Entertainment Media Show, Day 2 – Benedick meets Benedick (aka Matt meets David Tennant!)

So with day one of EMS completed and the series finale of Doctor Who watched it was time to put my mind to day two of EMS.

Why was day two so important, well unless you’ve been living on the moon you’d know that David Tennant himself was going to be there as a guest.

Benedick

Now call me a fanboy all you like, but for me this was epic and I have to confess I was very excited! However, I also had a dilemma... What do you wear to meet someone who you class as an icon??

I’d been pondering this very question from the moment that he was attending was announced. Normally for an event I’d simply don the 10^th Doctor suit and swan about as normal, but this was different, did I really want to meet David Tennant dressed at 10? How would he react and what would he think?

I asked the very question of what to wear to my Facebook Page and they replied with Ten but I still wasn’t really feeling it. I think the fact that the world and it’s mother (classic expression!) would be there dressed as Ten also didn’t really help, when I saw him did I want to be (or not be) remembered as just another Ten?

Entertainment Media Show, Day 1 – Has It Really Been Two Years?

Approximately two years ago the ‘Entertainment Media Show featuring Collectormania London’ (EMS) was simply known as Collectormania London, it was also the first convention event I ever went to so this event (in name rather than strict timing) was my 2^nd anniversary for being on the convention scene...

Why does this always happen to me?

Originally I was going to go for my standard 10^th Doctor look for this event, then the British weather intervened and we had an unseasonal October heat wave , so the Doctor gear was out and Benedick was in (complete with white paint!).

So Saturday morning Jemma was given the highly amusing show of me preparing to be Benedick, following on from Benedicks first outing at Glasgow (and another viewing of Much Ado About Nothing)  I’d got a better idea of how to apply the paint without having too many hand prints.

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