of telly, they both turned in for the night.

There was no particular rush the next morning, and so at about 11am, they drove down to the station, parking in the car park (Shirt making sure that he shut his door), and caught a train to Clapham Junction. Having taken some money out of the cashpoint, they made their way to the appropriate platforms, where initially no Chiswick trains were signposted. However, after a ten minute wait, the appropriate train rolled in, and another fifteen minutes later they were getting off the train. Walking to the church hall, they found that the queue had already been let in, and handing over their confirmation e-mail, were given their free gift – a choice of non-boxed ‘Cult Conversations’ DVDs. Both picked Katy Manning, the other options being Fenella Fielding and John Carson. Dufus then ummed-and-ahhed about exactly how many autographs he could afford, before finally selecting a sensible number. Moving over to the photos for purchase, Shirt was pleased to see several ‘Radio 4 Sherlock Holmes’ publicity images, including one from the last episode of the short-story seasons, ‘The Retired Colourman’, featuring Clive Merrison, Michael Williams and George Cole, that Shirt had never ever seen before. Shirt, however, selected one of Clive recreating a Paget illustration, as did Dufus.

Walking into the main hall, they found that some guests had started signing. First up was Mark Fletcher who played Vance, a crewman in ‘Earthshock’, who signed Shirt’s DVD sleeve. Next up was Steven Lathwell, who played a Cyberman in both ‘Dark Water/Death in Heaven’ and ‘World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls’, and a Dalek in ‘The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar’. Getting his signature on a ‘Death in Heaven’ Cyberman photo, Shirt moved on. Just arrived were Stephen Yardley and his wife, Jan Harvey. Therefore, Dufus and Shirt joined Stephen’s queue and soon Shirt was getting his ‘Vengeance on Varos’ DVD sleeve and Dufus his ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ DVD sleeve and a photo of Stephen in ‘Secret Army’ signed. Each then took a photo of the other with Stephen.

Jan had no ‘Doctor Who’ credits, but was doing a reasonable trade signing ‘Howards Way’ photos featuring her and Stephen.

There was then a brief break in proceedings as ‘The Enemy of the World’ guest star, Mary Peach, had not arrived. However, Dufus then decided to forego her, getting signatures from Avril Gaynor (Bandmember in ‘The Macra Terror’) and Mark Fletcher for the same price instead.

It was decided to go and get lunch from the nearby supermarket at this point, which they ate sitting on the wall outside the hall. Missing Episode hunter, Philip Morris, was due to be signing by this point, but had not arrived yet so they found chairs outside the hall to wait.

The afternoon session began, and the biggest queue was for Philip who had just arrived and whose autograph was included with entry. Our friends therefore joined the queue for Mr. Merrison, which seemed to be mainly made up of Sherlockians rather than Whovians (one for Zygon Curry, there). Just in front of the two friends was a woman in a wheelchair, who proceeded to get Clive to sign all the available publicity photos and one that she had brought with her. However, she had four items and only had autograph vouchers for two. Cue a slightly awkward few minutes as stewards attempted to get the required remuneration from her without being seen to be harassing the disabled.

Shirt was first up, getting his newly acquired publicity photo signed first, closely followed by his ‘Paradise Towers’ DVD sleeve and ‘The Contingency Club’ CD sleeve.

Whilst Clive was signing, Shirt was telling him how much he had enjoyed him in a play at the Jermyn Street Theatre the year before.

“There was that scene where I was supposed to be incontinent”, Clive reminded Shirt who had vowed not to bring this up, or ask how the effect was achieved.

Shirt posed for a photo with Clive, and then it was Dufus’ turn to get his photo and ‘Paradise Towers’ cover signed.

Next up was Alice Hewkin, who played Felicity in ‘Knock Knock’. However, it was an item being signed for someone a few people up the queue that made Shirt curse under his breath.

“Of course, she was Tealeaf in ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars’ ”, he told Dufus, before adding “the one with Jonathan Pryce and Bill Paterson”.

Shirt having not brought his BSI DVD with him, he had to make do with a publicity photo of Felicity (having left his poster tube at home, given their later studio visit), and a photo with her taken by Dufus, who then got his own photo signed.

Next was David Collings who signed Shirt’s ‘The Robots of Death’ DVD sleeve, then they moved to Alastair Cumming (Colin Frazer in ‘Arc of Infinity’), who signed Shirt’s DVD sleeve, before hugging him tight and flirting with him as Dufus attempted to take a photo of them. He then insisted that Dufus have a photo with him too, before signing Dufus’ DVD sleeve (that he was not originally intending to get signed) for half-price.

There was no sign of Keith Drinkel (Roger Scobie in ‘Time-Flight’), who was also in three Merrison radio episodes, so they finally joined the queue for Philip Morris, who was encouraging fans to ‘not lose hope’ over more missing episodes being recovered. The queue moved slowly, due to Philip chatting excitedly to each person, and encouraging them to have photos with the now empty cans that originally contained the recovered episodes. Dufus was first, getting his ‘The Enemy of the World’ DVD cover signed, before posing with the can for ‘The Web of Fear – Episode 4’, then Shirt getting his ‘The Web of Fear’ DVD cover signed, before posing with the same can.

Returning to the entrance, having finally decided to buy the Merrison/Williams/Cole photo, Shirt found that all the photos had been put away. Checks with the front desk then revealed that Keith had had an accident and would not be attending. Shirt therefore got a refund on his final autograph voucher, and they made their way back to the station, catching a train for London Waterloo.

Arriving at Waterloo, they made their way onto the South Bank and up to the ITV studios where the recording was going to take place. A medium length queue met them, and after waiting for about half an hour, they were both given attendee armbands, and slowly made their way through security, which was being run by a very forceful female operative (who would almost certainly have not let Shirt’s poster tube through). Queuing up by the handprints of Eammon Holmes, Davina McCall and Ant & Dec, it was clear that they were going to get in.

About forty minutes later the queue began moving into the studios, and they made their way up several flights of stairs. On entering the studio, they were initially offered two end seats behind one another and quite a way back.

“You can go further down the front”, said the steward, intending for them to find two seats together. Shirt, however, had seen two other seats further forward exactly in line with the Chaser’s chair, so took her up on this, plonking himself down in the front of the two seats which again were behind one another, with Dufus sitting in the rear seat. Managing to turn and chat until the warm-up man arrived, they had done well.

The recording finally started, with the celebrities revealed to be Giles Coren (Shirt looking all around the studio for his lovely sister), Rachel Johnson, Chris Packham and comedienne, Josie Long (who was eight months pregnant), and the Chaser was Paul Sinha. The pair are sworn to secrecy as to the result of what was a very closely fought contest, during which Bradley Walsh made a couple of references to his forthcoming ‘Doctor Who’ appearances.

However, just before ‘the final chase’, Bradley came to chat with a group in the audience whose brother he grew up with in Essex, who were further along Dufus’ row. This meant that for around five minutes, he was standing directly next to our friends, who had to use all their self-control not to thrust their ‘Doctor Who: Companions’ books under his nose for signature.

The recording completed, the friends made their way back to Waterloo Station, being in perfect time for a train back to Shirt’s home station. Having picked up Dufus’ car, they returned to Shirt’s via a local burger restaurant. It had been an excellent day !!

[PL]