We are travelling back in time to my summer holiday in Wales. Today we are at the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff, this time in July 2015. I was very excited to go to The Doctor Who Experience again as it was the first time I had been since it was updated with the new Doctor. In August 2014 I was stood outside the closed Experience whilst Peter Capaldi was inside filming the new interactive story so I was looking forward to seeing the new adventure!
Exterminate!
Bessie – The Third Doctor’s car
When I arrived there was a giant queue as it was the summer holidays and Whovians had come from everywhere to experience the experience! As soon as I arrived I went into the interactive adventure with the other fans. I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone who is planning to go but I will tell you that I entered the Museum of Gallifrey expecting to learn about Timelords and the history of Gallifrey. Instead I embarked on a journey when the Twelfth Doctor transmitted a message saying he needed our help – and we had to grapple with a threat which could destroy the universe……..
The First Doctor’s TARDIS
It was very exciting helping the Doctor and some of the children were a little scared, but we survived. The Doctor didn’t quite return us to where we started though so I never got to look around the Museum of Gallifrey! Maybe if you visit everything will go a bit smoother for you!
Choosing my picture
Inside the Twelfth Doctor’s TARDIS
After I made it back to Cardiff 2015 I had my photo taken in a green screen TARDIS. I chose to wear a Fez , which was cool, and I chose to be in the Twelfth Doctor’s TARDIS because that is my favourite TARDIS in the history of Doctor Who! I look quite perplexed in my picture because when I was posing in front of the green screen I didn’t know how the background would look. When Peter Capaldi had his photo taken he couldn’t choose so wore the Eleventh Doctor’s Fez and the Fourth Doctor’s scarf!
The Doctor’s cot
Antibodies from Let’s Kill Hitler
The Moment from ‘Day of the Doctor’
After my photo I went upstairs to The Exhibition Hall to revisit ‘the world’s most extensive collection of original Doctor Who props and artefacts’. This is my favourite part of the whole Experience because all the suspense from the interactive part is relieved from you and you can relax and look at all the items from the series! Since my last visit the hall had regenerated and moved around and there were lots of new items from the Series 8 (2014) episodes! Here are some of my favourites:
From my favourite New Who story Deep Breath – the hot air balloon made of skin that Half-Face Man tried to escape in.
From Robot of Sherwood we can see a knight’s armour and the Sheriff of Nottingham costume worn by Ben Miller.
The Sheriff of Nottingham and Robot of Sherwood!
From In the Forest of the Night – a lion from Trafalgar Square. This giveaway told the Doctor he was in London and not a forest.
A lion from Trafalgar Square!
From The Caretaker – the Skovox Blitzer which was a danger to Coal Hill School and one of the most dangerous weapons ever created!
The Skovox Blitzer from The Caretaker
I didn’t have enough time in the exhibition because I had to leave Cardiff at lunch time to go to another part of Wales and carry on with my holiday. Sadly for me I had hurt my back too so I couldn’t join in with everything, for example, learning how to walk like a Doctor Who monster.
WHO does this remind me of?
Say something nice, it’s Missy’s costume!
Finally I visited The Official Doctor Who Shop. The shop is giant and full of Doctor Who merchandise – it is the only official Doctor Who shop that you can visit in the whole world! Maybe there is one on another planet though..… Anyone can visit this shop; you don’t need to pay for a ticket. I bought a new Doctor Who T-shirt because my old one is getting smaller and smaller by the minute. I will be wearing my T-shirt in lots of future posts, it is in the style of a comic – I hope you will like it.
The regenerated experience is better than ever, I’m really glad that I got the chance to visit it before I left Cardiff. No-one should leave Cardiff without having a Doctor Who adventure. And I’m glad to report that my back is better too! Have you been to the Doctor Who Experience? Please leave a comment and tell me what you think about this amazing Doctor Who attraction.
See you soon for a new Doctor Who location report – next time I will be reporting from Mars, I hope you will come back and read all about it.
Disclosure: Thank you very much to the Doctor Who Experience for allowing me free entry to report on my adventure. All opinions are my own!
Welcome to Day 2 of Film & Comic Con at Bournemouth International Centre
Hello,
And welcome to the second day of Showmaster’s Film & Comic Con Bournemouth! After my adventures on the first day I was a bit tired from meeting all the amazing actors but I was very happy to go back to meet more Doctor Who stars!
Sam, Nicola, Colin and Louise at the Film and Comic Con Bournemouth
First show of the day was the Doctor Who talk and out came Louise Jameson ( Leela), Nicola Bryant ( Peri), Samuel Anderson ( Danny Pink) and the Sixth Doctor himself, Colin Baker! The Q&A was very interesting and lots of fun. The guests were asked to describe their Doctor Who experience in one word.
Colin said
Eternal
Nicola said
Giving
Louise said
Extraordinary
and Sam said
Mellifluous!
Mellifluous means sweetly or smoothly flowing, sweetened as if with honey. I know, because I looked it up!
Hello Louise Jameson aka Leela!
After the Q&A I said hello to Louise Jameson – I didn’t ask her my golden questions because I asked her already at the Timeless Collectors Fair. Louise was very kindly to me and she told me she enjoyed the Q&A which was the first one she had done with Sam, and she thought he was great!
Hello Lalla Ward aka Romana II!
After Louise I met Lalla Ward who played another Fourth Doctor companion Romana II! It was great to meet Lalla for the first time and she was very polite and answered my Golden Questions.
What is your favourite Doctor Who episode?
What is your favourite Doctor Who filming location? and
If you could go anywhere in time and space where would you like to go?
Lalla’ s favourite Doctor Who episode is City of Death (1979).
Lalla showed me a photo of Romana II in Cambridge in the episode Shada (1979) which was her favourite filming location. Sadly Shada wasn’t finished because of a strike, and wasn’t shown on TV but it was released on video in 1992.
If Lalla could go anywhere in time and space she would like to go back in time and see the dinosaurs, but she would want to take a bodyguard to protect her! She would also like to visit other planets and make contact as she believes that there must be life on other planets if there is life on earth. I think she may be right! It would be nice to know we are not alone in the universe but I hope that aliens would be friendly if they did come to earth.
Nicola cannot choose a favourite Doctor Who episode because as soon as she thinks of one she remembers another she likes just as much. She loves them all!
Nicola’s favourite filming location was Seville where she filmed The Two Doctors (1985). She said the food was great. When I met the Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker, his answer was the same so I guess they had a good time!
Lastly Nicola told me that if she could go anywhere in time and space she would like to travel back 25 years and see her father who sadly passed away. She said the best times are times spent with loved ones. I agree, I would love to use my TARDIS to visit my Great – Nana who I miss very much and my Grandad who I never got to meet.
In the queue I met Luke who was carrying a TARDIS door. He was asking the Doctor Who actors to sign the door then he was going to take the door home to put back on his own life-size TARDIS. I wonder if it is bigger on the inside?
Luke and his TARDIS door
Samuel Anderson signs Luke’s TARDIS door
Sam was mellifluous – Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! His favourite episode is Death in Heaven (2014) – even though it meant he lost his job!
He enjoyed filming in a bar because he got to sneak a beer – shhhh! His favourite Doctor Who filming location was the set of the TARDIS because it is kept under lock and key and not many people get to film there!
Sam would like to travel in time to see the dinosaurs, and the pyramids being built, but he would REALLY like to go to Harlem in the 1940s and see the Jazz Greats performing. I told Sam that Doctor Who Script Editor Andrew Cartmel told me that as well – they should hang out together. Sam is a Jazz Singer too – maybe one day Jazz fans will want to travel in time to see Sam singing!
Sam was supercool, it was great to meet him again and he was very encouraging about Project Indigo. Thanks Sam!
Chatting with Samuel Anderson
After I met Samuel I decided it was time to leave as I was pooped out from all the excitement of the weekend! As well as the Doctor Who stars there were film stars from all over the world, including actors from many film and TV Series Star Wars, even Darth Vader himself! And The Incredible Hulk!
There were sports stars too. As I left I met footballer Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris and got his autograph – he is a Chelsea legend! I know it isn’t Doctor Who related but I am telling you about it because it meant a lot to me as I love football and support Chelsea (and Bournemouth of course!).
Thank you to everybody who let me interview them, thank you to BH Live, and thank you to the people at Showmasters for giving me a Press Pass and helping me to meet with all the Doctor Who stars. The first Film & Comic Con Bournemouth was SO AWESOME that Showmasters have created another and will be back in Bournemouth next year!
See you soon for my review of the updated Doctor Who Experience – it was fandabbydozy.
Goodbye!
One of the signing rooms at Film & Comic Con Bournemouth
Hello Sylvester McCoy aka MY Doctor, the Seventh Doctor!
Hello and welcome to another post.
Today I am writing what will be a very long post about Film & Comic Con Bournemouth because it is JAM PACKED with Doctor Who actors. This was the very first Film & Comic Con in my home town of Bournemouth and the organisers Showmasters were very kind and gave me a Press Pass so that I could interview all the Doctor Who stars for my Project Indigo readers!
I was very excited and knew that I would ask everybody my three Golden Questions:
What is your favourite Doctor Who episode?
What is your favourite Doctor Who filming location? and
If you could go anywhere in time and space where would you like to go?
As soon as I arrived I went to meet the Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy, because he is my favourite Classic Doctor and I have been looking forward to this moment for a long time! Sylvester was just as I imagined and he was incredibly cheerful and was pleased to answer my questions.
I asked Sylvester my questions. He said that his favourite episode ever is the first one he saw, a Patrick Troughton episode but his favourite Seventh Doctor episode is possibly The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (1988) – my favourite Classic episode. What a co-incidence!
Sylvester’s favourite filming locations are both right here in Dorset! He enjoyed filming The Curse of Fenric (1989) at Lulworth Cove and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy and Survival (1989) in a sandpit in Dorset (Warmwell Quarry which I visited in October 2014). Later, in a talk that Sylvester gave with Bonnie Langford and Sophie Aldred , he said that he liked filming Survival in the sandpit because there was a heatwave and one of the ladies overheated in her cat costume and stripped off and ran away!
The Doctor Who talk at Film & Comic Con Bournemouth
If Sylvester could go anywhere in time and space he would like to visit America before the Westerners arrived to see what is was like. He said that as the Doctor he would not want to change anything he would just like to observe.
Cosplayer Ozzy as the Seventh Doctor
I felt so happy to meet Sylvester and relieved that I had finally met him as I tried once before but had to leave before I got the chance. He is the Fourth Doctor I have met and I feel like Project Indigo has been given a real boost by meeting him!
Hello Terry Molloy aka Davros!
Hello Sarah Sutton aka Nyssa!
Hello Sophie Aldred aka Ace!
Next I met Terry Molloy (Davros), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa) and Sophie Aldred (Ace). I have already asked them my golden questions before when I met them at the Timeless Collector’s Fair and The Bournemouth Invasion so I just had a little chat with each of them and welcomed them to Bournemouth. It was Sarah’s first visit to Bournemouth but Terry used to live in Bournemouth when he was a teenager. I spoke to Sophie about her new audio drama Strangeness in Space which is for anyone aged 8-80 to enjoy! It sounds really fun and I am definitely going to listen to it soon.
Hello Bonnie Langford aka Mel!
After Sophie I met Bonnie Langford aka Mel Bush, companion to the Sixth and Seventh Doctors. Like everyone else she was very kind and answered my questions. Bonnie can never remember any titles of episodes but her favourites are the ones with Daleks in them.
Her favourite Doctor Who filming location is anywhere indoors! She said it would always rain on location – except for when they filmed Delta and the Bannermen (1987) on Barry Island. It was really sunny then but everyone got sunburnt!
If Bonnie could go anywhere in time and space she would like to visit Hollywood in its heyday and dance with Gene Kelly.
Hello Matthew Waterhouse aka Adric!
Then I went to talk to Matthew Waterhouse who played one of my favourite ever companions Adric , the companion to the Fourth and Fifth Doctor, from Alzarius. I really hope the Doctor will have another alien companion one day as it was always really good when the companions were from another planet. Please make that happen Stephen, if you’re reading!
Although it is many years since he played Adric Matthew still looks like him. Matthew’s favourite episode that he was in was Keeper of Traken (1981), but other than that it was Spearhead from Space (1970) which was an episode he watched when he was 7 and he was very scared by it! His favourite filming location was Tunbridge Wells as the crew stayed in a hotel for a week and had lots of fun.
Matthew liked the idea of pressing a button in the TARDIS and landing anywhere but if had to choose he would love to go to Elizabethan England and see Shakespeare’s plays performed by his original players. That is just like the Tenth Doctor and Martha in The Shakespeare Code!
I was very pleased to meet Matthew, it is always good to meet someone nice but even better when you admire them. My companion bought a copy of Matthew’s autobiography ‘Blue Box Boy’ so we could learn all about his time in the TARDIS!
Hello Dan Starkey – aka Strax!
Next to Matthew was Dan Starkey who plays the Sontaran Strax who is part of the Paternoster Gang. It felt very strange looking at him as his normal self and looking at him as Strax but I recognised him as I have seen him in Wizards vs Aliens and on University Challenge. Luckily he doesn’t have the attitude of Strax because Strax is VERY weird!
Dan’s favourite episode is The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977), but out of the episodes he is in it is The Snowmen (2012). His favourite filming location was filming The Snowmen at Treberfydd House as he was able to stay at his Mum and Dad’s!
If Dan could go anywhere in time and space he would like to see Stonehenge being built. I wonder if the Pandorica is still there?
Hello John Leeson – the voice of K-9!
When I met John Leeson who is the voice of K-9 he was a very polite gentleman. He told me, in the voice of K-9, that his favourite episode is The Sun Makers (1977) by Robert Holmes.
John’s favourite filming locations were anywhere not far from home as he doesn’t like driving for miles. If he could go anywhere he would love to go to Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire and have a very nice lunch. He says he has never been there before but would love to go there one day, I hope that his dream comes true.
The original K-9!
John was sat with Mat Irvine who was the Visual Effects Supervisor and he had brought along K-9 himself! It was great to meet K-9 and his voice – a double whammy.
Next I went to meet William Russell who played Ian Chesterton one of the first companions who accompanied the First Doctor, William Hartnell, and he was first seen in the very first episode of Doctor Who, An Unearthly Child (1963). There was a long queue to meet William.
William said that his favourite episode is The Aztecs (1964) and he told me all about filming a fight scene for the episode. He didn’t have a favourite Doctor Who filming location as in those days it was mostly filmed in a studio.
William said that if he could go anywhere in time and space he would choose to be right here as he was happy at that moment. Isn’t that lovely? It was a special honour to meet William and I feel so happy to have met him.
After William I met Camille Coduri who played Jackie Tyler – Rose’s mother. Camille was in the very first episode of New Who Rose (2005) and appeared many times until The End of Time (2010). Camille loves lots of episodes – including Blink (2007), Doomsday (2006) and The Christmas Invasion (2005). There were too many favourites to choose from.
Her favourite filming location is the estate where the Tyler’s lived because she said it was always a lot of fun filming there. If Camille could go anywhere in time and space she would like to go the Sixties as they seemed good fun – just like Camille who was a lot of fun herself!
Hello Rusty Goffe aka Little John!
From Camille I went to see Rusty Goffe – the United Kingdom’s No1 Dwarf! Rusty appeared as Little John in Robot of Sherwood (2014) and that is his favourite episode. He liked filming on location at Forest Fawr and Caerphilly Castle and said that the Merry Men were having so much fun in the forest that they didn’t want to leave!
If Rusty could go anywhere he would go to Samui in Thailand – and he said he would go there right now in a TARDIS if he could as he has been before and loves it there! Rusty was a very nice chap, I hope he gets to go again soon.
Hello Doctor Squee!
My final interview of the day was with Katy Manning who played Jo Grant, the Third Doctor’s companion. I met up with Doctor Squee from the Gallifrey Stands Podcast who was waiting to interview Katy too and he let me go first. Thank you Doctor Squee!
Hello Katy Manning aka Jo Grant!
Katy had been flooded by fans all day and I was lucky to get some time with her. Katy’s favourite episodes were Terror of the Autons (1971) because that is where she met her Doctor Who family and also The Green Death (1973) – she told me how Jo and Cliff went into the Amazon looking for a magical fungus and that story predicted Quorn! Thank you Jo for discovering Quorn as I am a vegetarian and I eat A LOT of Quorn.
I asked Katy what her favourite location was and she didn’t have one because she was always filming in a cold claypit! Even when she filmed The Sarah Jane Adventures it was freezing. If she could go anywhere in time and space she would go ‘EVERYWHERE because she is greedy and loves adventure!’ Katy was very cheeky and it was great to meet her.
Day One at the Film & Comic Con Bournemouth was very tiring but it was an honour to meet so many stars. Thank you to everyone for a fantastic day and especially to Showmasters for making this happen. Soon I will be able to tell you all about Day 2, I hope you will come back soon.
Project Indigo 