John Carpenter: Taking the show on the road

Master of Horror John Carpenter is facing a tour schedule that would scare the fainthearted. But then, this is the man who brought Halloween mainstay Michael Myers into our nightmares and established a synth sound that still resonates today. He may be in his sixties but he’s pretty laid back about what the year is likely to bring and is looking forward to hitting the road to perform to his fans.

Take a look at the reviews of successful recent movies like It Follows and Midnight Special and you’re likely to find mention of the soundtrack channelling John Carpenter or being ‘Carpenteresque’. His is a style that’s synonymous with 80s synth sounds – repeating motifs overlaid with ominous chords – and not only did it influence his fans, it clearly resonated with composers who are now providing homage to this soundtrack sub-genre in their own work. And while one might reason that the resurgence in the distinctive sound might be down to the lack of new product, nothing could be further from the truth.

In February 2015 he unleashed John Carpenter’s Lost Themes, an album of tracks for movies that never existed. Quite simply, these were snippets and sketches from movies-yet-to-come, or would only ever live in your mind. A collaboration between the composer, his son Cody and godson Daniel Davies, the album made enough of an impact to warrant a follow-up a year later, and this time they’re taking the show on the road.  

While this might be his first tour, it’s not the first time that John Carpenter has been in a band. You might remember the music video to Big Trouble in Little China featuring a performance by Coup de Villes with Nick (The Shape in Halloween) Castle and Tommy Lee (Halloween III) Wallace supporting Carpenter. He chuckles at my suggestion that this new tour is really a front for getting a reunion of the group, conjuring up images of ‘The Blues Brothers’ antics in getting the band back together. “Yeah, that’s it,” he deadpans. But did the experience of working with the Coupe de Villes help ground his expectations of what the forthcoming tour might bring. “I have no idea what to think. I don’t know what it’s going to be like,” he confesses. “I have no idea. I’ll just take it as it comes. It won’t always be perfect and it won’t always be great. It’ll be up and down… but we’ll see.”

We caught up with the composer in the week that La-La Land released its 30th anniversary edition of Big Trouble in Little China and his first gig on the tour officially sold out at LA’s Bootleg Theater. If ever he had any doubt that there was an audience for these gigs, this surely put that fear to rest? “Well, we’ll see. We’ll see what happens.” It’s an optimistic caution that will be prevalent during our conversation. As we go to press, Los Angelinos still have the opportunity to grab a ticket to see the show at the Orpheum Theatre in June.

The tour is evenly split between major cities in the US and European venues including Germany, France, Italy, Iceland and Greece. Tantalisingly, the London gig falls on October 31st – what better way to spend your location for Halloween? – while the German gig is part of Oberhausen’s Weekend of Hell Festival.

Let’s pause for a moment – the composer has gone from never touring before to 30 gigs in a year. In fact it grew from 26 to 30 in the two days between me looking at the schedule and could well have grown by the time you read this. “That’s quite a schedule isn’t it?” Carpenter offers. “Quite a lot of time on stage, but there are interruptions along the way.” As opposed to the lengthy ‘living from a suitcase’ press junkets he’s previously experienced. “It’s not as intense as talking about the same movie, all day, every day. We’ll perform for a few days, have a week off and go back again. That should make things a little easier… I hope,” he chuckles.

International tours of this nature don’t just ‘happen’, so what was the catalyst? “It started off with my son and godson who said ‘Hey, why don’t we tour this?’ I spoke to my wife and she said ‘You’d better do it’ and then it just grew…and kept on growing… and here we are!” For someone who has always had a passion for music, it would be easy to assume that Carpenter had always held a desire to tour, and this might the last chance to do it. “On no, not at all,” He gently corrects me. “It was just an opportunity for me… at my age… to go out with my kids and play. And why not?”

It’s not unusual for a performer to bemoan the fact that the crowd are only there to hear a certain signature song, and that must be true for many of the fans who have purchased tickets to hear the main themes from Halloween and Escape from New York. But with a tour that spans seven months isn’t there a chance that Carpenter himself will tire of playing the soundtrack of a certain Haddonfield serial killer for the umpteenth time? “Oh no, I don’t see THAT happening,” he counters. “Hey, it’s going to be fun. THIS is all fun.” Ask him what tracks the band will be playing and he’s understandably tight-lipped, but does reveal the likely ratio split in the material. “I would say it’s 75-80% soundtracks and 20-25 % from the Lost Themes albums.”

Fellow band members Cody and Daniel are co-composers on the Lost Themes albums and by being one step removed from the original movie soundtracks they are able to be impartial and suggest improvements for the live performances. “They help with everything,” Carpenter clarifies. “They help adapt [the score] to make it work well live. Hey, we’ve got a six-person band on the stage.” Inevitably, concessions need to be made between what can be recorded in a studio and what sounds good performed live, but this doesn’t trouble him. “You have to adjust for a live performance – it can’t be exactly the same. You have to make certain changes, but it’ll be close – it’ll be as close as we can get it.”

Carpenter has a presence on social media, boasting active accounts on both Twitter (nearly 120k followers) and Facebook (over 260k followers). In a recent post he asked his Facebook fans to let him know what tracks they’d like to hear performed live. The 700 comments were a great way to confirm what he probably already knew were the favourites (Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13), while less expected was the request to include the underscore from the deleted bank robbery scene from Escape from New York! “Ha, yes, I saw that,” he recalls. So does it amaze him that out of EVERYTHING in his oeuvre, that one track should be singled out? “Does that amaze me?” he repeats the question. “Everything amazes me now. I’m just so happy to be around doing this.” And of the immediacy of social media? “It’s a wonderful thing, but it’s not going to influence what I do,” he confesses.

In April 2016, Sacred Bones released John Carpenter’s Lost Themes II, a follow-up to the previous album which re-established ‘the Carpenter sound’ to a chart audience. The composer recalls how it all happened “The story for the first one is that Cody, Daniel and I were ad-libbing some music that we’d put together and created what was a basically a score sampler.” The tracks were composed and compiled over a number of years. Cody had previously scored his father’s ‘Cigarette Burns’ and ‘Pro-Life’ episodes of Showtime’s Masters of Horror, as well as contributing music for Vampires and Ghosts of Mars. Daniel, among other projects, had co-scored horror feature Condemned. “I’d got a new music attorney who asked me if I’d got anything new,” Carpenter senior continues. “I sent her this stuff and four months later I had a record deal [with independent label Sacred Bones Records]. It was that simple,” he shares.

Popular enough to create demand for a sequel, the new release was put together at greater speed – something that Carpenter is used to (he famously had one day to score  Assault on Precinct 13 and three days for Halloween). He also directed the music video for lead track Distant Dream, his first directing gig since 2010’s horror flick The Ward. As with most contemporary releases, Lost Themes II has also been released as a limited edition vinyl – in raspberry swirl! The fact that both Lost Themes albums are sequenced with a Side A and a Side B I wonder if Carpenter yearns for the days of the 12-inch record, or is he happy to embrace the latest digital mediums? “I love ‘em all!” he emphasises. “Vinyl reminds me of the old days. But it doesn’t matter what the format is – everything’s good when it involves music.”

John Carpenter’s father, Dr Howard Carter, was a music professor and a founding member of The Nashville Strings. It’s little surprise that John has such a passion for music, which he has passed on to his son. “I grew up with music. It’s always been there,” he states matter-of-factly. I recall an incident the previous week on public transport where someone’s cell phone rang in a packed train carriage – it was the main theme from Halloween? Does he witness events like this, and what does he make of a 38-year-old improvised score still making its presence known today? “Yeah, that also happens to me! My wife (producer Sandy King) has it on her phone, but that’s fine - it’s ALL great.” But surely that’s just being too modest?

Disasterpeace’s score for It Follows and David Wingo’s for Midnight Special have a sound that critics are very quick to describe as ‘Carpenteresque’. Is imitation the greatest form of flattery and is he happy to take the compliment? “I’ll take any compliment anyone want to give me,” he admits. But is it lazy journalism to compare any 80s throwback synth score to Carpenter’s work. “Man, I don’t really know. I just do what I do, and that’s a particular sound on a synthesiser. Other than that I don’t really know what it [the comparison] means.”

Carpenter has frequently described his greatest music influence to be the great Bernard Herrmann. I ask him what that legacy was. “I think that everybody has learned THE Bernard Herrmann chord. Other than that, it’s that every one of his scores just was a signature for the movie. The only person close to him in modern times is composer Hans Zimmer; his scores provide a signature – he’s amazing.”

Looking back at his early movies in the mid-1970s it’s astounding to see that John Carpenter not only wrote the movies, he directed them and composed the scores.
Was self-composition out of necessity because there was no budget for a composer, or was it a choice job that he wanted to hold onto for himself? “I was there, saying ‘I don’t have any money for this.’ I could do something simple but make it SOUND big with the synths.” In much the same way that Carpenter uses anamorphic lenses to give his movies a widescreen feel, he used synths to make the films sound like they cost more than they really did. “That’s something you’re always trying to do,” he reasons. “It was just me trying to service those movies, to support the big scenes and give them some feeling.”

Official video for Distant Dreams for Lost Themes II

While Carpenter predominantly scores his own movies, on occasion he handed over duties to others – Shirley Walker for Memoirs of An Invisible Man, Jack Nitzsche for Starman and Ennio Morricone for The Thing. Was it hard to do this when he himself could have tackled the task? “I never thought like that. A lot of the time it was such a big project and I needed that help. In the case of Morricone… I got to work with Morricone!” The Italian maestro recently had two of his unused tracks from The Thing soundtrack used in Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. Does Carpenter feel that music should transfer between movies in this manner? “I haven’t seen The Hateful Eight. He used the same tracks? Hmm, he’s done that in other projects too.” So, it’s not something that he would do? “Who me? Oh no, that’s just not my style.” Being a huge western fan (and writer of TV movies Blood River and El Diablo), might we one day get to hear a western score by him?  “I don’t know.” Pauses. “There’s probably one resting in there somewhere.”

Our time is drawing to a close, so a couple of quick-fire questions. At the end of the tour, and after a well-deserved break, might there be a Lost Themes III? I couldn’t say one way or another. You never know,” he offers. What’s coming up next? “I’m working on several things but I can‘t share any of them with you right now,” he apologises. But he’s not planning on retiring any time soon? “I’m semi-retired now, but I’m loving life,” he laughs.

I sign off with the promise to catch up with Carpenter and the band at his London gig on Halloween, looking forward to hearing the date-perfect rendering of his seminal score. “Oh, really?” he mock teases at the suggestion he wasn’t going to play it that day. I warn him, in the words of Brit pop band the Kaiser Chiefs, that if he doesn’t play the track then I predict a riot. “Oh, OK, I’ll remember that,” he suggests, making a mental note, though somehow I think that Michael Myers’ theme was always going to be present and correct this October.

Official John Carpenter website

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Why Star Trek matters to me

With Star Trek’s 50^th anniversary here, it feels like a good time to reflect on just why this sci-fi franchise means so much to me for six important reasons.

1.       Mego action figures: My first sci-fi toys – A good couple of years before Palitoy released their 3 ¾” Star Wars figures in the UK I was given a 8” Mr Spock figure by my parents. I loved it. A Klingon, Captain Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and The Keeper (Balok the puppet from The Corbomite Maneuver) followed in due course, but how I loved the removable phaser and communicator. Even when McCoy’s leg broke at the knee and I had to Sellotape it solid, nothing diminished my love for these toys, which were also compatible with the Mego Planet of the Apes figures, thus allowing a crossover of the franchises some 40 years before IDW’s comic book.

2.       1971 Star Trek annual: My first sci-fi book – In hindsight, the World Distributors Star Trek annuals we’re pretty poor. They seemed light years away from the show that I was watching on TV, but they were in full colour, unlike what I was watching on our small black and white set. And I could read the stories whenever I wanted. I didn’t have to wait for the next episode to be shown on – this was Star Trek on tap. The 1971 one was acquired for me second-hand from a jumble sale but it was a great alternative to my other comics and kid literature.    

3.       Tony Todd interview: My first professionally published interview – Having read starburst as a child I finally felt that I’d made it when my first interview was published in the magazine. Interviewing the Candyman actor at the 1997 Starfleet Ball in Bournemouth, the experience was exhilarating, Todd was an affable guest and there was a real thrill seeing the article in print with my name next to it. 19 years later and the thrill of interviewing a guest is still with me.

4.       Leonard Nimoy interview: Meeting my hero – Of all the people I have ever interviewed, Leonard Nimoy is the one where I was most star struck.  Even as I was asking the questions, inside me I could feel the inner fanboy screaming ‘Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! Ultimately he was just, of course, an old man with a hearing aid, answering questions he’s heard umpteen times before. But he was gracious enough to treat me as if he’d never heard them before. They say you should never meet your heroes as they are bound to disappoint. Nonsense. You just need to choose the right heroes. When he died in February last year I shed some big tears. I felt like I’d been robbed of a part of my childhood.   

5.       Patrick Stewart: My first official licensed interview – While meeting the good Captain Picard was not my first Star Trek interview, it was the first to appear in the official, Paramount-licenced Star Trek Magazine. What a buzz in seeing this as the lead cover story and knowing that this was being sold around the world. Mr Stewart (not yet a Sir) was at the Starfleet Ball in Bournemouth and I caught him in a break between photo and autograph sessions. He asked for a drink – it wasn’t tea. Earl Grey. Hot. Reality kicked in.   

6.       Star Trek Experience: My new wife’s first Klingon encounter – A mere two days after our wedding in Vegas, Justine and I visited the Star Trek Experience in the Las Vegas Hilton. We squealed as Borg implants dug into our back during Borg Invasion 4D, we gasped as we materialised onto the bridge of the Enterprise in The Klingon Encounter, we ate tea in Quark’s Bar, marvelling at the menu which included s alas called Sulu Toss.  Sadly, its shut down 2.5 years later in September 2008, just before the new films revitalised the franchise. As you’d expect, we also did the behind-the-scenes tour, and Justine’s first printed document with her new surname was a certificate proclaiming that she’d survived the encounter.

And that’s just the tip of the warp nacelle. I’ve also watched over 700 episodes, 13 movies, read countless articles, books and comics, interviewed 50 actors within the Trek-verse (including George Takei, Brent Spiner, Kate Mulgrew), collected Weetabix cards, attended exhibitions, conferences, conventions and concerts, and gone as Spock in fancy dress (not cosplay, that didn’t exist as a phrase back then). I’ve also written a 20,000 word history of the first 40 years of star Trek. As you can see, Stark Trek and me - we’ve got history.

Happy 50^th birthday. LLAP!

Six important Broadchurch locations NOT found in Dorset: The Clevedon trail

It would be reasonable to think that all location shooting for Broadchurch takes place in or around West Bay in Dorset, home of those imposing cliffs that feature in the show’s marketing. But you’d be wrong in that belief, as a lot of the filming actually takes place on the northern coast of Somerset in Clevedon, some 70 miles north of its Dorset cousin.

Clevedon is a Victorian seaside town overlooking the Severn Estuary, sitting 13 miles down from Bristol and 10 up miles from Weston-Super-Mare, just off the M5. Many people visit for the famous Grade 1 listed pier (featured in movie Never Let me Go and One direction’s video ‘You and I’) but our eyes are on the Broadchurch trail and six key locations NOT found in Dorset.

1. Broadchurch parish church and cemetery - Starting at Marine Lake it’s a quick walk along the coastal path (Poet’s walk) to St Andrew’s Church, a 12^th century structure with sprawling graveyard that looks out to the estuary. Many scenes form both seasons one and two of the show were filmed here, notably Danny Latimer’s funeral and subsequent exhumation. Depending on the day you visit you may be able to go inside, but it was locked on the Saturday afternoon we called by.

2. The Latimer house – Bear south from the churchyard, cross the small Land Yeo river and you’re on Marshall’s Field recreation ground where you’ll soon spot the Latimers’ house on the perimeter. Many scenes have been filmed looking out of the kitchen window and across the green to the steep bank. The Latimers’ house is privately owned, so do respect their privacy.

3. Amusement arcade – Loop back to Salthouse Fields play park and skateboard park behind Marine Lake carry on north up towards the pier. You’ll find a tiny amusement arcade on your right which is where the Latimer’s had a game of air hockey in their brief moment of fun. I was going to take a photo but the controller/overseer looked a bit formidable...

4. Jack Marshall’s newsagents – Possibly the greatest difference there has ever been between the exterior and interior of a newsagents – 70 miles! With exteriors in west Bay and interiors in Clevedon, there’s some time rift going on here! Continue north form the amusements, past the bandstand and turn right directly opposite the pier (though it is itself worth a stroll). At 16 Alexandra Road you’ll find Alexandra News – you can’t miss it as they have stills with cast members in the window.

5. Broadchurch Echo office – Turn left onto Bellevue Road and follow it round until it becomes Hill Road. Here’s the Broadchurch high street where the families walked in the re-enactment of Danny’s disappearance. The newspaper offices are actually The Food Market @ Seeley’s, an indoor market which sadly was derelict when we visited.

6. The Traders Hotel – Directly opposite the newspaper’s office is The Trader’s hotel where David Tennant’s Hardy and stayed in Season 1 and the defence team stayed in series 2. It's actually a former Lloyds bank. Interiors were filmed up the coast, along Wellington Terrace to Walton Park Hotel.

So there you have it, a whistle stop tour of Clevedon’s many Broadchurch locations. Come for the Broadchurch locations but stay for the atmosphere and spend some time in the boutiques, coffee shops and art shops.  

Doctor Who: On location in Cardiff for Season 9

For a Doctor Who fan, getting the chance to watch some location filming up close and personal is surely there on the bucket list? You get to see a scene or two played out in front of you, your favourite characters are in full costume and you might be able to grab a selfie and autograph or two. But by its very nature, you can’t plan for it, and that’s what makes the experience so sweet.

Crashing a location shoot relies on being in the right place at the right time. Having booked tickets for the Cardiff leg of the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular some four months previously, it was always a hope that the visit would tie-in with some filming, but what were the chances of finding out in good time, and what if they were in a private location or the studio those days?   

I’d already been alerted that filming had taken place on Friday 22^nd May at Canal Park, sitting somewhere between Cardiff Bay and the city centre. This felt like awful timing – why couldn’t I have been there that day? But then the word on the street was that filming at the location would continue on the Bank Holiday Monday (the same day as the concert) and minutes away from my hotel.

And so, at midday on 25^th May I joined a crowd of around 30-40 fans, locals and tourists in watching a series of takes focusing on the TARDIS as The Doctor (Peter Capaldi), Clara (Jenna Coleman) and Osgood (Ingrid Oliver) said their farewells. I won’t spoil any more of the story points which have already started circulating, and the BBC had already revealed in advance that Osgood was returning for this story.

The playground location has previously appeared on the show in Army of Ghosts and where Rose spotted the ‘Bad Wolf’ graffiti in The Parting of the Ways. This time round a mysterious alien ‘paw print’ had been added to the park signage. Friday’s filming had centred on a Zygon attack in the season 9 two-parter by Peter Harness, today it was all about fond farewells. What really strikes you about watching filming is just how long everything takes, just how many people are involved, and how the lighting crew are constantly compensating for the changing light – filling in, blocking and adding light sources where required as clouds break or the sun shines.

As has previously been said many times before, Peter Capaldi loves his fans. In the 2.5 hours I was present he came over and saw fans at the barrier on four occasions, signing autographs and posing for photos. He took time to talk to everyone, asking where they’d come from and generally being as nice as you’d want him to be. Jenna Coleman and Ingrid Oliver also visited the fans and were equally polite, though understandably it was Peter who was doing the lion’s share of the work. I’d met him twice before, but seeing him kitted in his Doctor gear made it extra special.

I can’t wait to see how the scenes appear in the final episode once edited, graded and placed in the right part of the running time. Unfortunately the actors were working until 11pm that night so wouldn’t get the chance to watch the Symphonic Spectacular, and they also had to work on a Bank Holiday! A big thank you to the cast and crew for indulging this fan boy, making it feel special to be a fan and being able to witness a part of this 50+ year old phenomena.  

Ólafur Arnalds - The Bridport homecoming gig

On 23rd February, Icelandic composer, multi-instrumentalist and music composer Ólafur Arnalds descended on the small Dorset coastal resort of Bridport. The previous night he'd filled the main hall at London's Barbican and yet he specifically requested the 500-capacity 1920s cinema/arts venue be included on his latest tour, which also takes in Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. The reason? This was his homecoming gig, and yet this wasn't his actual home. But if anyone can claim to have given a town a theme, a soundtrack for its scenery, it's Arnalds. 

By scoring two series of ITV's popular crime drama Broadchurch, the composer has indelibly etched his mix of weeping string quartet, dissonant trombone, wayward horns and keyboard/piano on this stretch of Jurassic coast. Walk along the quay or up the steep incline of the cliffs up from West Bay and it's Ólafur's beautiful compositions that you'll hear, and that's why hundreds of locals and fans dragged themselves out on a cold and wet Monday night. Of course, the added attraction was the way that the gig had transformed itself from being just a date on the tour to being a local première of Broadchurch's season finale. 

Coincidence or just serendipity? Whatever the reason, the opportunity was taken to show the last episode on the big screen, with the added glamour of series star Jodie Whittaker introducing it. 

Series creator and writer Chris Chibnall was also to hand, taking the opportunity to get a live audience reaction to the cheeky twists and turns he'd added to the episode - ITV News was also on hand to capture the audience's shock/awe/screeches.

But the screening, celebrity intro and media interest were just the icing on the cake. The main event was Ólafur's wonderful music and he didn't disappoint with a set of nearly 90-minutes, carefully leaving time for the stage to be struck in time for the 9 o'clock screening. 

Primarily drawn from his Broadchurch scores and album For Now I am Winter, the latter includes collaborations with vocalist Arnór Dan, who also appeared on stage to perform tracks from that album, as well as So Close and So Far, the end credits songs on Broadchurch. Both Olafur and Arnór made light of the fact that only a few seconds of the tracks are heard on screen before the continuity announcer cuts in. So here was the chance to indulge in both songs in full without the interruptions.

Arnalds also played a track from the finale we were about to watch, and while it was possible to pick it out during the episode, it was competing with the on-screen drama. What we got here wasn't quite Broadchurch unplugged but Broadchurch uninterrupted - pure music without all the acting, sound effects and scenery. 

The last regular piece before the encore was Beth's Theme (or Jodie's Theme, as Olafur renamed it for that night in honour of his guest). Its simple melody, underscored by the melancholy strings, is the very heart of the show's soundtrack. Grief, loss and the stirrings of hope all come through. It's the score's highlight and goosebumps mingled with sobs as the sheer power of it enveloped the enchanted audience.

Hopefully not a one-off - Olafur said he'd like to return - this was a unique event. The composer has conjured sonic alchemy - he has turned some rock into music gold. Few towns can boast their own soundtrack, Bridport and West Bay have never had it so good.

Meeting the Doctors

Here's the continuing story of my encounters with The Doctor: With a bumper update for August 2018

William Hartnell - Sadly, I never met him or saw him before he died. I met his wife, Heather, at Longleat 1983 where she signed a Richard Hurndall postcard!

Patrick Troughton - My one occasion to see Patrick was on 4 April 1983 at the legendary Longleat Doctor Who 20th Anniversary convention. Luckily we had tickets, so weren't turned away at the gates as so many fans were. After hours of queuing outside the Orangery, I met Pat (and Sarah Sutton) and he signed a publicity photograph from The Five Doctors. Sadly, this postcard has been long lost.

(Update: August 7th 2018 - Special Edition of Doctor who Magazine has a photo of Trina and I with Patrick at the above event! This photo was taken 35 years previously and i never knew it existed. I never knew that I was in a photo with him. What an amazing discovery!

Jon Pertwee - I also saw Jon Pertwee at the Longleat event on 4 April 1983. Jon was being interviewed by Ed 'Stewpot' Stewart on a safari boat, docked on the river. I ran down to the water's edge, called his name and the photo was taken when he turned round.  

Tom Baker -  I first met Tom in August 1997 at a Longleat Doctor Who event for a news piece I wrote for TV Zone magazine, just a taster for a lengthy interview with him about his autobiography that September - Who on Earth is Tom Baker? I saw him again at a convention in Barking in 2009 where Andy and I posed for a photo, and again at the Time Quest 2 convention in March 2010.  

Peter Davison - I've met Peter on many occasions. First was a signing event at the Stamp Centre in central London, followed by autographs at The Doctors convention in Time Quest 2 and Projects MotorMouth 1 and 2 in 2013. I also saw him live on stage at the Doctor Who Prom 2013 and the Excel 50th Anniversary conference. He was also be host at the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular and I saw him at the launch of his autobiography in October 2016.

Colin Baker - I first met Colin on Bournemouth Pier after a performance of farce Run for your Wife in 1995. I then interviewed him for TV Zone at a Doctor Who Longleat event in August 1998. Further autos were picked up at Fleet Air Museum, Time Quest 2 and PMM1, though sadly he was too late to be in the group photo for the latter. I also saw him as Inspector Morse in the touring stage play in September 2010 and at the Excel November 2013. I finally got his photo at convention in Salisbury in July 2017!

Sylvester McCoy - I first met Sylv at the RSC Stratford following his performance as a Fool in King Lear in September 2007. I then saw him as Mushnik in The Little Shop of Horrors musical in Brighton October 2009. He was at Time Quest 2 and PMM1 conventions, as well as Fleet Air Museum. I also him on stage at the Excel, November 2013.

Paul McGann - I met Paul at the bar in Shakespeare's Globe August 2009 following his performance in Helen. He was also at The Doctors and PMM1. 

John Hurt - I met John Hurt at Brighton Film and Comic Con in November 2015. I had tickets to see him in  Kenneth Branagh's production of The Entertainer in summer 2016 but he had to pull out due to illness and sadly passed away soon after. 

Christopher Ecclestone - I met Chris at the Donmar Warehouse stage door following his performance with Gillian Anderson in A Doll's House June 2009. I also watched him on stage at National Theatre in June 2012 for Antigone (which also starred Jodie Whittaker in the lead role), but he didn't come out to sign that time. Finally got his photo at a fund-raising event in April 2016 in Newbury and at the RSC Stratford in July 2018.

David Tennant - First saw David on stage at the RSC Stratford after Hamlet in October 2008, where I grabbed an autograph among the throng of admiring fans at the stage door. The same month and at the same venue venue I saw him in Love's Labours Lost? I also also saw him on stage with Catherine Tate in Much Ado About Nothing. It was PMM1 in Jan 2013 when I finally got a decent autograph from him and a group photo with the other Doctors present. I also saw him at Stratford RSC again as Richard II in October 2013 and in Don Juan in Soho in April 2017.

Matt Smith - I first saw Matt in person at a BAFTA event for the premiere of The Pandorica Opens June 2010 though I didn't get his autograph until the official BBC convention in Cardiff May 2012. I got a photo with him at the 50th Celebration on 22 November 2013. Elsewhere I saw him on stage at the July 2011 and 2013 Doctor Who Proms, the lead in American Psycho the Musical at the Almeida in December 2013 and Unreachable at the Royal Court in July 2016.

Peter Capaldi - I joined the scrambling masses at the barriers of the Deep Breath premiere in Cardiff and was lucky to get an autograph from him (and Sam Anderson) in August 2014. There's also a photo of the back of my head next to him - though that hardly counts. So it was great on November 30th 2015 to get a decent photo and less scribbly autograph. In May 2015 I watched Peter filming The Zygon Inversion in Cardiff. In November 2015 I was lucky enough to interview Peter at the BBC and have a photo with him at the Doctor Who Festival at the Excel.

 

 

Jodie Whittaker - And now Doctor 13. I was lucky enough to meet Jodie in March 2015 at a Broadchurch event in Bridport. Dorset, where she signed my BluRay sleeve. She's also the first Doctor I've seen in a play (and with a former Doctor - Eccleston) prior to being cast. On 11th August Jodie presented a special Behind the Screen: Films of My Life event at Somerset House. At the end she agreed to pose for selfies for all 60 people. What a star!