Another End of Time review

Den of Geek have reviewed the End of Time part one. They resist spoilers so you're safe to click on the link and find out more. Please press here.

Dimensions 2009 by our own Richard Parker

Richard recently attended the event on the weekend of 14th November and he has very kindly written this report for our Blog. I just want to say thanks to Richard for his brilliantly written piece.

Conventions, for me, are about bar prices. Seriously, whenever a convention moves to a new hotel, the first question on everyone's mind is 'what are the prices like at the bar?' Secondly, 'what are the staff like?'

Okay, so that's not the the first question on everyone's mind, but let me explain.

For years, I didn't know any other fans of Doctor Who. I was aware they were 'out there', somewhere. But the nearest I got to fandom was reading Doctor Who Magazine. Fair enough, but a few years ago I resolved to track down my nearest local group and to start attending conventions.

What I found was an incredible social circle, a multitude of long, boozy weekends and very little actual talk of Doctor Who.

Drinking until six in the morning, catching some disturbed sleep for a few hours and then heading back to the bar at eleven to try and ward off the hangover...and this goes on for four days. Fairly regularly, someone will plonk food down in front of you, you'll manage to stagger to the toilet, you'll feel divorced from reality for four days and every so often you'll catch sight of someone you think you recognise from the seventies. I imagine Alzheimer's Disease has similar effects.

There are only so many autograph queues to stand in, Q&A panels with guests to attend and merchandise dealers to avoid, so eventually everything comes back to the bar.

This was the fourth year in a row I've been to Dimensions. It is, I think, the longest running convention still around and it's not hard to see why. For the autograph hunters there was plenty of star talent around, topped by Colin Baker and Paul McGann. Katy Manning remembered me telling her of my adventures in Soho three years ago, before discussing science and rationality with me over coffee. Anneke Wills and Nick Briggs hung outside cadging fags off the smokers. Rob Shearman sat in the bar on the Friday night, keeping me in stitches with his wicked and all-too-accurate impression of Terrance Dicks. ('And Barry said to me, 'what colour?' you see, and I said to Barry, 'Green! The colour for monsters is Green!)

There's the obligatory cabaret, of course. It's traditional for it to be awful. Imagine Richard Franklin dressed as a schoolboy, dancing around a stage while singing 'Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me A Bow Wow. You can't, can you? Neither could we. Even when it was in front of us. McGann had hidden in his room by this point.

Then there was the - equally obligatory – disco. No one told me they were videoing the bloody thing, but I'm now stuck forever with the embarrassing atrocity that currently inhabits Facebook.

A non-fan straight boy kept hugging me and told me I was his first 'man crush.' My friend thought he was confused. I just thought he was pissed. And cute.

The hotel manager being a fan, helped of course. His staff must have been instructed not to take the piss out of we nerds, and it has to be said we were all treated royally. And, the bar area was exclusively devoted to a live screening of Waters of Mars on the Sunday evening. 100 fans, absolutely spellbound. McGann wandered down for a fag half-way through, stopped, looked around quizzically as if thinking “What on earth are you all watching?”, realised, shrugged and disappeared outside in a wreath of smoke. The only moment of the whole weekend he could get out the door without being pestered about what it's like to snog Daphne Ashbrook.

Monday mornings are always the worst. Home, and reality, beckon. Breakfast with Anneke. Checking the local rag to see how much of a hatchet job yesterday's journalists have done. Strong coffee and lots of it, then the pain as you sober up and realise by just how much you've blown your budget for the weekend. Then the long drive home.

Best weekends of your life.

Even the straight boy said so.

Time War - Saturday 14th November review

Yesterday my wife Gemma was away on a hen do so I was left with the prospect
of having to keep two little boys (at 3 & 5) amused for a whole day on
my own. Fortunately there was the Time War event at the Magna centre
near Rotherham in South Yorkshire in aid of Children in Need where we met up with Neil & Sarah Charlesworth and their 2 kids.

Even before the event I had not done my usual research so I wasn't
actually sure what was in store for us other than it was an event
based around Doctor Who. On arrival we paid our entrance fee which
also gave us access to the whole of the Magna centre itself as well as
the Time War event. In the foyer was the familiar Police Box and as
expected several fans were having their photo's taken alongside it. To
the rear of the reception area was where the hub of the event was.

On entering we were confronted by about 20 full sized Daleks ranging
from all era's of Doctor Who right up to present day. With the odd
exception all of the Daleks were excellent replicas of their TV
counterparts which is all the more astounding when I learned that they
had all been made by fans of the show. One in particular Dalek was
like nothing we had ever seen. "Dalek Storm" is apparently based on a
CGI design from way back and was never made by the BBC so fan Alan
Clark decided to make it himself. As you can see from the pictures t
is truly a magnificent creation and, dare I say it, better than
anything we have seen on TV?

My kids were loving the whole spectacle however suddenly we looked
round and there was a black Dalek moving around the hall actually
speaking to people. My 2 boys started to get scared at first but soon
plucked up the courage to go and chat with the black Dalek. It was all
highly amusing!

As we walked around we bumped into several of the Leeds Dr Who group including Mark, Zoe, Gordon, Chris, David and a few others!

As you would expect at these events there were several fans who went
to the effort of getting dressed up as their favourite Doctor or
character (gaining them free entry) and some of the David Tennants
were great however some of the other Doctors were a little suspect.

Other monsters appearing were a couple of Scarecrows from Human Nature
and the odd Ood. Again, at first the appearance of these unnerved my
kids but they soon realised that it was just people dressing up.

In another room there was a home made Tardis interior provided by
Chris Hoyle from the excellent Projection Room (a fan film group) -
more from them later. You could pay a small price to have your picture
taken at the console along with one of the Doctor lookalikes and all
the proceeds went to Children In Need. Another room had a display of
props and masks from the show although I never established whether
these were official BBC props or fan made ones, they were interesting
none the less.

At 1pm there was the first event in the great hall. When we arrived
there were literally hundreds of people waiting to see what would
happen. There was a stage with a full sized Tardis to the left and
when the background music died down, out popped a David Tennant
impersonator, he even sounded a bit like him too. He proceeded to
introduce a charity fan made film called "Pudsai" made by the
Projection Room guys and featured many incarnations of the Doctor.
Most of the guys were attending the event dressed in the costumes
they wore in the short film and were duly brought on stage for a brief
interview after the showing.

Next up was "an audience with the Daleks" whereby about 7 Daleks
appeared from the back of the room and ended up at the front of the
stage. The audience were invited to ask the Daleks questions which was
really surreal but hight entertaining and amusing at times.....

To sum up I'm not entirely sure how to refer to the Time War event, it
was not a convention or an exhibition really and whatever its
intentions it was well attended, raised a lot of money for a worthy
cause and was a brilliant day out for all. My kids & I will certainly
be going to the next one.

Dr Who Writers Event

I have just spent an entertaining and enlightening couple of hours in the company of 4 prolific Doctor Who writers at the Morley Literature festival. Between them Mark Morris, Robert Shearman, Simon Guerrier and Mark Michalowski have written for comics, Big Finish audios, BBC books ant in the case of Rob Shearman the TV show itself with the critically acclaimed Dalek.

The evenings compare started off with a slight introduction and a quick quiz before bringing the writers onto the stage. What followed was a panel style interview whereby they were all asked questions about their writing experiences and their own thoughts on Dr Who past and present. What came out was that each of them are really big fans of the show and this was made more evident by their extensive knowledge of the history of Dr Who.

After 20 minutes the 60 or so strong audience were invited to ask the panel any question they liked. What was nice about this is that there were a lot of children who put their hands in the air and surprisingly asked more questions about the original run of the series as opposed to the Eccleston / Tennant era. I asked one of the best questions of the night but if you want to know what it was and what the answer was then you will have to ask me...........

All of the 4 guys on stage were genuinely nice people and answered even some of the more mundane questions with great enthusiasm. At the end of the show there was the usual book signing session and I managed to get 5 minutes at the end with them when everyone had gone...... and we didn't talk about Dr Who....... Like the title of this blog says - its "not just Dr Who"

Dr Who Writers Event in Leeds

On Wednesday 14th October there is a special event taking place in Morley, Leeds as part of the annual Literature festival. Here are some more details from their Facebook link;

Daleks. A tardis. Assistants. Time travel. Doctoring. Davros. Scary stuff.

Fans of Doctor Who – of all ages! – are in for a special treat at this year’s festival: Doctor Who writers Mark Morris, Robert Shearman, Simon Guerrier and Mark Michalowski will be hosting an event at Morley Library, talking about their work and answering your questions. It’s sure to be hugely popular, so buy a ticket!

Robert Shearman was one of the writers for the BAFTA-award-winning first series of Doctor Who, starring Christopher Eccleston. He is also a playwright and writer of short stories.

Mark Morris is author of almost twenty books, including four in the Doctor Who range, as well as a Torchwood novel and several Doctor Who audio scripts.

Simon Guerrier has written novels, short stories, comic strips and audio plays for Doctor Who, as well as Primeval, Robin Hood, Blake’s 7 and Sapphire and Steel.

Mark Michalowski is author of four Doctor Who novels, and founding editor of Yorkshire’s very own gay newspaper, SHOUT! He also writes short stories, and is currently working on a novel to tie in with the second series of BBC3 drama Being Human.

Moths Ate My Dr Who Scarf

Here is my review of the production which a few of us went to see recently....

Last night I took my wife (who casually enjoys the odd new episode of Doctor Who, probably due to the aesthetic value of its leading man) to see the highly acclaimed Moths ate my Doctor Who Scarf, written by and starring Toby Hadoke, at the Carriageworks in Leeds.

Toby, like me grew up in the 1970s and, like me is a Doctor Who fan and makes it clear that hes not going to apologise for it. His one man show takes us on a journey through his life, starting with his his father leaving home at a young age (suggesting that the character of Doctor Who was in part a replacement father figure) and recounting the familiar setting of Saturday nights watching a certain Time Lord in the 1970s. He even knitted a Tom Baker scarf!

As we progress through his school days, Toby recounts tales of being bullied, spectacularly failing to get off with girls and his ability to name every actor who had ever appeared in Doctor Who. The show is funny, very funny. He interweaves comedy routines, social comment and Doctor Who facts seamlessly whilst tugging at your emotions when we learn that he struggled to bond with his young son but it was the Doctor who saved the day! His recount of how his son had asked (as a treat) if he could stay up late to watch Doctor Who with his dad was made even more poignant when his son asked if he could cuddle him during the scary bits. Grown men were filling up at this stage.

If I were more talented and was brave enough to get up on stage in front of a few hundred people then I would be saying exactly the same things as Toby. His life is my life and this is all because of Doctor Who. All the way through the show he shows us why it is the greatest show ever.

Towards the end of the show we heard the voice of David Tennant himself coming out of the speakers announcing the he was back. This was to illustrate the announcement in 2003 the show was returning. Toby went to dig out his scarf in celebration but it had been eaten by moths, the crowning glory of the show was the revelation that, well I’m not going to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it.

I urge everyone in the world to see this show. You don’t have to be a fan to be moved by it but if you are you will have a different experience.