#ewanmorgan

When is a convention not a convention? This was unique event to say the least.  Christopher Eccleston since he got that part has been the hardest actor to pin down, he will not do events, he won’t do convention, he does not approve of fan’s being fleeced, even though some fans might not mind being fleeced. So it was with trepidation that I jumped into the car at 8am on a Saturday morning to drive 550 miles down the road to an event that I’d come across by accident on the internet some months earlier.  The elusive ninth Doctor had shown up, not in filming location or theatre stage door but at a small theatre at the back of beyond. Taking the bull by the horns I asked the theatre if he’d be doing signings and photos and they replied that they would ask. Arriving at the event at 11am there was not a soul about apart from a few ducks.  That changed as time marched on, regular Who fans, convention organizers all turned up and someone took the sensible move of organizing fans into an orderly queue. Time marched on and no Chris.  With 20 minutes to go I headed in.  The theatre staff were on patrol for camera’s.  Poor old Sheldon got a ticking off but he was having none of it (Good on you Sheldon!). Paul Hart introduced Chris and mentioned that there would be questions at the end.  Chris admits that the American’s introduced him once as ‘The Veteran Actor, Christopher Eccleston’. The initial show as slightly marred by the sound of Chris’ microphone but this was changed and improved. Now my memories are a bit vague here so the talk and questions covered in no particular order: - On acting Chris said that when he started out trying to be an actor he spent 3 years unemployed before finally finding work which was how dedicated he was to achieving his dream of employment in acting.  He also did a bit of Nude Life Modelling when he was younger to earn cash though he did not enjoy being commented on when artists would describe drawing, ‘The fat bit’s’! He also worked early on the National Selling Ice Cream while Anthony Hopkins was on stage acting. He mentioned that regarding new talent he hears from a number of young people ‘That want to be famous’ and is disappointed that at their age in 1983 he wanted to do the career ‘To be Good’. Another person asked what a young and angry 16-year-old Chris Eccleston would say to older Chris if given advice, “Sod off” hit it pretty much on the nail he said. He was not keen on doing American Hollywood movies which left him disappointed and regretted.  He was keen on carrying on with ‘Leftover’s’ and this will be his next job filming a couple/4 episodes in the States and then it will move to Australia for a further 8 episodes.  He mentioned that creator Damon Lindelof left Twitter due to the outburst of fans to the finished ending of Lost. He’s tried to avoid what he described as his own fault of being regarded as ‘The angry man’ image and despite the things you hear he was very relaxed when things got going. He was keen for the future to do more theatre which he admits he’s neglected.  Particularly doing ‘The Scottish Play’. He mentioned various things such as ‘Let Him Have It’, ‘Cracker’ and ‘Our Friends in the North’ and ‘Hillsborough’ and went on to be Trevor Hicks (The person that he played in the drama) Best man at his wedding in 2009.  He also mentioned John Lennon from BBC4 (Which he thought he was too old for the part but he was not going to turn it down) to which he supplied his own wig which he has now lost. Now all the crowds that waited outside made up the majority of those attending the performance.  I would say that it must have been around three-quarters of the theatre goers were fans, the other quarter were the public.  There were a few convention organizers that must have been taking notes as to what they could do to tempt Chris out again. What about Doctor Who you ask?  What questions were asked? 1) Why did you leave the series? 2) Why did you not do the 50th anniversary story? 3) Why do you not do more conventions? 4) Will you be doing any Big Finish with Billie Piper? 5) Did you choreograph the little dance in ‘The End of the World’ yourself? Nah, none of those. When it came to questions everyone seemed to avoid the ‘Who’ word and in my opinion very wisely.  Let’s be honest, we’ve come a long way to finally get him here were we have all met in the middle.  It was fairly obvious to everyone how many ‘Who’ fans were in the building and Chris knew this.  No one wanted to upset him.  If it was all ‘Who’ there may be more damage than good. Of Doctor who he did mention that while the classic series of Doctor Who had gone out with a whimper he felt sympathy with the production team and actors of the eighties with regard to support and neglect which I thought was quite touching. He also told another fan that he had two figures of himself, a Doctor Who one and a Heroes one. He mentioned that Bill Nighy and High Grant had turned down the part and so it was up to him to accept it which he showed no regret. One brave fan finally at the end took the bull by the horns and asked, “Will you be doing signings and photos at the end” and mentioned something about £500 for charity. Chris was going to do it anyway and the dash was on! One signing and one photo, that was it and you have until 4pm, an hour for 150 fans, sounds simple but nothing always goes to plan. I personally was not too worried about a signature and was keen just for that photo, so very kindly, a fan who I was queueing with, Dave Balbock (I’m so sorry if I’ve got the spelling wrong Dave, see you at the Capital) from Crewe gave me a helping hand by taking a couple of photos for me.  I gave him my signature which suited me fine. Now this is where it gets controversial as Chris had to go by 4pm and we got our stuff done on the nose. To those who were behind total sympathy, I understand your frustration I really do.  I hope that with the way the day went that Chris will reconsider doing more events like this one. I know my photos have an expression of shock, sheer shock of just making it, not ideal but as they say, every picture tells a story! So when is a convention not a convention?  Was there a stage, yes, was their questions from the audience, yes, was there signings, yes, was there photo’s, yes.  Someone else is running an event called ‘Miracle Day’, if you had to give this event a name that might be quite apt. To sum up the day, we’’ I drove up the road to do another 550 miles bowled over and on a high. I think and hope that Chris was impressed by the fans who I felt did themselves proud on the day and made me feel proud to be one of them and I really hope that as he gets older he attends one or two more events like this one.