LFCC 2012 - random cosplay

As well as seeing a good selection of Doctor Who cosplayers, I saw some great costumes from other films and tv programmes.

Here is a little gallery of the best.

LFCC 2012 - cosplay Who?

The London Film And Comic Convention may encompass sci-fi and fantasy in all its forms, but there is always a good showing of Doctor Who cosplayers.
As I went round I did my best to snap as many costumes as I could. Here’s what I found.

Despite matt Smith being the most popular Doctor of the moment, I did find a number of classic series costumes.

Nice to see a young closplayer as the Seventh Doctor; I shan’t say too much about the costume the Fifth Doctor is wearing (since I made it!); I’ve seen this Fourth Doctor before - he makes me smile; and really cool to see a First Doctor, especially with half the original TARDIS crew (William Russell and Carole Ann Ford) attending the event!

David Tennant star may be on the wain, but there was still a good number of Tenth Doctor cosplayers in attendance, all of them wearing the right suit and tie combinations!

I’m still not quite sure what the muppet in the pram was about, but its costume was cool too!

The lad in the blue suit had a really good alternative match to the Nina Ricci tie. I was impressed!

I also found a group of Doctor Who cosplayers who were raising money for charity.
There was a variety of Doctor cosutmes as well as K-9 and a weathered looking classic series Cyberman!

They also had a curious new series Dalek, but painted in a form of classic series colours. I’ve seen a few of these around and am expecting to see a few more when I attend NorCon alter this year.

The Dalek was escorted around the event flanked by two UNIT officers - one classic and one new series.

LFCC 2012 - product Who?

While at this weekend’s London Film And Comic Convention at Olympia, I took a good look around the dealers tables.
There were a lot of cool Doctor Who stuff on offer, most of which was the standard fare you would see at Forbidden Planet or any good science fantasy bookshop.

But if you looked beyond the usual, you could find one or two interesting things to buy.
Here are just a few I thought of note.

Knitted K-9s
Yeah - everyone seems to be knitting things these days, but these caught my eye and made me smile.

Russian Dolls
An original twist on a classic idea, these are pretty and nicely painted.
I do, however, have to pull the seller up on a couple of things. I was looking at them in their glass car, trying to get a good photo or two, when the stall-holder and maker of the dolls came up to tell me about them.
His hard sell and relentless information was quite off putting, and I found their note on the publicity material that they were Patent Pending made me frown as I bet they are NOT BBC licensed.

Matt Smith doll
Something that is distinctly BBC licensed is the posable Matt Smith!

I have seen the publicity photos of Matt and Karen with the dolls, and have read about the attention to detail they contain.

The face is scarily lifelike, for such a small doll.

Seeing it up close was certainly interesting. The doll and costume is certain surprisingly accurate, with a reproduction of the Shetland Tweed fabric, with the stripes and pattern repeat just right.
His jeans and boots are also pleasingly accurate.

The doll comes with a variety of interchangeable hands so he can hold a number of prop sonic screwdrivers and accessories.

LFCC 2012 - queuing chaos theory

Last year I had a great time at the London Film and Comic Convention at London’s Earl’s Court.

This year it was staged at Olympia’s Grand Hall, as was less of a pleasant experience.
I had bought myself an Early Bird ticket for the Saturday, which gains me entry after 9am, whereas the standard ticket holders don't get in til after 10.30am.

With the impending London Olympics the underground has been rife with weekend closures for engineering works and this weekend was no exception. Luckily for me my route was unaffected, but there were substantial barriers for a lot of people heading for the event.
However, they all seemed to have got round this as when I got there I was confronted by a sea of a thousand-plus people. Last years venue has a substantial open space in front of it and it was possible to have two distinct queues for early and standard entry; Olympia by comparison just has a pavement out front along which there was a chaotic queue which snaked its way back and forth in front of the venue, with people slowly moving in opposing directions.

I joined a queue which seemed to contain people with the same ticket as me, and at one point we started moving. Hurrah!
I followed the queue as it moved and at the point when I expected it to turn - it just evaporated and I found myself standing in open pavement. Looking round I found all branches of the queue had suddenly rushed for the door, leaving me behind!!

Chaos ensued as officials told us to go to the North entrance - on a building that has its doors labeled with numbers! No-one seemed to know what was going no and it was not far off 10am before I could get in.

Once inside, the first thing I came across was The Batmobile from the early Batman films. It is pretty awesome - and large!






I was a honey pot for anyone in Batman cosplay and there were some great costumes to see.

The Batman and Catwoman looked superb, and the Batmobile was the perfect backdrop.

There were lots of ‘celebrities’ on hand to sign autographs, for a fee.

Representing Doctor Who were William Russell and Carole Ann Ford - the only surviving members of the original TARDIS crew - oh, and Janet Fielding!

Around the corner promoting his appearances in Merlin, Buffy and the Nescafe adverts, as well as Doctor Who.

Being a modern convention, a vast area was given over to the trade stands all out to part you with your money.

Finally I thought I’d share with you my Where’s Waldo photo of the convention floor. Can you spot The Doctor’s TARDIS?

Another fine mess!

When writing for my blog, I do my best not to clutter it up with too many spoilers, and limit myself to giving you a heads-up on new official publicity shots the BBC want us to see.

Well I had to share the following with you, but I’m putting it under a spoiler to spare those who don’t want to know too much about series seven . . . .

SPOILERS
DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING IF YOU WANT SERIES SEVEN TO BE FULL OR SURPRISES!

News has been breaking quite openly that Dame Diana Rigg is going to be appearing in series seven! As well as posting on the official Doctor Who twitter feed, the story has been running on the BBC News website.

The controlled release of this news is often a forerunner to location filming, which is notoriously difficult to keep under wraps these days, given the tenacity of fans who stalk the production's every move.

So it came as no surprise to me to see photos emerge later the same day showing filming in Bute Town with Matt Smith, Jenna-Louise Coleman and none other than Dame Diana Rigg herself!

But what caught my eye, as I'm sure it did you, is Matt is wearing yet ANOTHER new costume.

This time it is a brown tartan/tweedy frock coat, with matching waistcoat and trousers; another new brown bow tie; he is also wearing new brown shoes; and for the first time a bowler hat.

The weather wasn’t very good yesterday, so a lot of time - and hence a lot of the photos - show Matt keeping dry under a long thermal coat, but there are a few glimpses of the whole ensemble.

The story has been announced as being set in a mysterious Victorian village up north, so I'm hoping Matt is merely dressed incognito and this is jut a one off outfit for this story.

Looking at the photos, I just can't get the face of Stan Laurel out of my mind!

What ho, Doctor!

Filming continues apace on series seven, and Matt Smith was seen shooting scenes for Cubed.
As well as holding the prop cube, he also is seen using a monocle, something I can’t recall being used regularly since the 1960s by original Doctor, William Hartnell (I have a recollection of Jon Pertwee using one, but I maybe wrong).



I’d assume this is a one-off prop specifically used for this one episode, but it would be cool for it to pop up again at some point.


It would be cool too if it was a reference to previous incarnation.

The Crash Of The Elysium

You may have read recently that I was fortunate enough to win tickets to see The Crash Of The Elysium in Ipswich. Well this past weekend was when I got to go!

The event itself is in the form of a council-funded local exhibition, taking place in a purpose-built tent not far from the New Wosley Theatre in central Ipswich.

The Elysium was the flagship of the Mayfield Star Line, and was launched in 1888 by the Princess Helena, herself a veteran of over thirty voyages.

The ship had not long been in service when it catastrophically ran aground on rocks on the south coast of England.

The Elysium was carrying a cargo of valuable metals, including ingots of gold, as well as a quantity of industrial machine parts for the cotton trade. At the time the value of the lost gold ingots has been estimated at over one thousand pounds, now several million by today’s standards.

Also on board was a confidential cargo being transported under government warrant.

Mystery surrounds the circumstances of the wrecking, as no storm warning was issued in that sector, and weather conditions were described as calm.

Captain T. A. Solomon, the ship’s skipper, as well as the rest of the eight man crew were reported as being lost at sea to the coastguard’s office in the early hours of that fateful morning.

It wasn’t long before salvage rights were being contested by several local agencies.

Despite speculation as to the secret nature of the government cargo, Whitehall refused to comment on the nature of the artifact or artifacts. Crew records left at Mortimer House suggest the cargo may have been a statue, possibly of some value. Several eye witnesses to the disaster describe the figure of a woman emerging from the wreckage, one going so far to suggest she resembled an angel in appearance, but such reports were dismissed as wild fancy.

The exhibition on show at Ipswich goes into great detail about the history of the ship; its construction long -side its sister ship; with many recovered artifacts from the wreckage and commemorative mementos contemporary to the time.

Our tour of the exhibition was greatly aided by the curator who joined us to guide us around the many display cases and photographs on offer. He presented a short visual slideshow of pictures of the crew of the ill-fated liner, as well as showing us the Elysium being built and its launch which was witness by a crowd of thousands.

And that is really as much as I can write about my trip, as after that point things really started to take a dramatic turn about which I feel I cannot speak.

The shared experiences of myself and the others in our twenty-strong tour party will be something no doubt we will carry for many years to come. It was shocking, and at times truly disturbing.

I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!!!

SPOILERS
DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING IF YOU HAVE INTENTION OF GOING TO SEE THE EXHIBITION. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

This has actually one of the hardest reviews I have ever had to write, as the experience of going and the ‘play’ itself was so fantastic, I cannot possibly write the review without hinting at what you might see or give away the plot.

EVERYTHING I HAVE WRITTEN UNTIL NOW HAS BEEN PART OF THE FICTION OF THE PERFORMANCE.

Before you even enter, the production is wrapped up in a mist of misdirection, with zero Doctor Who branding on show.

The staging is designed to resemble those council-funded regional theatres with low budget posters and information boards telling you the history of the scuppered Elysium liner - all of which is part of the illusion.

And where this works the best is that you just do not twig this until things really start kicking off. the curator who talked us through the exhibits is an actor, and the military SWAT team that burst in from nowhere and hijack the tour party take you by such surprise that it almost feels real.

We are seconded to their team and are marched to a waiting room where we are decked out in white boiler suits and drilled ready for our impending mission.

The Mission? To recover an artifact from a crashed space ship called the Elysium. Our only clue is that from the ship’s Doctor who may or my not have survived the impact.

From here we are taken though a series of scenarios with frightening reality and nerve-biting danger. There are parts of the performance where we are called upon to recover clues and piece together the mystery surrounding the crash of BOTH Elysiums, as the significance of the Victorian incarnation is never truly lost.

At one point we are trapped in a corridor with a locked door at the end. Our military guardians are desperately trying to free the door, while the lights are flickering. Suddenly at the end of the corridor is an Angel. With split-second timing it progresses down towards us, only moving in true Angel style when the lights are lost. It is seriously real and amazing to experience.

But our escape is short lived as we are flung back in time to the 1800s and a fairground. The attack on our senses was total, with straw covered floor and the pungent smell of manure filling the air. You really felt like you weren’t anywhere near where you started and the imperative to get home felt higher than ever. . .

All in all it took an hour to play out the events, at the end of which I wanted MORE! You felt that this really was something you had never experienced before, and reading the background to the productions by PunchDunk in the past, it is a new way of looking at audience participation which raises it to a level rarely seen at the moment.

The Doctor Who Experience was pretty cool, and it plays out a you-are-there scenario too, but this was something else.

I cannot recommend it any higher!

Bet you wish you had gone now?

Further reading about
The Crash Of The Elysium can be found here

North West Historical Society
The Elysium crahses!

A Meeting Of Doctors - when fiction becomes FACT

I hope you enjoyed our A Meeting Of Doctors photo-story I have been running over the past few days.

As well as having enormous fun doing it, the shoot was a logistical challenge to get everyone there at the same time; with all the props we needed; at the location we wanted; on a day we could shoot without being noticed too much.

I’m happy to say we achieved everything in my list –
except the last one ...

We did our photo-shoot at lunchtime on Thursday May 25th, and by the next day it had been reported as FACT that Matt Smith had been back at Eddie’s Diner filming new scenes for series seven!

it first appeared on Doctor Who Filming – a fan run Facebook page which documents all the filming as it happens.

Quite where the TARDIS in the back alley came from. We WISHED we had one, but didn’t.

The Eleventh Hour - the two Matts

This past weekend was The Eleventh Hour convention in Birmingham.

It marks Matt Smith’s first ever appearance at an independent convention – as opposed to the Official Convention in Cardiff back in March.

Lots of people went and many had their photo taken with the man himself – but there was only ONE photo I wanted to see . . . .