Collectormania Milton Keynes: Monday - It's oh so quiet...

So here we are, Bank Holiday Monday, the final day of C17, didn’t really want to get out of bed (again, was a theme for this event!)

Me with Stuart Milligan

Having got ready I was presented with a view of bad weather and a venue that seemed really empty, oh well. Onwards!

My plan for the day? Well to be honest I didn’t actually have one (apart from checking out of the hotel of course)... Having got fed up with the weather I decided to do something I hadn’t done in a long time, attend an event as me!

Yesterday I’d had my photo with Tony Head (yes Giles from Buffy!!) however I’d not been to get his autograph yet so that was first on my list of things to do. Jemma had tagged along with me and was dressed as Supergirl which did get a smile and the comment of “you must be cold!” to which Jemma sheepishly answered “yes” while wrapping herself up in her cloak. After seeing Tony, Jemma then decided it was time to change back into something a little warmer!

Collectormania Milton Keynes: Sunday - Spoilers Sweetie...

CM:MK Day two, Sunday and we all know what that means... Alex Kingston aka River Song! Being a Sunday, the event didn’t open until 10am which meant I was able to have a lay in, however even with the extra hour I still managed to oversleep!!

Me with Tony Coburn

Today in honour of River I was going for the Silence in the Library look, big hair, blue suit and black (with a hint of red) shirt and dark red (almost black) tie.

Showmasters knew how popular Alex Kingston would be so had a separate queue for her, people were already queuing when I got out of bed, would need a bit of time travel to ensure I got a good number VQ ticket...

With me still quietly praying for a day of no wind the doors opended and thanks to some good timing (timelord, timing... sorry, bad pun) I managed to grab myself VQ ticket 32 for Alex, result!

Knowing my photo with Alex was at Midday I spent most of the morning doing what I could to avoid any sort of breeze!!

Collectormania Milton Keynes: Saturday - Cardboard Cutouts, Death and Shakespeare...

The 6.30am alarm woke me with a bump! (damned comfy Hilton beds!!) After dragging myself out of bed and beginning to get ready it was time to meet Team ‘Til (Tim and Laura) for breakfast. Take it from me the only way to start a convention day is with a cooked breakfast buffet!!

Susan, The Doctor and Death

Skip forward to 9am and I was fully ready and raring to go. I also couldn’t wait to see Tim’s and Laura’s outfits, they were coming as Death and Susan from The Hogfather and, well, they looked amazing!!

Now, I do have one major issue with Milton Keynes and that is the venue, this may sound petty but for me especially the fact it’s open to the elements makes it cold (which I don’t mind) but it also acts like a wind tunnel and to put it simply... wind is UN-FRINGE-FRIENDLY!!

Saturday turned out to be a day of random gifts, the first of which was presented to me by my fellow convention goers, a large flat box approximately 4ft by 2.5ft. To my amazement the contents of the box was.... me!!! Well not the actual me, but a lifesize cardboard version!!  JonJon (long story...) would now have a cardboard companion!!

Collectormania Milton Keynes: First Evening – Tea and Tweets...

I have to confess until recently I hadn’t given CM:MK a great deal of thought, the Friday had been cancelled, the new venue wasn’t ready and I just wasn’t ‘feeling’ the whole event. Then Showmasters played a blinder, there were a number of quality guest announcements and suddenly the excitement was back, this was going to be a good one!

The Bar!!

After having had a very late night (I’d been in London seeing David Tennant again...) Friday morning was difficult, initially I’d toyed with the idea of going to Expo on the Friday but gave that up as a bad plan, so having finally woken up and packed it was time to grab Jemma and head to MK.

The one thing I do really like about MK is that it is easy to get to and the onsite accommodation is faultless, say what you like about Paris, but the Hiltons know how to run a hotel!

As is now becoming a tradition, no sooner were all the bags dropped into room it was time to hit the bar (for a cup of tea...)

Shhhh.... Spoilers!

With the mid-season break of Doctor Who rapidly approaching I got to thinking about, to quote River Song, Spoilers Sweetie.....

I’m trying to decide if spoilers are a good or a bad thing, to help me decide I’ve posted the question on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/mh10th).

River's Diary... Spoilers

Personally I think spoilers are bad, I liken it to reading the last page of a book first, or watching a race when you already know who wins....

But on the other hand spoilers do have their place; little teasers for example wet the appetite for what’s to come, hence the little snippets of the next episode.

It’s probably more down to personal preference as to whether spoilers are good or bad, one thing that does bug me though is when people indiscriminately share them. The last thing I want to see when I log onto Twitter or Facebook is a random post telling me the storyline of a show that isn’t due to be broadcast for weeks.

So for this short post it’ll end as it began, with the words of River Song.

Shhhh.... Spoilers!

Much Ado About Something...

It’s a quiet Monday night and I’m at home now fully recovered from my amazing weekend experience, to sum it up in four words: I met David Tennant!!

Now before I get into the whole of experience of Much Ado About Nothing I need to go back in time a bit (insert appropriate Doctor Who joke here...).  What you may (or may not) know is that I’m a lookalike, specifically a 10th Doctor lookalike and up until now I’d never managed to actually meet the man himself, despite several attempts in the last 18 months.

So, when it was announced that Catherine Tate and David Tennant would be taking to the stage as Beatrice and Benedict in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing it was an opportunity that could not be missed.

After doing battle with a crashing internet site and jammed phone lines I was able to book tickets, I confess I got a little over excited while booking and before I knew it I’d booked to go three times! I’d booked the final night (September 3rd) a Friday night in July and a night in May (20th) early on in the run.

Before long it was D-Day (or should that be DT-Day), I made it to London in good time and was at the Wyndham by 3.30pm. Once we’d scouted where the Stage Door was it was time to grab food and have a wander around Covent Garden (this did result in me buying both a flat cap and aviator style sunglasses, both of which are cool!).

Skip on to 7pm and it was time to open the theatre doors, we were amazed by how small the theatre is and how close we were to the stage. We’d got row M tickets and the view was perfect.

The show itself was amazing, really good and enjoyable to watch. I’m not going to go into detail about costumes or what happens as I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t been to see it yet (I don’t know about you but I hate spoilers!). What I will say is that both David and Catherine are epic, they have great chemistry and play off each other really well. One of the true stars of the show had to be Dogberry, Master Constable of the Watch. Nothing is funnier than watching a Shakespearian fist bump accompanied by the word Boom! (Shakespearian Boo-ya?!?).

Merchandise wise there are three things to choose from, a David and Catherine poster (£10), a programme (£3.50) and copy of the script (£6.99), all are really good and well worth the cost.

When the performance came to an end it was time to shoot round to the stage door. By the time we arrived there were already a number of people there, the majority were all clutching their Much Ado programmes but there were also the expected collection of autograph hunters and eBay Dealers...

Nat and I managed to get near enough to the barrier to be in with a chance, there was then the wait until David and Catherine appeared, now there are a couple of advantages to being a fanboy (as opposed to a fangirl), namely I was tall enough to be able to lean in and get both Catherine’s and David’s autograph and get a few pictures as well. It was fab, I’d managed to see both of them and get the autographs I’d wanted, however this high point was cut short when I found out that Nat hadn’t been so lucky, she’d missed out on David, disaster!

It turned out one of the eBay dealers mentioned earlier had shoved a clipboard in the way so Nat had missed out, upon hearing this the decision was made to go back to London the next night, we would have our space on the barrier, and that’s exactly what we did!

Roll on 9pm the next night and we were back in London, and thanks to the friendly fans that were already there we got our space, it was at this point we also randomly spotted Alex Kingston (yes, River Song!) outside the restaurant near the Wyndham, we popped over and briefly said “Hi” she was really nice and quite stunning, she was in a hurry though as she had a taxi waiting so there was no time for a photo, oh well, Collectormania Milton Keynes next week!

10.30pm arrived before we knew it (chatting to the very nice, fellow fangirls Heather, Brittany, Tamara, Ellie and Leanne helped). We had our space on the barrier and had a great experience actually being able to chat to both David and Catherine, get autographs and the best bit was being to get a photo with David as well.

David and Catherine were really nice, they were both chatty and laid back, they were really great and it was a real pleasure to meet them.

As a weekend it’ll take a lot to top! Oh the life of a fanboy...

Me with DT