Dufus & Shirt...
Day
Two: Sunday.
Second day, and everything seemed to be going as
well as it had the previous day….until they reached
the station to find that nothing was running on that branch of the line. Having
spoken to a member of staff, it was decided to catch a bus to a nearby station
on another branch line. They seemed to have just missed one, so after a ten minute wait, followed by a five minute bus ride, and a
ten minute walk, they finally found themselves on a train. However, at Clapham
Junction they were luckier, stepping onto an Overground train which left thirty
seconds later.
Back at Kensington Olympia (25 minutes later
than intended), they made their way to the entrance hall (the queue having already
gone in), flashing their Covid wristbands, and then their entrance tickets. The
upper floor and virtual queuing tickets were again their first port of call,
picking up tickets for Jo Martin, Sacha Dhawan & Jenna Coleman. The other
guests that they wanted were again sitting on the back wall.
First up was Carry On stalwart and ‘Survival’ guest-star, Julian Holloway. At least that was what the
poster above his table said, with his mask on, it could have been almost
anyone. Shirt handed over his ‘Survival’ DVD sleeve, already signed by ten cast
and crew members.
“Can you sign this to Shirt ? If you can find a space”, he asked.
Julian ended up signing over Ace’s face, the
only space left, apologising as he did so.
Thanking Julian and with photos being prohibited,
they moved on a few tables to the next person that Shirt wanted – David Learner,
who was inside the Marvin suit in ‘The
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ TV series.
Shirt wanted David to add to the signatures on his
HHGTTG video sleeve, already signed by Simon Jones,
Mark Wing-Davey, Sandra Dickinson & David
Dixon.
Placing the cover down, David became excited.
‘The video ? Excellent !’, he exclaimed
as he signed it on the spine over the picture of Marvin.
He then happily posed for a photo with Shirt
taken by Dufus, before shaking Shirt warmly by the
hand, thanking him for wanting to meet him.
Moving off a short way, Dufus
decided that he wanted to meet Mr. Learner as well (particularly as he was only
charging £10), with Shirt deciding to get one of the table photographs of David
in the Marvin suit with the head off signed also.
They therefore returned to David’s table and a
few minutes later they were meeting David again, and Dufus
was getting a photo with him also. Both were amused that he signed their photos
with the Marvinesque ‘Worst wishes,’.
Jo Martin was away from her table, having green-screen
photos being taken, and was only up to #25, with Dufus
& Shirt having #91 & #92. Dufus therefore
took the opportunity to avail himself of the facilities, whilst Shirt waited outside.
Whilst waiting, Shirt noticed that a ‘More Guests This Way’ sign appeared to be
pointing into the Ladies Toilet.
‘If there are more guests that way, I doubt they’d
be willing to sign anything’, mused Shirt.
On Dufus’ return, they
looked at the stalls again, with Dufus umming-and-ahhing over buying a photoshoot with Jo Martin, finally
biting the bullet and getting one. It was then time for the ‘Doctor Who’ panel
featuring the Fugitive Doctor and current Master, Jo & Sacha. The panel was
excellent with both speaking enthusiastically about their involvement in the
Whittaker era, particularly as actors of colour. Neither could speak about
whether they will be returning again, but Jo revealed that she had to diet to
get back into her costume after lockdown to appear in ‘Once, Upon Time’.
Panel completed and Dufus
and Shirt moved to the photo area to wait for their Jo Martin photo session.
The steward didn’t seem to be calling by batches, so they joined the queue as
soon as there was a space to do so. On time, the queue started moving, and
within fifteen minutes they were at the entrance to the photo area. The person
in front, who also had a high batch number, found his ticket rejected multiple
times, causing our friends to worry that they might be thrown out of the queue,
but it transpired that this was due to his missing the green-screen photos
earlier, and having to attend this session instead. They therefore entered the photo
area, and around five minutes later, were posing next to Jo (who did not have a
screen). Dufus found himself being asked to stay for a
second photo, and was given both afterwards, the first showing Jo looking to
one side (similar to his look in his photo with
Billie Piper). Photos obtained,
they exited the photo area.
It was lunchtime, and it was decided to go a
little further afield. Google indicated that there was a Metro Sandwich Shop 0.6
miles away, at the Shopping Centre with the ‘Sherlock Escape Room’. It was therefore
decided to walk there. However, after a short while it became clear that the
distance was ‘as the crow flies’ rather than the distance that you need to
walk, which was almost double. Finally reaching the shopping centre, they entered
Metro, and Dufus tried to order their ‘Festive Sub’.
However, this was not available, so he let Shirt go first, before ordering
almost exactly the same himself.
Lunch eaten, it was
agreed that they would catch the Overground back to Kensington Olympia.
Arriving back just under an hour after they had left, they made their way back
to Jo Martin’s signing table, to find that she was now signing up to #80. Hanging
around, eventually they were allowed to join the queue which doubled back on itself.
After around fifteen minutes queuing they were in front of Jo Martin, who seemed
to be in as joyful a mood as David Learner had been earlier, chatting with both
friends, with Shirt deciding not to mention ‘Back To Life’
in which she pays a Probation Officer. Whilst signing
a photo of herself as the Fugitive Doctor, she commented to Dufus
that he has a gap in his teeth like she does, and that in Jamaica this is
regarded as sexy (leading
to Dufus googling flights).
Making their way to the exit, with Shirt picking
up a protector for his ‘Doctor
Who: Flux’ print, confusing the stallholder by
having his still drying Jo Martin 10x8 in his hand, they left the venue for the
last time that weekend. Public transport had sorted itself out, and within an
hour they were back at Shirt’s, where after a brief rest, Dufus
left to drive home. Both agreed that it had been an amazing return to multi-day
events, with Dufus studying the list of events already
announced for 2022 printed off for him by Shirt, eager for the next such event.
Go
back to Day One
[PL]