A return to Chiswick and more

If I'm honest dear reader I struggled to think of a title this week (you probably guessed that already), but as ever my weekend (as ever) was the highlight.

Chris and Peter, delightful gentleman

The week was spent finishing off lectures and getting feedback (I already can't really remember any of it if I'm honest). Come Saturday I had a very early start to go to Chiswick for this month’s signing (it feels like ages since I'd last been). However, this time I was helping out. This involved helping setting up (usual SM duties then) and sitting with guests (I'd have paid to do that bit). In the first session I sat with the charming Chris Clough, a director, who hadn't done an event before, but had a lot to say. Having spent a few hours with him, I learnt a lot about his stories and methods of working (he's now a producer so that was useful). In the first session was another fantastic director Michael E. Briant who bizarrely remembered from a year ago (I'm assuming that's a good sign). At long last I managed to meet Sylvia James (make-up extraordinaire) having missed her a few times, who, like all the guests, was lovely. The second session saw me sitting with Peter Craze (again a joy). He's done three stories so again there was lots to discuss (his brother was also a companion). Again the rest of the guests were great, but I managed to catch up with Chris Porter (‘Romeo and Juliet’) who remembered me and we had a bit of a catch-up which I wasn't expecting! All in all a rather brilliant event!

Now you may have thought that I went home dear reader, oh no, I popped over to catch up with Peter. For once this had been pre-planned (to an extent) and I was able to pop in for a few hours and have a cuppa which was lovely. Having had a rather brilliant day I headed back to Cardiff (very late at night).

Having got back to Cardiff Sunday morning again you may have thought that that would be it for my weekend, but no. A few hours later I was up and out for Cardiff Comic Con. Whilst it wasn’t a big event, there were a few guests that I wanted to meet. The first of which was Anna Shaffer who has most recently appeared in 'Class'. It turns out we were on the same train last night, but that's not the point. I was the first Class fan that she's met so she was interested to hear what I thought of the series (let’s not go into that). Tom Hooper was my second guest having missed him a number of times at events I was pleased to finally meet him. Likewise he was a lovely chap, rather surprised to still be talking about 'Jeff the good looking one'. Finally I met Donald Sumpter, someone who I was very keen to meet (the reason why I wandered in). Having done both modern and classic Who I had a lot to ask him, of which I had time to ask him one of two questions which was nice. Having met the three people that I wanted to, Joe (who I live with) appeared with his little brother so we went round looking at the merchandise (they were able to explain few of the costumes that I didn’t recognize). Now having met everyone I could have gone home, were it not for the fact that I had a photoshoot with Donald at 4.00pm, so I had to hang around. Thus, the three of us listened to the Game of Thrones talk (Donald was on fine form, very funny), however as I’ve only the seen the first series and Joe didn’t recognize them when not in costume so we spent the entire panel trying to work out who they played (I think we got there, but not we’ve got to watch Game of Thrones). Following that, we went to an Indian Jones talk and a talk with Tom Hooper. After a another wander around the merchandise and a lovely chat with both Roy Scammell and Danny Webb it was finally time for the photo shoot. Having had a very busy day at Comic Con, I wandered home, rather tired following a rather hectic, but enjoyable weekend!