Dufus & Shirt...

...The Edge of Frustration.

Having spent the previous weekend, visiting Cardiff for the anti-penultimate weekend of the ‘Doctor Who Experience’ in the Bay, and failing to visit any Series 10 locations, Dufus and Shirt were to meet up for the second weekend running, this time to attend Whooverville 9 in Derby. (Shirt had attended Whooverville 4 alone).

Shirt therefore made his way up to Newark on the Friday, being met at the station by Dufus after work. After some detours to two bargain shops – both buying a WHO action figure set at the former (Doc4, Leela & K9 for Shirt, and a 60s and 80s Cyberman paired with a new series Sontaran for Dufus) and failing to find any Clara Oswald bobble-heads for 39p at the latter – they returned to Dufus’. The evening was spent in rounding up items for signature the next day, and in stuffing their faces at an all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant five minutes away. (The restaurant being called ‘Paddyfields’, Shirt had to bite his lip not to do a comedy routine from his ‘Aladdin’ pantomime script). Both having falling asleep at various points following their return, they finally turned in for the night. The plan was to leave by 8.30am the next morning.

Having eaten breakfast, they left only half-an-hour behind schedule, but Dufus insisted on ignoring his new car’s sat-nav believing that it would send them via Nottingham. They therefore arrived in central Derby at about 10.15am, and going up the wrong side road, parked in a pay-and-display car park that was cheaper than the multi-storey that they had been aiming for.

Shirt led the way to the venue, and having queued briefly for their tickets at the box office, they went up two floors to the main convention area. Popping into Cinema 2 where the first autographs were happening, they joined a short queue for the first three guests.

First up was 70s producer, Philip Hinchcliffe who signed DVD covers and Shirt’s ‘The Valley of Death’ CD cover. Sidestepping they reached Michael Pickwoad, who signed the friends’ ‘Festival’ Handbook in which he is interviewed (Dufus’ brainwave), as well as two posters (Series 8 for Shirt, and Series 10 for Dufus). The final guest was Toby Hadoke who commented on Shirt’s ‘Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical’ CD cover (‘I haven’t seen many of these?’), before signing ‘Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf’ and a Fourth Doctor Adventure for Dufus.

Before leaving, Shirt told Toby how much he had enjoyed a Radio 4 play that he had written.

“There’s another one on on Monday”, replied Toby.

Moving into the main stage area, The John Hurt Cinema which had been renamed ‘The War Doctor Cinema’ for one day, they were in time to catch the last two minutes of Nicola Bryant’s panel.

They then remained in their seats for an informative panel with Michael Pickwoad, who confirmed that he is no longer the Production Designer for WHO.

Returning to the autograph room, they joined a queue for the Series 10 guests – Adele Lynch (the Ice Warrior Empress) and Joseph Long (the Pope in ‘Extremis’). This involved them sitting at the back of the room in rows, with one row being called at a time. Shirt was concerned that they might stop signing before he had met them, but eventually they were called forward to form a short queue.

First up was Adele who signed their Series 10 posters, and photographs bought from Seventh Galaxy outside.

Next up was Joseph, who also signed the posters, along with Dufus’ ‘Series 10 – Part 2’ DVD. Shirt had no other items for him, having met Joseph on a previous occasion.

The final guest of the morning, was writer Phil Ford, who signed two posters for Shirt and some DVD covers for Dufus.

They then browsed the merchandise stalls, with Shirt buying three ‘Bernice Summerfield’ Boxsets (‘Road Trip’, ‘Legion’ & ‘New Frontiers’) for the bargain price of £15, and Dufus buying a War Doctor action figure for a less bargainous price. Shirt was annoyed to find not only David J. Howe on the Telos stall, but also his partner, Sam Stone.

“She’s written Sherlock Holmes stories in several collections I’ve got at home”, seethed Shirt, annoyed that he hadn’t thought to bring the appropriate collections with him.

It was decided to take their purchases back to Dufus’ car and get some lunch, with both managing to discard their poster tubes also. Lunch was in Metro Sandwich Bar, and on their return to the Main Stage, they heard the end of a panel with Christopher Benjamin, who was clearly missing his usual panel partner, Trevor Baxter, who had died a few weeks before.

It was at this point that Dufus and Shirt made a mistake, deciding to stay for Toby Hadoke’s panel, which although very entertaining, meant that they exited to a gigantic queue for original companions, Carole Ann Ford and William Russell.

They joined this queue, which moved slowly, meaning that they could quickly pop out of it as they passed the ‘Cygnus Alpha’ table where Daniel Hill and his wife, Olivia Bazalgette were signing. Daniel and Olivia had met on the ill-fated ‘Shada’ on which she was the Production Designer. One at a time, both got their ‘Shada’ DVD covers signed by the pair, before sneaking back into the queue.

On finally reaching the door to Cinema 2, it became clear that as well as the visible queue, there were four rows of sitting-down queuers in front of them.

They were finally ushered in to Row 3, but as time went on it became clear that they might not meet Carole Ann and William. The number of items that could be signed was reduced to one, and then dedications were banned, but the queue still moved slowly.

Dufus and Shirt had been ushered forward to join the main queue, but at around 3.10pm, the event organiser, Shader, appeared to state that everyone would need to be out of the cinema in 10 minutes as there was to be a screening of ‘The Emoji Movie’ in there.

The suggested plan was that after a short break, Carole Ann and William would move down to the signing room on the ground floor, and that those queuing should follow each other down there to form the same queue outside the new room.

The queue was broken a few places in front of our friends, so they ‘followed the leader’ downstairs.

However, no-one had told the stewards downstairs or those queuing outside the same room for Nicola Bryant and Frazer Hines. There was therefore a great deal of general confusion and raised voices, until finally it was decided to move the Nicola/Frazer queue into a nearby gallery space.

After about twenty minutes, the queue began to move again, and about ten minutes later, they were being ushered into the signing room, Shirt being directed to Carole Ann and Dufus to William.

Carole Ann happily signed Shirt’s ‘Hunters of Earth’ CD cover, whilst William signed a DVD cover for Dufus. They then swapped, and it was here that things went from bad to worse.

William stared at Shirt’s ‘The Five Companions’ cover for about a minute, then gestured to a space towards the bottom.

“Shall I sign here ?”, he asked.

Shirt nodded his assent, but William instead signed in large silver letters higher up than he had indicated, over the signature of Jean Marsh who had signed in black.

His steward mouthed “Sorry !” to Shirt who picked up the cover and exited the room. However, on checking, William had only signed over the ‘To Shirt’ of the autograph, leaving Jean’s signature intact.

Rejoined by Dufus they joined the queue in the half-lit gallery space which included exhibits around robotics, including a sort of Auton small boy whose heart lit up and babbled away as you passed. The queue stretched around almost all four walls, and neither were surprised on being told that Nicola had had to leave to catch a train. Therefore about half-an-hour later it was only Frazer who was still signing as they re-entered the signing room.

Four DVD covers signed for the pair, Dufus decided to also buy a copy of Frazer’s autobiography, ‘Hines Sight’.

Moving back upstairs, they managed to find seats in the Main Stage, having crept past the event cameraman, to catch the end of the first part of an Auction.

The last panel of the day was William and Carole Ann, with William going into hysterics on being asked what Bill Hartnell’s reaction would have been to a female Doctor.

Panel completed, the auction was concluded, and the final event of the day was the drawing of the raffle, which seemed to have almost unlimited prizes. The draw was being done by ‘The Ish Doctors', who had apparently been the cabaret at the previous evening’s ‘Whooverville Eve’. As they insisted on doing a different vocal impression for each ticket and spent a lot of time laughing at each other, progress was slow, until Shader told them to “just read the numbers out”. It looked like our friends were going to be unsuccessful, but the penultimate number was one of Dufus’, with him choosing a signed Sam Stone book over a fluffy Garfield notebook.

Following a brief closing ceremony, and the promise of Whooverville 10, the event came to a close, and everyone traipsed out of the venue.

Outside they passed William’s steward again, who came over to apologise again, grasping Shirt’s hand.

“I’ve had worse things happen”, Shirt assured her. (see C,D&S...Meet a Blue Peter Badge Winner & S...A Pig of a Problem)

Returning to Dufus’ car, this time they trusted the sat-nav, getting back in much quicker time. The evening was spent enjoying a supermarket pizza and the first episode of the new series of ‘The X Factor’.

Dufus dropped Shirt back at the station on Sunday lunchtime, with the next definite event being in a month’s time, and only a short distance from Shirt’s home. As he wended his way home, Shirt mused on a sometimes frustrating, but mainly enjoyable weekend.

[PL]