The Lords of Time

It seems strange to write about a Doctor Who convention at the start of a blog about a trip to Denmark, but it was part of the trip after all. This part of the trip had been planned since the event was announced back in October 2012, and because no less than four of the classic Doctors were going to be there, it had made sense to "educate" William about them first. For the previous three months, we watched a selection of stories from Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy's eras, before rounding it out with Paul McGann's movie just last weekend. William enjoyed all of the stories immensely, but had decided that his favourite Doctor was Sylvester McCoy, and he was really excited to meet him.

We woke early and had a quick breakfast before heading out to the convention. Despite a significant detour due to an operator error on the GPS app on my phone, we arrived not long after the doors opened. We knew we were in the right place when we were greeted at the door by an impressive black Dalek. Just inside, we met up with my fellow Whovians (I wish we had a better name for ourselves) Matthew and Roger who had flown up from Dunedin, and my Australian friend Catherine whom I had met at my first convention in England in 2010 (see Time Quest Day 1 and Day 2).

After scanning the toy tables for a bit, we sat ourselves down to listen to Nicholas Briggs. Nick is a long time fan, originally involved in fan fiction, then interviewing classic series actors for the Mythmakers series, next becoming involved in Big Finish audios (which were the only official Doctor Who we had since the classic series ended), before ultimately becoming the voice of many monsters in the new series (Daleks, Cybermen, Judoon, and the new yet-to-be-seen version of the Ice Warriors). The style of session was a simple question and answer type forum which was surprisingly fun and entertaining (not too many dumb questions from the audience) and was to be the format for the rest of the talks.

At the end of the talk, the audience was entertained by a recreation of Power of the Daleks (a classic 60s story that has been lost since the BBC started junking old serials in the late 70s), while others headed out to have their photos taken with the four Doctors. We watched for a bit, then headed out to get our photo with all five guests (ie the four Doctors and Nick). While we were waiting, Sylvester McCoy entertained William by pretending to have a bird in his hat (it really was very funny). After not a long time, it was our turn to have our photo taken. Will gave Sylvester a BIG hug, and we had a good photo (with Will pointing his Sonic Screwdriver at the camera). I enjoyed talking to the Doctors again and felt much more comfortable approaching them than I did the first time.

The rest of the day consisted of talks from Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and Paul McGann respectively. Will was very brave to be able to stand up and ask a question for both Peter and Sylvester - which is very impressive considering the 500+ strong audience (in actual fact, he wasn't bothered AT ALL).

We rounded out the day by buying a few more items of merchandise, and getting our photograph signed by all of the guests. We said goodbye to our friends Matthew and Roger, then headed back north again to Jenny and Remo's for dinner, then off to Maria's again for a big sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a loooong day.