Bad Wolf – good dog!

I spent a very enjoyable weekend at Doctor Who con, Bad Wolf last weekend. It was replete with humour and excitement, great friends and new faces, enthusiasm and questions. It must be said these weekends are incredibly good fun, but they are also amazingly tiring.

So what happened? Well…

I arrived on the Friday and unloaded the Big Finish stock in the dealers’ room, chatting to Derek about the state of the economy (!) and the reputation of the Birmingham Metropole (!!). Then rushed to the drinks reception and caught up with Nick Briggs before spying Gary Russell across the room. Some of the crew were already dressed for that night’s themed party – the Fires of Pompeii – including the ever-lovely Zoe, who looked amazing. Naturally I thought about donning a sheet for about three seconds and then decided against. I think my toga party days may be a little behind me now…

Following the drinks, I accompanied Nick and Gary to dinner and chewed the fat while making our way through a fine meal before retiring to the bar and chatting and laughing away with Dave Owen, David Darlington and Robert Dick until I realised it was half one!

Come Saturday morning David Richardson arrived and with some help from “young apprentice”, Callum, we got the Big Finish machine into gear. We had a massive range of audios for this event including the brand new release of Jago & Litefoot which was the convention’s biggest seller. The totally lovely Lisa Bowerman and Sarah Sutton then arrived as BF sponsored guests and sat and signed and chatted and laughed with fans all weekend.

Saturday night was lovely: a brief interlude in the room with my feet up watching Doctor Who (so I avoided the shenanigans in the bar of the staff switching over for England’s first World Cup match on ITV five minutes before The Lodger finished!) followed by supper in the bar at a table of Who glitterati: Ian McNeice, Christopher Benjamin, Trevor Baxter, Carole-Ann Ford, Sophie Aldred, as well as BF luminaries Sarah, Lisa, David and Nick.

An early bed was followed by a lovely breakfast with Sarah and Sophie, chatting about the science of sleeping and dreaming with me no doubt boring them rigid with my in-depth research for project Somneiroi (the original novel, currently residing with my agent).

Another day of meeting the fans ensued with lots of lovely people coming up and saying “hi”, asking about the Big Finish Companion and my other projects. All so enthusiastic!

I also managed to catch up with Phil Ford – who I hadn’t seen since LA – in the green room. We had a very good laugh over a cold buffet before going our separate ways again. You’ve gotta love Phil: he must be one of the hardest-working men in TV and yet retains such a wonderful sense of humour. An aspirational man, if ever I met one.

So the day wound to a close with us packing up the BF stand and me giving a lift to David to the impossible-to-drive-to-from-the-hotel Birmingham International station!

So that was Bad Wolf. Not as massively attended as in former years and perhaps due a move of venue for many reasons. My next live appearance (!) will be at Regenerations in Swansea in September.