I've got a friend who's living in the UK at the moment and he asked me about the Doctor Who meeting-night-thingo at some Tavern in England. So I was wondering if anyone could help me out and tell me where this Tavern is and what night it's on so I can forward the details to him.
Thanks
By the way, that shoulda be by 'Luke' not 'Lule'.
Ooh, another victim! Goody, goody. Tavern is The Fitzroy Tavern, on the corner of Windmill Street and Charlotte Street, in London about half-way between Googe Street and Tottenham Court Road tube stations. It's the first Thursday of every month - i.e. the next one will be on 1st May. Just tell him to turn up anytime in the evening (6.45-11.15-sh) and wander round looking lost for a while until someone takes pity on him. Or he can look out for anyone distributing fanzines, swapping CDs, slagging off Gary Russell, intoning 'There is no such thing as Macra' or a similar give-away that they are a Who fan rather than a mere common-or-garden human clogging up OUR Tav. Or he can go round asking for Emily, I don't mind taking care of the poor creature on his first excursion into hardcore fandom. (Bear in mind that he could get directed towards Fiona, who everyone gets muddled up with me (despite her having orange hair and a Canadian accent) on the grounds that we're both small non-fat females, of which there's a bit of a dearth.) Do tell me what his name is, I'll keep an eye open.
I had intended to go to the Tav in May (what with the 1st being my birthday and all that), but in the end I decied not to - however I am intending to go along to the June one! It's quite scary realising how many people from different places I go to go there...
Thanks Em, his name is Mitchell, he's just gone off to Wales and Ireland for a week or two but he asked me the other day where the Tavern was because he's keen to check it out. He's not as familiar with who-dom as you, me or anyone else here, but he does read the books and he loves Doctor Who fanatically.
Hey, Emily, I never got directed to a Fiona.
Or did I? That's the problem with Taverns, too much Irish stout and other various alcoholic drinks to muddle the memory.
Either that or I was basking in your radiance. Or more likely talking to Orinoco and his friend about football, of all things.
Grr! Yes, warning to future Tavern-goers: despite my best efforts, and unbelievable as it may sound, OTHER SUBJECTS have sometimes been known to SNEAK IN to Tavern conversations, especially that *shudders* FOOTBALL thing. Quite why anyone who has seen the Doctor's adventures in time and space would lower themselves to watch some men kicking some ball around has never been explained. (And please nobody try.)
Please bear in mind that this week's Tavern coincides with the traditional May Day protests/riots/police-brutality-fest (delete according to political preference) and newcomers would be best advised to disembark at Goodge Street tube station rather than Oxford Street or Tottenham Court Road to avoid the likelier hot spots.
However, if you chose to take the scenic route, watch out for Lawrence Miles doing his Rodney King impression.
LOL I would like to see that. Hmmm, if I can catch the first BA flight out first thing in the morning I might just get there in time.
Just kidding.
There is no way I can get there in time.
How I miss Tavern these days. No more the joys of having Dave Stone tell you how brilliant he is, Daniel being just a little too strident in claiming he didn't give Dodo VD, Emily just being wonderful, Orinoco providing a decent discussion about football, and the verbal stoushes between Paul Cornell and Lawrence Miles.
I don't miss the beer there, though. It's awful. Definitely a pub where the company is the main attraction.
Wwwaaagghhhh, you too are sorely missed!! Tavern just isn't the same without you! (Though it's still wonderful, obviously. Just like me.) Orinoco hasn't managed to turn up since SEPTEMBER so at least we've been spared the football talk (not that this is likely to save him when he DOES show his face again).
For all the years most of us have been posting here, I don't believe this question has ever come up. Anyone ever been to one?
I did. Once. Over 20 years ago. Shook Tom Baker's hand though.
The honour! The honour!
No, I never have. Not quite sure why. Probably just too mean to pay for 'em. Plus I get more than enough fannish company at Tavern.
It was the only one I ever went to. Although I'm a Doctor Who fan obviously, I do try to distance myself from fanboyism. People walking around with multi-coloured scarves is one thing, but I could really have done without people walking around in Star Trek costumes. I mean, this was back in the early 80s and there was only one guest there, which was Doctor Tom. It's not like there were any Star Trek guests there with him.
A long time of ago. To give you an idea, the big event was the screening of the new episode "Revelation of the Daleks." I'm not a big convention goer anyway; besides this Who con, I've attended one day at a general SF convention (Aggiecon XII, if memory serves), and a Philadelphia comic book convention in the early 90s (just to see Harlan Ellison).
I went to a painfully-cheap little one about 5 or 6 years ago, with very little attendance (maybe no more than 100 people), which prompted the lone guest, John Levene, to claim that all we had to do was look around and see that Who fandom was dead.
I didn't agree, what with the novels out there, but I could see his point. Well, now with Eccleston and Tennant staking new claims, and ratings nice and high I think ol' John needs to rethink his claim.
Also went to another little con where the guest was Yee Jit-Su, or whatever the young actor's name was that was in the Eighth Doctor movie. It really didn't feel like a Who con at all.
I could be in the UK around Aug 18-23... is one of these tavern meetings happening around then? Although I'd be rather tentative about going; I get the impression I might be skinned alive?
You would NOT be skinned alive! Unless *sharpens knives* you said something bad about Christopher Eccleston or Lawrence Miles...tragically, however, it's on the FIRST Thursday of every month so you're gonna miss it.
Ah shame...
HEATHROW'S been blessed with 'a range of Doctor Who themed experiences including appearances from Cybermen, TARDIS photobooths, displays of props and memorabilia, and augmented reality hotspots...Travellers will be able to take pictures of themselves and friends on alien worlds and be menaced by monsters from the comfort of the TARDIS photobooths. Doctor Who passports will be available containing giveaways including a free episode to download, information about Doctor Who activities in terminal over the summer, and a free digital copy of Doctor Who Adventures Magazine.'
SO not fair that those of us who stay near our TV screens instead of swanning off round the world polluting the atmosphere are robbed of such treats.
I just hope to gods they don't mention Time-Flight...
Why not? It was partly filmed at Heathrow, after all.
We don't want to REMIND people of that fact!
I was at this convention once and one attendee had doused herself in massive amounts of perfume... and decided that she she should become my new friend. While I was emulating that episode of The Simpsons where Homer drives past a fertiliser plant and open sewers, a person passed us and said "Christ, what's that smell?".
The perfumed women then gave a little squeak as she felt a whole room full of eyes turn to her, and she then practically ran from the area.
BRILLIANT.
Life so seldom works like that.
Gone are the days when you'd wander into a small empty shop doing a signing mid morning and have a chat with a chap for ten minutes or so while optionally getting them to sign everything you own including the freshly pressed Tom Baker underpants you've somehow squeezed into.
If you are lucky you won't be sandwiched between two anoraks who insist in reciting the name of every companion in order, including transmission dates of start and finish episodes, while attempting to lord it over you because they got Jacqueline Hill's autograph on a fag packet in 1971.
According to the Moff at The Doctor Who Festival today in Sydney, he welcomes the recent real world developments in replacement organs, as long as they mean he can live to a billion years old...
Well, alright, if he wants to IGNORE the DIRE WARNINGS that Who, in its wisdom, has been issuing since 1966...
Mind you, Who might be wrong about the Cybermen. It was certainly a bit off about the effects of linking worldwide computers together. I mean, no doubt we'll all be killed by a dirty bomb a terrorist learnt to build on the Internet, or get eaten by cannibals after the collapse of civilisation thanks to them bringing the world's electronic fiancial system down, but in the meantime we get to see a LOT of kittens doing highly amusing things online.
i think that i was one of the only people there in normal clothes. You had a Brigadier, a couple of Tennants, the odd Tom Baker, several Osgoods and one fellow who was meant to be Capaldi but looked more like Jon Pertwee circa 1993.
in the meantime we get to see a LOT of kittens doing highly amusing things online
More importantly, a Dalek gets to see a LOT of kittens doing highly amusing things online. The rest of the episode when we think it's saying "Exterminate!" it's actually going "Ah, bless!", "Precious!" and "Put that cucumber down, you sick-minded freak!"
You had a Brigadier, a couple of Tennants, the odd Tom Baker, several Osgoods and one fellow who was meant to be Capaldi but looked more like Jon Pertwee circa 1993.
OSGOOD is more popular than TOM BAKER?
These people are SICK.
More importantly, a Dalek gets to see a LOT of kittens doing highly amusing things online. The rest of the episode when we think it's saying "Exterminate!" it's actually going "Ah, bless!", "Precious!" and "Put that cucumber down, you sick-minded freak!"
No wonder it eventually tops itself.
There's only so much cuteness that even a Dalek can cope with at once.
I'm sure that business with the sprinkler system was just an accident.
That happened because it was annoyed about the cucumbers.
Fair enough, then.
DWM: 'Doctor Who had been on-air for a whole 14 years before its first-ever convention in 1977' - WHY, for heaven's sake?!
Ah bless, the London exhibition of Target covers has been extended by three weeks due to popular demand. (Who ARE all these people? I consider myself quite hard-core as far as Fans go, and despite DWM promising me TWO POUNDS OFF if I turned up clutching the mag I wasn't particularly tempted. But then I'm the kind of philistine who was THRILLED when they started sticking photos of Peter Davison having a gun pointed at him on the covers.)
photos of Peter Davison having a gun pointed at him on the covers
O_o
"Buy this magazine or we shoot this Doctor!"?
;-)
Obligatory Emily Explanation: Years ago a magazine called National Lampoon had a cover of a gun being pointed at a dog and the caption read "Buy this magazine or we shoot this dog!" Some people got upset thinking they were serious.
At the time I would have been all 'Shoot him now! Gimme new Doctor!' Now (and in fact every moment post-the-end-of-Androzani)...not so much.
I'd always wondered why Matt Smith and David Tennant seem to pop up at a different convention every other week despite having, you know, actual paying work. Then I read this:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/stars-getting-rich-fan-conventions-933062
Eek.
If I was paying that much for an autographed photo I'd AT LEAST expect THE DOCTOR'S REAL NAME, not some ACTOR'S.
My abiding memory of The Doctor Who Club of Victoria Christmas Party at which we hosted Turlough, is some young fan hopping in the moveable Dalek casing the club had rented and going "exterminate Turlough! exterminate Turlough!"
You people certainly know how to have fun.
(And just for the record, no I'm not being sarcastic.)
Gary Russell: 'Lis [Sladen] dropped out of the Doctor Who circuit for awhile. She later told me that she found conventions hard, sometimes seeing her fellow actors exaggerating or indeed completely fabricating "stories" to entertain the fans' - ouch. (I hope she didn't mean Tom - we all KNOW he's in a WAY more interesting universe of his own.)
These people are in the entertainment business, so, they entertain.
You weren't there when some wanky fan screamed at Moffat that she loved his era and he was the best ever and the look on Moffat's face was just "where do they find them and why do they send them to me?!"
These people are in the entertainment business, so, they entertain.
I get that but I also - as someone who's spent years studying history - have the strong feeling that it's JUST NOT FAIR to tell lies which will ultimately be woven into into historical 'facts'.
(And of course Who ISN'T just entertainment, it's basically a social history of Britain, 1963-??.)
You weren't there when some wanky fan screamed at Moffat that she loved his era and he was the best ever and the look on Moffat's face was just "where do they find them and why do they send them to me?!"
Honestly, you'd think he'd be GRATEFUL that there's still ONE nutter out there who believes that...
I get that but I also - as someone who's spent years studying history - have the strong feeling that it's JUST NOT FAIR to tell lies which will ultimately be woven into into historical 'facts'.
We have historians to sort out those things.
Also, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. 
I've stood just mere steps from McCoy and spoken to him. I've spoken to Capaldi, Ingrid Oliver and Moffat. I skipped the Mark Gatiss panel as i have a one-sided feud with him. All at the Doctor Who Exhibition in Sydney last year.
My first convention was Regenerations in Melbourne in 1993. For some reason, the memory that sticks in my mind is a bunch of saddos re-enacting the "still finding menace in your own shadow?" back and forth from The Five Doctors.
What's so sad about that?
From Gallifrey Base:
'Cardiff council taxpayers have been left with a 1.1 million pound bill following the closure of the Doctor Who Experience, which ran in the city for five years.
'The building housing the experience was built by Cardiff City Council, using money from the Welsh Government's Invest to Save Fund, which provides financial support, on a competitive and repayable basis, to public service organisations across Wales. The cost of £2.4 million, was intended to be repaid by receiving a percentage of the exhibition ticket sales. However, it appears that ticket sales were not sufficient for the council to cover its costs, leaving ratepayers to pick up the shortfall.'
OUCH.
Karen Gillan coming to Tulsa Pop Culture Expo on Nov. 2-4 2018 and billed as her first appearance in Oklahoma:
https://www.tulsaworld.com/scene/downtown/doctor-who-guardians-of-the-galaxy-actress-coming-to-tulsa/article_e49b700a-2a73-5169-b423-b4988a4e736b.html
Will you attend?
I wish I could but I am in Australia.
Ah bless, a new Doctor Who exhibition is to be opened in Cardiff Castle next year, in spite of a) Who demolishing said castle to make way for a nuclear reactor and b) the LAST exhibition costing the Cardiff taxpayer over a million quid...
Life is so cruel.
Dalek Shed Museum Faces Extermination Over Planning Rules.
Eccleston/Tennant/Smith/Capaldi/Whittaker are not Gandhi. They'd be one of the first to admit that -- but the adulation and things being said about them by fans veers close to making them out to be infallible.
Actors will always say there's someone in their lives that keeps their feet on the ground. I don't believe them if they're raking in £100 a photo or signature from hundreds of people.
My beloved Karen Gillan, Matt Smith and Alex Kingston with a couple of fans at Dragon Con 2017:
https://tinyurl.com/ybwcok3n
David Bradley as the First Doctor and John Barrowman as Captain Jack cameo in Time Fracture:
https://www.doctorwho.tv/news/?article=time-fracture-immersive-theatrical-david-bradley-john-barrowman&fbclid=IwAR1vjQ4SVMTAaTg2U755kpWoUfp-U9J3qVQXV_UZyJ4jXF9GrxW_xGt3xww#_
Jodie at London Comic Con on February 26-27 2022:
https://imgur.com/a/IZFm57B
An opportunity for Emily to meet her, maybe?
Not likely given the most likely sky high cost involved…..
Wish I knew how much it cost when I went to my one-and-only convention in 1983. That was before they became the industry they are now. I doubt it was more than US$20 and don't think it was even that much.
I went with my parents (I was in high school) and two others, and somehow we ended up with an extra ticket. I don't know how that happened, but my point is: tickets were cheap enough that it could happen.
When we went to pick up our tickets, there were no tickets left for people who didn't reserve (we had), but nonetheless there was a line of hopefuls. My dad found someone who seemed to be by herself and asked if she wanted a ticket. Her eyes opened wide and she figured he'd charge her double at least, but he just gave it to her for free. Whatever else this story says, it also testifies how inexpensive conventions were then.
Your dad is an adorable human being!
Not likely given the most likely sky high cost involved…..
Not just the COST but the word 'comic' in the title is making me queasy...and then there's the horrible suspicion that we're just talking about some HUMAN who resembles the Thirteenth Doctor who wouldn't actually be ABLE to whisk me off round time and space...
Jodie to have a talk at London Comic Con Winter on November 19-20 2022:
https://imgur.com/a/ePVHbCu
From Gallifrey Base:
'Cardiff council taxpayers have been left with a 1.1 million pound bill following the closure of the Doctor Who Experience, which ran in the city for five years.
'The building housing the experience was built by Cardiff City Council, using money from the Welsh Government's Invest to Save Fund, which provides financial support, on a competitive and repayable basis, to public service organisations across Wales. The cost of £2.4 million, was intended to be repaid by receiving a percentage of the exhibition ticket sales. However, it appears that ticket sales were not sufficient for the council to cover its costs, leaving ratepayers to pick up the shortfall.'
OUCH.
Though of course Who has still basically SAVED Wales:
the BBC blockbuster series has contributed at least £134.6m in GVA (gross value added) to the Welsh economy, created hundreds of jobs and acted as a catalyst for a dramatic growth in Wales’s creative sector
Simple solution: Re-open it and use some of that Disney money to attract more visitors.
Jodie took part in this video from Supanova ahead of her appearances at their Melbourne and Gold Coast, Australia events, the former having now passed:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5SY0s5rneY/?fbclid=IwAR3FUVWM4haOhWit-tKwH0wuD3pu5zWYygQ50RnGrO2i0-aTKDhpjB-VeLo_aem_AZyzBlXKwjFyifZkH3SGCAzJgbkLoVKsbc2ML22du3osQMdlD07Az96b2yvQtFsA5P5fDtzJK1NlPHCSvACOxY-z