Day 1908: Invasion

Saturday:


Do not PANIC! This is not a plot by the CLANGERS to overrun the Earth – “Invasion” is a special place called a DOCTOR WHO convention.

Even though I am now on the Moon for my own safety, I still have friends on the Earth and – like JAMES BOND! – I will give my SECRET AGENTS special code names to protect their identities from Mr Blair’s SECRET POLICE. They will be known only as DADDY A and DADDY R!

So, my Daddies went to the Invasion convention yesterday and have told me all about it. Daddy A concealed himself in the queue for autographs and Daddy R mingled with the crowd in the main hall listening to the GUEST SPEAKERS.

The FIRST people on the stage were MR WARIS HUSSEIN and MR DERREN NESBITT.

Mr Waris is a lovely man and he was also the very first ever person to direct an episode of DOCTOR WHO which is called AN UNEARTHLY CHILD and YOU can watch this if you get the DVD like we have!

Mr Derren is an actor who appeared in the fourth ever DOCTOR WHO story, which is called “Marco Polo” (which was ALSO directed by Mr Waris!) and is about the FAMOUS EXPLORER Fiat Polo. Unfortunately you cannot watch the DVD of Marco Polo. This is a bit of a sore point with my Daddies, because the BBC BURNT the only copy of the DVD!!! However some very clever people have done the NEXT BEST THING, and this is very good too.

We HAVE been watching a lot of Mr Derren recently, wearing a variety of wigs and sticky on beards, as he is usually GUEST VILLAIN in SIR LANCELOT. This is an exciting adventure serial which I would enjoy very much EXCEPT that it has a VERY AWFUL theme song that makes my fluffy ears ache!

Mr Derren told us about when he was in ITALY and ate at the same trattoria every day and had the SPAGHETTI BOLOGNAISE every day! Eventually he asked Mama Trattoria how she made spaghetti bolognaise so that he could make it for himself when he came home. So for years afterwards he could only make bolognaise in a HUGE pan enough to serve fifty people. (I think my Daddies have this same problem!)

The NEXT people on stage were the very lovely people from BIG FINISH audio adventures. They were: Mr Simon and Mr Ian and Mr Joe and Mr Dick Darlington (the handsome Australian barman) and the very lovely Mr Russell T Gary who is the producer of DOCTOR WHO.

Big Fish make DOCTOR WHO stories on CD (as I have said before CDs are like DVDs but without pictures). They ALSO do CD adventures of PROFESSOR BENNY SUMMERFIELD who is a friend who used to travel with Dr WHO but who doesn’t need a Time Lord to do cool stuff! And they do BOOKS too!

Agent Daddy R was particularly excited by the news that they have just recorded a Doctor Who adventure for COLIN BAKER and NICOLA BRYANT with CLAUDIA CHRISTIAN and that they will be publishing a book about Benny from BEN AARANOVICH.

My Daddy says that I have a Big Finish, but I THINK that he means I have a Big Bottom!!! He is VERY mean!


After that, the THIRD person (if you count the Big Finish people as one person, otherwise he was the SEVENTH EIGHTH) on the stage was Mr RICHARD BRIARS. Apparently he was in DOCTOR WHO once too – and he apologised for his underplayed and understated performance.

But he is much more famous for lots of other stuff. In particular playing Mr TOM in THE GOOD LIFE. This is still very popular THIRTY YEARS after they made it! Mr Richard thought that this was because it was not like the television on telly today, and that it is quite a relief to most viewers that Margo DOESN’T come in with a six inch knife dripping in blood! I think he has a POINT there!

However, since he enjoys being an actor, Mr Richard says that (much as he loves the Good Life) he enjoyed the acting more in EVER DECREASING CIRCLES. I think this is one of the VERY FEW things my Daddies do not have on DVD! No doubt they will correct this soon.

But the BEST thing about Mr Richard is that he is the voice of RHOOBARB AND CUSTARD who are my very favoritest cartoon green dog and pink cat. (Do not try watching all of the cartoons in one go though or the Nuh-nuh-nerrr Nuh-nuh-nerrr theme tune will drive you around the bend! Even more than the Sir Lancelot song!)

After this Daddy R went to see where Daddy A had got to. This was very naughty of him as it meant that he missed the talk from Mr KEV McCURDY who worked on the fights and stunts for the new telly series of DOCTOR WHO. Fortunately, Daddy A met him for his autograph and said he was very, very nice and probably the most genuinely pleased that people WANTED his autograph!

In the afternoon, Daddy R waited with Daddy A in the long queue for autographs from MISS CAMILLE CODURI. Even though this was a very long queue, it actually moved rather quickly and was organised very well! Even so, this meant that Daddy R missed the talk from Mr Dirty Den. Another black mark for Agent Daddy there!

However, he did return to the hall to listen to MISS SARAH SUTTON who once played ROO in WINNIE THE POOH and was in the MOON STALLION before she got to travel with TWO Dr Whos as Nyssa, who is a fairy princess from the planet Traken.

She was asked about her “notorious SKIRT DROPPING scene!” and told us that the producer had said to her “you’ve got such PRETTY underwear and it’s such a shame that no one gets to see it!”

I have looked up the word NAÏVE!

Both of my Daddies Agents were in the hall, and so was almost everybody else, for the first convention appearance for the fabulous MISS CAMILLE CODURI who plays ROSE TYLER’S MUM on telly. She may have been a bit nervous to start with, but she soon hit her stride when she realised that the audience loved her.

[R: And loved a bit of Jackie innuendo!]

She also gave us a bit of a TEASER TRAILER for the SECOND series: apparently Jackie will TIME TRAVEL, and it will be funny how it happens! Daddies are gagging for the new series more than ever now!

After the RAPTUROUS applause for Miss Camille had died down, the day was rounded out with a panel of four excellent people who had all been MONSTERS! Mr Barnaby Edwards and Mr Nicholas Pegg had both trundled and terrified as shiny scary gold DALEKS; Mr Simon Day was the STEWARD who got cooked by THE END OF THE WORLD; and Mr Alan Ruscoe was lots of monsters, but the most terrifying was certainly the ANNE DROID!!!


Anyway, I must go now because I have lots of things to explain to the CLANGERS who have not seen the new series of DOCTOR WHO yet – they have been having to make do with some old films of THE DALEKS MASTER PLAN and FURY FROM THE DEEP.