Dufus & Shirt…

...Do Not Go To The Ball

Day Two (Sunday)

Rising at 7.30am, Dufus and Shirt saw to their ablutions, and then made their way down to the hotel restaurant where they had been told that breakfast was served. On their way in, they saw the Large Endings representatives, including the lovely Ms. Bowerman, sitting at a table in front of the restaurant’s largest window. Having been shown to a table and without seeing any other celebrity guests, they began filling up on the provided fare. Around the corner there was a slight flurry of excitement as some guests not attending the convention, spotted Derek ‘Charlie from Eastenders’ Martin. Having consumed cereal, a full English Breakfast and pastries, the two made their way back to their room, grabbing the bags containing their items for signing, before returning to the area where the event was taking place, where the panel room had just opened.

Having wondered at the few ‘Titanic’ decorations left from the previous evening, they sat down for a few minutes, before suddenly something flashed past them. This proved to Sylvester McCoy, who following knee surgery was on a mobility scooter. He whizzed down to the front where he undertook his own question-and-answer session with the audience, having no need for an interviewer. Dufus and Shirt, however, decided to beat the morning autograph queues. Arriving just as the rooms were opening, Dufus popped in to get Tony Lee’s autograph on a comic book that he had forgotten the previous day. Next were “Planet of the Dead” co-stars, Victoria Alcock and David Ames, who signed Dufus and Shirt’s DVD cover and ‘Specials’ poster respectively. Moving along, they found a room advertising Keith Hodiak and Derek Martin, but only one man was there.

“That must be Keith Hodiak”, Shirt told Dufus.

A passing fan in all seriousness said, “No, it’s Derek Martin”.

However, Dufus and Shirt was certain that ‘Charlie from Eastenders’ wasn’t black, and so went in, clutching his “Five Doctors: SE” DVD cover. Mr. Hodiak happily signed two DVD covers, and a few seconds later, they were exiting the room.

Popping back to the merchandise room, passing the ‘real’ Derek Martin who was signing at a table just inside the door as he had been the previous day, Shirt got Jason Haigh-Ellery to sign his “The Judgement of Iskaar”, so that he had the entire trilogy signed by its directors. They decided not to even ask how much Peter ‘Chewbacca’ Mayhew was charging for autographs. Mr. Mayhew was looking downcast at the lack of business as he was from the wrong sci-fi franchise. It also seemed that Jennie Linden was again to ill to attend.

Returning to the panel room, and Sylvester was just coming to the end of an anecdote about appearing naked on stage. At the back of the room, the next guest, Tracey Childs, was smiling broadly at Mr. McCoy’s risqué tales. His panel completed, and Sylvester sped off on his mobility scooter for a photo shoot, and Ms. Childs took his place, apologising for not having any anecdotes about people complaining about her naked body. Having gone through a long discussion about her career, without touching on a certain Timelord, the interviewer finally asked about “The Fires of Pompeii”, about which Tracey spoke enthusiastically. She then spoke about her two Large Endings’ appearances, before revealing that she had done three more, but that more details would be announced the next week in MDW.

However, given her speaking in so much detail about working with Sylvester, it seemed likely that she would be appearing with him, and given this both Dufus and Shirt (correctly) predicted that Klein would be making a return (However, they did not know that it would be as a companion, and so did not think to ask for her to sign their “Companions” books later).

Having spoken about her most recent play, Tony Anholt, “Born and Bred”, and the delights of local theatres, the panel came to an end. Dufus and Shirt then took the opportunity to check out of their hotel room, before returning to the panel room.

The next panel featured 60’s and 00’s Dalek Operators, Nick Evans and David Hankinson. They spoke enthusiastically about their time in the Skarosian menances, comparing notes as to how the job has changed over the years. David then performed a wonderful demonstration showing all the protection that an operator now needs, producing each item from his jacket before putting it on – black balaclava (so as not to be seen), mask (to avoid smoke inhilation), safety googles (to protect against pyrotechnics), and ear-protectors (which he did not have with him).

Having brought the house down with this bravura display, they chatted about the late John Scott-Martin, being forgotten by other cast and crew, and the techniques needed to be a good Dalek Operator.

The final panel of the morning, was Tracy Ann Oberman, who admitted being a big fan of the programme before being in it, and that she was overjoyed to work with not only the Cybermen, but the Daleks as well. She also told the assembled throng that she was always late onto set due to having her photo taken on all sets and with all aliens (despite this being forbidden), and feigned annoyance at the lack of a Yvonne Hartman action figure, particularly on finding that Alex ‘River Song’ Kingston has got one (Ms. Oberman and Ms. Kingston often go up for the same parts). She told everyone that she would welcome a return despite her Cyberisation, possibly in “Torchwood” in flashback, and denied that anyone had called her ‘Tracy Ann Cyberman’ during the filming of “Army of Ghosts/Doomsday”.

This brought the morning’s events to an end. Having made another quick trip to the dealers room, where Tracy Ann was being shown Alex Kingston’s “doll”, and not wishing to frequent the ‘Bad Wolf Canteen’ again for overpriced Hot-Dogs and Burgers, Dufus and Shirt decided to wander over to the ENC again, finding a food shop open next to the Station. Having eaten sandwiches and crisps, they returned to the convention hotel. As on the previous afternoon, a queue had formed for the classic series star signing that afternoon – namely Sylvester McCoy. Dufus and Shirt therefore joined the queue. Shirt then made a mistake by asking Dufus to get him an extra autograph ticket for Tracy Ann Oberman. When he returned, Dufus had bought extra autographs on Shirt’s behalf for Tracy Ann, Tracey Childs AND Sylvester McCoy.

The queue moved slowly, with gold and silver pass holders regularly appearing and going straight into the signing room. It had also been decided that people would not be allowed to leave the queue to meet the two Trac(e)ys and the two Dalek Operators, and rejoin the queue in the same place. Eventually, however, they reached the front of the queue outside the room, and after pass-holder after pass-holder had passed them, they finally entered the signing room. Despite having been waiting for over half-an-hour, neither had their covers ready, so there was a quick scramble to sort out their items for signing. DVD covers signed, they moved into the next room where each Trac(e)y had her own queue. Joining Ms. Oberman’s first, Shirt was soon getting her to sign his Series 2 Poster and a photograph. Dufus was next, getting a DVD cover and photograph signed. Ten minutes later, they were at the front of Tracey Childs’ queue, getting a photograph, DVD cover, Series 4 poster, and Large Endings’ ‘Colditz’ cover signed.

“You’ve got a lot of signatures on this”, said Tracey to Shirt, referring to the ‘Colditz’ cover.

“Yes, all the cast save one. Some guy called David Tennant”, replied Shirt.

“Yes, whatever happened to him !”, agreed Tracey jokingly.

The final room contained the two Dalek Operators. Neatly sidestepping Nick Evans whom they had got the day before, they got David Hankinson on a “Journey’s End” DVD cover and “Monsters and Villains” book respectively. Shirt ummed-and-ahhed about getting David on his Series 1 poster, deciding not to pay for another signature (at home he realised that he already had it signed by David, so that was lucky!).

Returning to the panel room, they were in time to hear the second half of Keith Hodiak’s panel. Having been in one ‘Doctor Who’ story for about a minute over twenty-five years before, Keith had a limited array of anecdotes. The interviewer therefore was struggling to find things to ask him. However, our two friends were interested to learn that Keith had a recurring role in the final series of “Are You Being Served ?”, as an assistant to Mr. Harman. Next up were Gary Russell and Tony Lee again, who spoke about similar things to the previous day, so Dufus and Shirt went for a final go-round the dealers room, with Dufus buying some autographs from Deborah Watling.

The final panel of the day was Victoria Alcock and David Ames, whose memories of filming “Planet of the Dead” were hilarious, in particular their stories of the two local people hired to stand in for Lou and Carmen, as they did not leave the bus the actors playing them did not travel to Dubai (despite Victoria having assured ‘Lou’ that he was going). It seemed that the local woman standing in for Carmen continually turned up to set partially clothed (possibly in an attempt to be given clothes by the wardrobe department), and her posture when sitting revealed the lack of undergarments – “Woman, get some pants!!!” being David’s shocked response. The interviewer didn’t know how to follow this, so simply sat there laughing. Victoria’s mythical alter-ego ‘Pamela’, mentioned in MDW was also discussed.

The convention was brought to an end with the announcement that next year’s “Bad Wolf” would be in Daventry (slightly further from Dufus’ in the direction of Stratford-Upon-Avon). Leaving the panel room for the final time, Shirt was pleased to notice at the registration table that the commemorative T-shirts had been reduced to £5. Only medium and large sizes were left (suggesting “Doctor Who” fans are either very big or very small), so Shirt decided to chance a ‘large’, which it turned out later, fitted perfectly. Returning to Dufus’ car using a variety of local landmarks, they stowed their bags in the back, and set off listening to the delights of Katy Manning’s Iris Wildthyme in “The Sound of Fear”. Following a brief stop for refreshment at a petrol station they sped through the country on what Dufus deemed a ‘scenic route’.

Finally reaching Worksop and Dufus’ home, they slowly unpacked the car. The evening was spent exchanging “Battles in Time” cards, signing Dufus up for ‘Skaro Station’ (the successor to ‘Inbox Skaro’), eating a takeaway pizza, checking out others views of the weekend online, and finally in playing “Scene It: Doctor Who”. Due to their having to play it using the DVD player on Dufus’ computer, they had to control themselves on the ‘All Play’ questions due to Dufus’ mother being asleep in the room below. Having played twice due to the ridiculously small board (with Shirt winning both times), they put it on the ‘Party’ setting which fired random questions for anyone to answer. Having proved that they know almost everything about Series 1-3 (save the name of any of the alien planets), they retired to bed.

Epilogue (Monday)

The next morning and having given Dufus his birthday presents a day early, they got ready quickly and dashed in Dufus’ car to the nearby town of Retford which had two bargain shops next to each other which posters on ‘Inbox Skaro’ and ‘Skaro Station’ had said were good for ‘Doctor Who’ items. Neither shop was open yet when they arrived, so they went into VG Jones to waste some time, and for Dufus to buy the DVD of “55 Degrees North” (which as well as Don ‘Lance’ Gilet and Dervla ‘Ms. Hartigan’ Kirwan, also features Jacqueline King). The shops finally opened and the two were disappointed at the lack of TARDIS carry-cases for microuniverse figures despite a sign on the shelf. Dufus, however, bought a “Doctor Who: The Time Travelling Action Game” for £5. The shop assistant told Dufus that they were hoping to get more carrycases later in the week.

Dashing back to Worksop Station, Shirt was in plenty of time for his train to Meadowhall. Waving Dufus goodbye, he began his slow journey home. Waiting at the point, where he was dropped off three days before, Shirt was pleased when a Megabus swept up to the stop a few minutes before the advertised departure time. The driver jumped off, opened the luggage compartment, and three people got off. The small group that were all waiting to go to London, attempted to put their luggage in, but were waved away with a shake of the driver’s head. He then mumbled something, before slamming the luggage compartment closed, jumping back onto the coach and driving off. Five minutes later another coach arrived, this one it turned out was going to London, and its driver was able to actually communicate with passengers. Pushing his case as far back as possible, Shirt boarded the coach.

As he watched the Midlands fade away, Shirt looked down at his ‘Bad Wolf 2009’ T-shirt and mused on another great weekend with Dufus – seven New Series guests, six Classic Series guests, three ‘monsters’, two comic-book writers, the lovely Lisa Bowerman and “fun-and-larks” with Dufus. Exactly how far away was Daventry ?

Go back to Day One.

[PL]