Dufus & Shirt...

...Are Taken Away.

For the second weekend running, Shirt was travelling up to Dufus’ to attend an event. This time however due to the event, Vworp 2, not being until the Sunday, he travelled up on the Saturday. Having been picked up by Dufus at the station, they briefly stopped at Dufus’ to drop off Shirt’s luggage, before leaving for a trip to visit Series 11 filming locations in Sheffield. However, they only got as far as the local corner shop where they had stopped to buy drinks, as Dufus’ girlfriend had texted photos of DW books that she had found at a local fayre, which neither Dufus nor Shirt could remember whether Dufus still owned. A return to Dufus’ home, revealed that they were some of the few books that he had not sold, and so they made a second (more successful) attempt to reach Sheffield.

The afternoon was spent in visiting locations using Shirt’s carefully prepared document, with the Water Tower from ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’ (TWWFTE), and the road where Yaz dealt with a road-rage incident [TWWFTE] being the first two stops. Making their way into central Sheffield and parking in a multi-storey car park, they crossed the road to ‘Stand C’ at Sheffield Transport Interchange where Graham chats to other bus drivers [TWWFTE], before crossing the Park Square Bridge [‘Arachnids in the UK’] to reach the Park Hill flats where Yaz and the Khan family live [AITU, ‘Demons of the Punjab’]. The need to be let into the block meant that they could not actually get to the walkway outside the two flats that appear in the episode.

Returning to the car (and paying an extortionate parking charge), they initially attempted to drive down the road indicated by Dufus’ sat-nav, before realising that it was for buses and taxis only, and drove to Grace’s home [TWWFTE, AITU, ‘Resolution’], which proved to have been within walking distance of the flats. A lack of parking places meant that they parked where they could, jumping out to take a few quick photos before driving off again. Their final stop was the former site of the Sheffield practice that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle briefly worked at in 1878. It was decided not to go on to the final stop, the building site from TWWFTE, as it was on the other side of the city.

On their way back to Dufus’, they made a detour to Mansfield M&B Giveaways, looking for the Large Endings’ Seventh Doctor figure sets. Having no luck, they did Dufus’ weekly shop, then returned to Dufus’ home to again watch ‘Britain’s Got Talent – The Champions’ whilst munching on pizza. As they would need to leave early the next morning, they retired relatively early.

Leaving just under half-an-hour later than intended, and having stopped for breakfast, they made good time as they powered past the Derbyshire reservoirs which had given their names to IT servers in Shirt’s time at Sheffield University, enjoying Shirt’s ‘Doctor Who’ playlist, eventually reaching Manchester where the event was taking place. Finding a car park that they had identified the previous day, they then made their way to the venue, Manchester Metropolitan University Student Union. There was already a lengthy queue, as the doors did not open for another twenty minutes. Dufus and Shirt joined this, and soon organisers came down the queue, handing out convention passes, lanyards, programmes of events and maps of the venue. Shirt could help but notice that they were doing so, without checking anyone’s tickets.

Eventually the queue began moving in, and having had their bags checked, they entered the Union. Dufus then joined another queue in the lobby to pick up his pre-ordered ‘Two Doctors’ pass which allowed him autographs and a photo with Sylvester McCoy and Large Endings’ Third Doctor, Tim Treloar. Shirt used this opportunity to avail himself of the facilities. Reunited they made their way upstairs to the signing room, where Dufus decided to get his Sylvester and Tim autographs, both on his ‘The Legacy of Time’, before the queues got too long. This achieved with limited trouble, he then queued for Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury. Shirt, meanwhile, was getting Mickey Lewis (NuWho Cyberman/Dalek etc) to sign his copy of ‘Combat Rock’, one of the two ‘Past Doctor Adventures’ that he had penned under the name Mick Lewis.

Seeing that there was no queue for Rob Shearman who had just sat down, Shirt got him to sign ‘Bernice Summerfield: Treasury’. There was then a discussion over the fact that Andrew Cartmel had insisted on reading his story in the collection, with Rob drawing a speech balloon from Lisa Bowerman’s mouth on the cover saying “Why is Andrew taking work from me ?” (but only after Shirt promised not to get the cover signed by Mr. Cartmel later).

Dufus having finished getting Wendy’s signature, Shirt encouraged him to get an autograph from Rob on his Series 1 boxset booklet (particularly as Rob didn’t seem to be taking payments).

A quick browse of the few stalls, and it was time for Dufus to have his photo with the two Doctors, in front of a TARDIS in the foyer. The number of passes had been limited and so although Dufus was not able to pick up the printed photograph until everyone had been done, there was not long to wait. The photo came in a black and gold mount similar to that for professional school photos.

They then made their way up to the Artists room where Dufus dithered over buying a canvas print. Dufus then went to look at the stalls at the back of the main hall, whilst Shirt checked in the autograph room, for Lisa Stokke, the mother from ‘It Takes You Away’, who was due to be making her convention debut. However, Lisa had not arrived yet, so Shirt rejoined Dufus.

Finding seats, they enjoyed a panel on ‘Series 1’, featuring Rob Shearman, Nicholas Briggs, and Martha Cope (Controller in ‘Bad Wolf’). Rechecking the autograph room, Lisa had just sat down, and signed Shirt’s Series 11 poster and Dufus’ Series 11 boxset. She seemed to be enjoying her first experience of DW fandom, but confided that she is used to such interest as she is the Norweigan voice of Elsa in ‘Frozen’. Dufus then got Samuel Oatley (‘Tim Shaw’) to sign his boxset also, and had a chat with Mark Strickson as he signed his DVD cover.

It was lunchtime, so the two went out in search of nourishment, having checked if announced guests Mina Anwar and Annette Badland had been cancellations. The staff member on the registration desk stated that she believed that they were both expected, but that she was not sure if Lisa Stokke would be coming.

“She’s upstairs signing”, Dufus told her, trying to be helpful.

Buying sandwiches at the second newsagents that they tried, they ate them leaning on nearby planters in the absence of benches. They then returned to the venue to find multiple benches down one side of the building.

The next panel was with representatives of the company responsible for the action figure line, who spoke about the process of sculpting figures, and displayed masters of figures not proceeded with, including a 12” Astrid Peth doll rejected for looking “too like Kylie Minogue” (!). They also revealed that the next set of M&B exclusives would be in January 2020, and that there is now a budget for new sculpts.

Moving to the main hall, having checked for Mina and Annette again, they were present for a panel with Mark Strickson, and then the charity auction in which everything save an exclusive pink ‘Happiness Patrol’ model TARDIS went for less than its RRP. (The TARDIS made several hundred pounds for a cancer charity). Next up was a panel with Geoffrey Beevers in which he plugged his books, then spoke about playing the Master on TV and audio. The final panel was about ‘The Wilderness Years’, in which the members of the ‘Review of Death’ You-Tube channel discussed being a fan between 1989 and 2005, despite only one of them being born in 1989 when the McCoy era ended.

The event had concluded, and so they made their way out, stopping to buy three limited edition prints (3 for the price of 2) - ‘The Caves of Androzani’ for Shirt and ‘The Night of the Doctor’ and ‘Team TARDIS’ for Dufus. Returning to the car, they paid for their day’s parking (less than half what they had paid for 45 minutes the day before), and Dufus drove to Manchester Piccadilly to drop off Shirt for his train home.

As they wended their respective ways home, both mused on another excellent event attended in the other’s company, whilst looking forward to the next such event a fortnight later.

[PL]