Golden Mile Years - The Blackpool Doctor Who Exhibition #2

Blackpool’s Doctor Who Exhibition had a perfect entrance. Sitting just off the main road but visible from it, a TARDIS exterior even larger than the `real` thing sat enticingly open. Colourful signs on the wall to your left invited the eager fan- who really needed no encouragement - to “Defy the Daleks” while clips from the series wafted through the air like sirens attracting their next victims! Not even the warning metallic command “Humanoids will stand still for identification. The TARDIS is under Dalek control” could deter the eager fan. The only ordinary feature of any of this was a toll booth and the fact that the ticket was a generic one without any souvenir value at all as it doesn’t mention what you’ve paid for. However it did only cost 30p! Still that ticket is soon stuffed into a back pocket as you negotiate a descent into darkness. Quite a daring entrance for a public display- normally the sort of thing you’d expect from a ghost train. This long staircase and the fact that from the top you couldn’t see what was down there but you could hear all sorts of noises gave a sense that you really were descending into another world.

Golden Mile Years- The Blackpool Doctor Who Exhibition # 1

The Doctor himself never quite got to Blackpool yet hundreds of thousands of his fans certainly did. Sitting incongruously on the resort’s famous Golden Mile, a large blue police box signalled the entrance to the Doctor Who Exhibition which ran from 1974 to 1985. Sounds from the show- we’d call them samples now- drifted along the road as you approached, images lined the adjacent wall. As a build- up it was brilliant. Then there was that big blue box itself; actually larger in dimensions than the `real` thing and because we were kids it looked even larger. Step inside and for a moment the real world intervenes as you have to pay and you get a rather insignificant ticket with no actual mention of what you were attending on it. Then you descend steep steps and now the outside world is truly gone. Instead it is semi dark with music, dialogue extracts and odd noises playing and lying ahead a series of displays, each beautifully staged and lit, stretching ahead along a winding corridor. The centrepiece is a TARDIS console replica around which sit screens through which we see even more detailed displays containing monsters and props. There’s even a shop at the end containing more merchandise than any fan in those days had ever seen. Even when you climbed the steps and found yourself in a large café, the Doctor Who experience lingered courtesy of the echoes from the exhibition which must have driven the staff crazy after several months! 

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Good Times! Coda

So there you have it, 21 years of Conventioneering. As a whole I must say the abiding memory of all these conventions is that however much I enjoyed them there were always probs with the seating n heating. Oh yes, the seating was rarely comfortable, the heating was always too high. At most of them the hotel staff thought we were nuts, the food was dodgy or expensive but we didn’t really care.

All the reviews in this series have been pretty much left as originally written with the odd polish and yet I can see an unintentional narrative threading through them. It starts with my fresh enthusiasm- I was buzzing for days after my first event- through getting to know the in crowd, through actually being involved in them, to going back to just being an attendee through gradually realising that I’d seen all this before. I end up spending the Friday night at one latter event watching a band in a pub because it’s more interesting. It’s a narrative about getting older, more cynical perhaps. It’s the same narrative anyone my age might tell about their interests, their job or even their marriage. 

Good Times! #21 PanoptiCon 25 2002

(originally published 2002, zine unknown)

The familiar purple robed and golden masked figure of Heironymous strolling about in the road outside Manchester's Palace Hotel is a bit of a giveaway really. Skirting past in case there's a video camera lurking, I'm met by a Sea Devil taking the steps surprisingly well and once inside there's a Voc padding around the lobby. Yes, it's twenty five years since the very first Panopticon was held in a church hall in London and nowadays it seems to have relocated to a gothic hotel oop North. The umpteenth event was a surprise addition to 2002's convention calendar and, as it turned out, rather a disappointing one. The two main attractions had to pull out, leaving a void that was difficult to fill not least because the main hall had very little atmosphere and echoey sound that seemed out of sync with the big screen. Then there was David Bickerstaff whose interviewing style was off-putting and often unsupportive of the guests (nobody paid to see him). Nevertheless a lot of the audience seemed fairly happy, though many who attended June's big shouty SFX Event have commented on the relative lack of atmosphere at Doctor Who events. 

Build Your Own Tardis?

When I was a child I used to visit an old hermit who lived up a mountain. Actually that’s not true (it was a cave) but it was the case that a friend of mine lived four doors up the road and he was a huge Doctor Who fan like me. Once we became mutally aware of our fanship, we used to play our own adventures though his younger sister always insisted on playing a dog called Bonnie rather than a proper companion. This of course meant she didn’t have to make up any lines and could be even more annoying than normal. So we had many an intergalactic adventure all within the space between four houses. This was great and everything until the day my friend announced he was going to build a Tardis.

Voila! Paint it blue and you wouldn't be able to see the difference

Good Times! #20 Blue Box 4 and Battlefield 6 2001

Blue Box 4(first published in Fringeworld 2001)

Bristol is not Mars but for the country's beleaguered public transport system it may as well be. Why else would I have to board the 9.13 train (itself a journey up to town from where I live) a full 24 hours before the event began? Arriving at 12.30, I had to wait two hours to meet Neil Hutchings from his London train and, after exploring the city for a while, the moment came to find the venue. Most conventions are within a stone's throw of a town or city centre but the Aztec Hotel is approximately 15 miles away in a bleak, deserted industrial park served by one bus; the only option as a taxi fare would have been prohibitive. Tallying all this up with the registration fee for the weekend, £45 and the (admittedly very favourable for a 4 star hotel) £30 per night room fees, something like £125 has been spent before a single person asks Wendy Padbury what its like in space. The real bone cruncher, however, comes as it gradually becomes clear that the Aztec holds a monopoly on all food and drink in the area. There is a lovely country pub opposite owned by them which has marginally lower prices, but check these out - a pot of tea £2.50. Sandwiches £6.95, buffet £10. Any money saved on the room rates is soon clawed back because there is nowhere else to eat or drink; even the alcohol is higher than London prices. So, let's face it, overpriced photos of Sylvester gurning with a stuffed ferret are the least of our worries!That said the Aztec is an excellent hotel full of wooden floors, beams, low ceilings and faux Tudor decoration. The staff are tremendously helpful and friendly more so than in any convention hotel I've been in. Hopefully they get a fair cut of all that cash flowing in. 

Good Times! #19 Battlefield 5 and Resurrection 2001

Battlefield 5 (first published in Faze 2001)

The best thing I saw all weekend? Well, actually it was a band called Mr Bridger playing at the Rocket pub, just round the corner from Coventry station. Funky Hendrix-like with a touch of Nirvana, they made US style rock seem like it could be interesting though for all the attention the Friday night punters were paying, it might as well have been Mr Bridger's Dixieland Showband. It wasn't that they were bad; it was just that they were the wrong group for this crowd. Two days and many panels later, I've come to a similar conclusion about Battlefield 5. The temptation to go on and on with anything creative is always strong but sometimes you need to sit back and remember the sparks that brought the subject to life in the first place.
Battlefield began as a feisty alternative to the established convention lore, which stated that huge gaps would elapse between panels, there would be as much behind the scenes stuff as front of camera celebs and that evenings would consist of funny videos and large scale parlour games. The convention scene needed this boost and it worked well at first. Never had the two-day event seemed so jam packed with stuff nor had it ever passed so quickly. Now ambition has inspired the team to extend the latest event to a three day stretch, the glitzy celebs are still, for the most part, the same people who've been to all the others and the cabaret has mutated from the slightly old school music hall mentality to amateur hour at a nightclub. 

The Doctor Who Monster Book

Published in 1975 and penned by Terrance Dicks, `The Doctor Who Monster Book` was in essence a boiled down version of the `The Making of Doctor Who` with all the Making part removed. It’s got lots of photos, some awkward graphic design and a text that tends to repeat things that Doctor Who fans would surely know. The main attraction of the book was a glorious colour poster of the cover which certainly earned a place on my wall and no doubt many others. The poster – reproduced on the cover- was another excellent Chris Achellios job even though he doesn’t appear to be mentioned in the credits! Luckily he etched his surname under the Dalek just in case! It’s also devoid of his trademark fizzling static but even so there’s something about his art which makes it as good as photos. The book retailed for the realtively princely sum of £1.75 and was designed by Brian Boyle A.R.C.A. Whatever that qualification may be it still doesn’t excuse the lines emanating from a Wirrn on page 57!!

Good Times! #18 PanoptiCon 2000

(first published in Faze 2000)

Manchester became the second home of conventions during the Nineties with its seemingly endless collection of huge hotels guaranteeing the necessary space and more than a touch of grandeur. The Palace Hotel has to be the ultimate in faded glamour though. The lobby alone is like a Victorian chapel and the ballroom, where most of the event happened, was filled with large wood panels and rich carpets. Such a setting inevitably infused the most enduring convention series with an air of sepia tinged nostalgia. True, there was a whiff of modernity with talk of Big Finish and the Radio Four pilot but PanoptiCon 2000 started off the decade by looking back.

Good Times! #17 DWM Birthday Bash (1999)

(first published in Faze 1999)

To begin at the end I'm being handed a slice of birthday cake topped with blue icing by none other than Mark Strickson. I've even got a bit of the '0' from the word 'WHO' so technically I am living, breathing and eating Doctor Who. Not that such a pleasure is mine alone - the lobby outside the City University's overheated Oliver Thompson lecture theatre is teeming with fellow cake scoffing fans, each being presented with their portion by a celeb. Just what is going on? Well, we're here to celebrate two decades of what is fast becoming a genuine publishing phenomenon. 

Good Times! #16 PanoptiCon 98 (1998)

(first published in Faze 1998)

Have you noticed how Doctor Who gives great clips? More and more, the only really new things we can see are artfully collated sequences with suitably powerful music that give the impression of wonder. Conventions too are increasingly about celebrating 'bits' of the show. Close on a decade after the last regular story, time inevitably moves on and while hard core fans and, increasingly, professional writers delve into ever more trivial and miniscule territory the people who made and appeared in the show recall less and less detail and much of what they do remember is anecdotal and samey. Thus the success or otherwise of guests depends increasingly on their strength of personality. Some things don't change though; if it's PanoptiCon, it must be the Leofric Hotel in Coventry, a city that this very weekend celebrated the arrival of Sunday shopping with Morris dancing and clangey rock groups. Yes, that's the Sunday shopping everywhere else started two years or more ago but at least we can look forward to a right knees up, in honour of Labour's election win, next year! 

Good Times! #15 PanoptiCon 97 (1997)

(first published in Faze 1997)

Coventry was demolished during the Second World War and had to be rebuilt almost from scratch afterwards allowing planners the unique opportunity to design its city centre with practical considerations in mind. Paradoxically this has made it now seem less modern than other places. It resembles a bizarre mixture of Alpine village and concrete jungle; everything is in squares and straight lines and the railways station is about a mile from anything else. It’s as if, faced with the freedom to create, the planners instead came up with something very much of its time. More recent attempts to modernise have given the city a weird canopy in its main square and an indoor precinct that looks like every other indoor precinct. The only significant old building is the shell of its cathedral. Nestling in one corner of a covered walkway, the Leofric Hotel is an excellent convention venue and even the bar staff, often the most harassed people at an event like thus, cope with good humour as the place fills up with the buzz of a Doctor Who gathering.

Good Times! #14 ManoptiCon 5 (1997)

(first published in Faze 1997)

"There were other Doctors?" Tom, when asked his opinion of the other Doctors.
Taking place in the middle of a week in which we, finally, have a Labour government, won the Eurovision Song Contest and it became winter again, Manopticon 5 was going to have to try hard to make an impression; a feat not helped by the tropical temperatures, faster than light speed lifts and unhelpful staff which characterised the hotel. Nevertheless the organisers ensured that this fifth and final Manchester event had a good go at matching up to the May's already memorable happenings. And a lot of it had to do with the man we call Tom.

Good Times! #13 ManoptiCon 4 (1996)

(first published in Faze 1996)

By the time you're reading this, the telemovie will be out and you'll all know what attendees of Manopticon 4 know now (April 8th) and a lot more besides so it's going to be difficult to convey exactly the significance of the event's happenings for Who fans. I'll therefore cop out by stealing Gary Russell's on stage comments about the significance of certain dates which become landmarks in the Doctor Who calendar. By any standards then, April 7 1996 will figure quite highly in that calendar as the moment when the new production became something more tangible than magazine photos; if I'm getting rather excited then I make no apology. This year has turned from being just another in the wait for a possible new series into a helter skelter of developments and possibilities and touching down amidst some hard, solid facts is even better. You'll shrug and think 'so what' now you've seen the whole thing but it was quite a thrill to encounter the project in what we might call its chrysalis stage.