Categories
Classic Series Merchandise New Series The Geek Clique

The Doctor Who Experience

Not so long ago, and with some the Geek Clique in tow, I ventured to West London to see the Doctor Who Experience. It’s at the Kensington Olympia – a right pain in the arse to get to – for the next month or so. Is it worth catching? Well, that depends.

I’ve been to quite a few Doctor Who events over the last year or two. The frankly appalling stage show first. Then the excellent Crash of the Elysium. Since we were down in London anyway we decided we’d give the Experience a go. It was either that or go and see the warehouses at Shad Thames where Rodney Bewes was running away from Lytton.

The Experience is rather like Crash of the Elysium in that it’s slick, has a certain amount of audience interaction and feels ever-so-slightly overpriced.

Also like Crash of the Elysium there’s a sort of narrative that involves Matt Smith saying he needs some help into a camera while whirling around inside the TARDIS.

I can’t actually remember a lout about the actual experience, barring a bravura piece of 3D cinema that finally makes the medium feel worth bothering with.

There’s also an excellent bit at the end with monster suits and costumes and props. And, following that, an expansive gift shop that’s a monument to just what a money-spinner Doctor Who is for the BBC. Tacky shit.

But what made the Doctor Who Experience such a, well, experience was something that had never happened there before and never will again.

Shuffling past us as we entered and looking for all the world like Terrance Dicks was… Terrance Dicks. It took us a few minutes to work out whether it was indeed The Man Of A Hundred Targets, but the unmistakable voice confirmed it: we were traversing the universe with Terrance Dicks.

One of the sections involves piloting the TARDIS – pushing buttons on an instrument panel about a yard in front of what I assume is a replica of the TARDIS console prop. The Geek Clique were piloting the TARDIS with Terrance Bloody Dicks.

It was, genuinely, a wonderful moment. Later on a couple of the guys spoke to him and confirmed that he was very pleasant but not especially keen to speak to a number of star-struck Doctor Who fans in their mid-30s. Keen though I was to say hello to Terrance and how much I liked his work (including his New and Missing Adventures – and even his non-Who work, including Cry, Vampire) I thought he’d appreciate being allowed to look at an old TARDIS console (the one that debuted in the Five Doctors, looking weirdly small) unmolested.

All in all it was an experience that made the twenty quid entry fee a lot less galling. I’ll never forget it.

Categories
Classic Series New Series

Doctor Who 50th anniversary celebrations start here

Only a year to go til Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary. That just doesn’t seems possible – as it never seemed possible that Jon Pertwee, Nick Courtney or Lis Sladen would no longer be with us – or our favourite Doctors would grow old. Or that our series would ever return to the television.

Sorry to start off on a rather maudlin note, but it becomes increasingly hard not to measure the passage of time by certain personal landmarks in this way after a while. I still remember the run-up to the 20th anniversary – the Five Doctors and the Andrew Skilleter Radio Times cover and the Radio Times special that my Dad bought.

I don’t really remember the 25th – I ducked in and out of Doctor Who over the Sixth and Seventh Doctor eras. I never took to poor Colin at the time but came back for Sylv’s first series. I remember being utterly non-plussed by whichever story I first saw of his, but was utterly disgusted when Delta and the Bannermen was trailed with a picture of Sylvester and Ken Dodd gurning violently – and took the next two years off.

I also remember reading of The Dark Dimension (scripts floating around on the internet show it to be absolutely dreadful) in Doctor Who Magazines and TV Zones, DWBs and Starbursts while standing at the magazine shelves in WH Smiths – and reading about its cancellation. Other 15-year-olds furtively bought pornography; I furtively bought sci-fi mags (though I later went on to furtively buy pornography and sci-fi mags).

35. Did anything happen? Not that I can remember. 40. Ah, the new series announcement. Was it really the best part of ten years ago? I had a different job; lived in a different house, with a different girl. How time flies. I was so excited I texted my brother when I was driving home from work (I know, I know) and then listened, annoyed, to some piss-taking announcement on BBC Radio 1.

If anything specific happened at 45 I don’t remember it. And now 50. 50 fucking years. I literally can’t believe it. But its coming does excite me. The fanboy feeling that – even though it’s elusive and fleeting – reminds me why I love Doctor Who, even now.

I haven’t been excited by a TV show’s anniversary for 20 years. But the prospect of what The Grand Moff promises will be every fanwanky dream come true is mouth-watering indeed. I don’t dare to voice my hopes for an anniversary story that I hope throws sense and good taste out of the window. And I thoroughly expect all the trimmings too. A Multi-Doctor Big Finish story; DWM getting in the big guns for a round of joint interviews; special BBC1 trails throughout the year; a nice Radio Times cover story; a massive contention (not that I’d go, of course). The works.

In what is like the first batch of Christmas adverts you see on the TV (or advent hymns if you’re more traditional) the 50th anniversary has been teased with this wonderful trailer from Babelfish; genius amateur editor and a man who has gone well beyond the call of duty in producing delicious morsels on Doctor Who video fun. It;s his tribute to the show and a visual nod to every TV story, spin-off and continuity thing. A phenomenal effort – and one that stirs the same part of me that awaited The Five Doctors, over 30 years ago.