Dufus & Shirt...

...Living 'The High Life'

It was time for another Spirit Sinema Signing Spectacular, this one featuring a ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ reunion and a number of guest stars from the recently transmitted Series 10. However, it was another guest that caught Shirt’s attention, ‘Mindwarp’ guest-star, Patrick Ryecart, who had been advertised at three previous signing events that Shirt had attended (including a Spirit Sinema event just over a year before), but who had singularly failed to attend any of them and without even contacting the organisers. Dufus meanwhile was excited by the possibility of meeting Simon Williams, and so tickets were booked.

Dufus came down on the Friday evening, arriving late, and so the two did not get up particularly early the next morning. However, despite this, due to the most straight-forward journey to the Chiswick church hall ever, they still arrived ten minutes before the doors were supposed to open. The doors had in fact been opened early, possibly due to the light rain falling on the queue. After around ten minutes queuing, they were entering the foyer, where Shirt picked up the entry tickets (and a Jasmine Breaks photo) whilst Dufus decided which photos he was going to buy.

Standing by the sign with the advertised guests on, they worked out exactly how many of each value autograph voucher Dufus needed, with his deciding to reduce his original count on realising the cost.

Joining another queue, they purchased their autograph vouchers, Shirt almost asking for what they had worked out for Dufus, rather than his earlier calculated voucher numbers.

There was supposed to be a photo-studio with the ‘Remembrance’ guests, and so Dufus and Shirt moved towards the tables with the other guests’ names above, hoping to get them whilst others were queuing for the studio. However, the ‘Remembrance’ guests came and sat down at their tables, and a few minutes later, it was announced that the photographer was stuck in traffic, and the photo studio would be at the end of the signing session.

Dufus and Shirt therefore joined a reasonably short queue for Simon Williams, with Dufus getting his ‘Remembrance’ DVD cover signed, whilst chatting to Simon about ‘The Archers’, and Shirt his copy of ‘The Worlds of Doctor Who’.

Both posed for a photo (Simon being a Granada Holmes guest star), before side-stepping to the next queue.

Next up was Karen Gledhill (who Shirt did not want to meet, having met her at LE Day 4), who also signed Dufus’ DVD cover, then posed for a photo taken by Shirt.

Moving to the other end of the hall, they managed to join a queue for Pamela Salem, which seemed to be merging with several others. DVD cover signed and photo taken, and they were moving on again.

Next up was the lovely Jasmine Breaks, who recognised Shirt, from two previous events (including Invasion III), signing his photo then posing for the obligatory one with Shirt.

A previously long queue for Sophie Aldred had dissipated, and so they walked straight up for Sophie to find a space on the ’Remembrance’ DVD cover for Dufus, and to sign the ‘Destiny of the Doctor: Shockwave’ CD cover for Shirt. Photos taken, they side-stepped to Mark Strickson, who signed a photo for Dufus (which he had swapped from the Ice Warrior one that he originally purchased) and ‘Ringpullworld’ for Shirt.

Managing to force their way through Pamela Salem’s queue, they managed to reach the signing table of Derrick Sherwin, who was in a wheelchair and seemed quite frail. Having been at another recent Spirit Sinema event, he was not doing much business, but signed ‘The Invasion’ and ‘Spearhead from Space’ DVD covers for Dufus and ‘Spearhead’ for Shirt.

The final guest had finally appeared, Alison Lintott, the Matron from ‘World Enough and Time’ who ‘cares’ for Bill. The ‘Series 10 – Part 2’ DVD not being released for two more days, Dufus had followed Shirt’s example and had a poster of the publicity image with Bill falling out of the TARDIS for Series 10 guest stars to sign.

Both therefore got their posters signed, Shirt going first so he didn’t look like he’d copied Dufus.

They then both posed with Alison for a photo (Shirt due to her being a guest star in ‘Sherlock’ Series 1 episode – ‘The Great Game’).

It was lunchtime, and so having crammed both the posters back into his poster tube, Shirt led the way to the nearby corner shop to buy lunch through drizzling rain. The rain having gone off for a bit, they managed to stand in the courtyard outside the hall, eating, before it began raining again, and they moved back inside.

Having stood about for around forty minutes, a queue began for the photo-studios. Moving away from this, Shirt overheard a steward asking “Is that cup of tea for Patrick ?”, seemingly suggesting that Mr. Ryecart had arrived.

They therefore joined a queue at the table that now had Patrick’s name above it, with those at the front having seen Patrick enter the hall, and walk straight to the door to a back-room.

“He’s probably walked in, seen us all, and walked straight out of the other side of the building”, joked one of the fans at the front of the queue.

Soon it was the advertised start-time for the second signing session, and wonder of wonders, Patrick Ryecart appeared from the back of the hall. However, he then walked straight past his signing table and into the foyer, seemingly to use the facilities.

“He’s off !”, commented the fan.

Two minutes later and Patrick was back and sitting at his signing table. After about five minutes, Shirt was at the front of the queue, getting his ‘Mindwarp’ cover signed, along with comedy classic ‘The High Life’.

“That was so silly it was so much fun”, commented Patrick, adding “And that theme tune !”

Wishing photographic evidence, Shirt posed for a photo, before Dufus also got his ‘Mindwarp’ cover signed.

Next up was Edward Arthur (‘Adam Colby‘ in ‘Image of the Fendahl’), another guest who had failed to turn up on a previous occasion. DVD covers signed, and they were moving to one side to extract their posters from Shirt’s tube.

First was Rohan Need, ‘Simon’ in ‘The Eaters of Light’ who happily signed both posters, before they moved off to join a queue for Mariah Gale, the wooden girl from ‘Knock Knock’, who looked surprisingly like her character.

Mariah seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself, pulling fans close to her when posing for photos. Shirt also noticed that she appeared to be pregnant.

‘That’s what got you in this mess !’, he thought, as she hugged another attendee tight.

Finally they reached the front, and both had their posters signed before being hugged tight.

Moving along, they reached Richard Ashton, ‘Friday the Ice Warrior’ in ‘Empress of Mars’. He was unsurprisingly very tall, and was speaking about how the suit was that worn by Spencer Wilding in ‘Cold War’, but that the arms needed lengthening.

Posters signed, and both were being towered over in photos.

At the end of the signing tables was John Dorney, who happily signed Shirt’s ‘The Two Masters’ and ‘Original Sin’ CD covers. The two then happily spoke about a production of ‘Hysteria’ that Shirt had seen John in at Greenwich, and about a previous performance when a door jammed at an inopportune moment.

The final guest of the day was Todd Kramer, from ‘The Zygon Invasion’, who signed Shirt’s ‘Series 9’ poster.

Stowing posters in the tube again, they made their way back to Chiswick Station, where the train they wanted had just been cancelled. After a 20 minute wait they caught the next, arriving at Clapham Junction to just miss a train to Shirt’s home station. Fifteen minutes later they finally caught a train, and wended their way back to Shirt’s.

They were then joined by Chalky, Tigger and Enigma, to celebrate Dufus’ birthday a week late. The evening was spent in discussing the announcement of the new (female) Doctor, in teasing Dufus about his new girlfriend, and in playing the ‘Geek Out’ and ‘Logo - What Am I ?' board games..