Surprise Show Day

 According to our guide on the Doctor Who locations tour, we associate London with the colour red thanks to these kinds of phone boxes (tho' they don't usually have giraffes in 'em), the old postal boxes, double decker buses and Tube signs. They use a lot of red props when they shoot 'London' scenes in Cardiff. 


On Saturday 7/7/12, we went into real London for a couple of surprises for Ayesha.  First there was this... 

The Barmy Britain Stage Show

Two fantastic actors performed songs and skits, changed costumes on stage and even got us joining in - pantomime style.  The next surprise was another show, but quite different...
 

Ssshhh, we took a naughty photo of the stage

Matilda the Musical

 Sets were amazing, actors were amazing, everything was amazing.  Tim Minchin is a genius songwriter - the perfect person to adapt Roald Dahl's work.  Any musical that includes 'front bottom' in a song has got to be good!


We also spent some time exploring family history in Soho...

Shop with a name common in Dad's (Howie's) family- they were tailors too

Place where census records show Dad's (Howie's) family - the Bierman side living in 1881 

In Which We Did Not Blink

WARNING, THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE CRASH OF THE ELYSIUM, INTERACTIVE DOCTOR WHO STAGE SHOW...

 Join 16, 17 and 18, Patrol Group, Alpha Squad Team for the adventure of a lifetime...

AYESHA... On the 5/7/12 we went to the Crash of the Elysium. 

First we went into a boring museum room about a boat (called the Elysium.) All of a sudden, sirens went off and army officers came bursting into the room. They said that we were all in serious danger and they needed our help. So, we went into another room and got changed into weird white full body suits with hoods and masks, all the while being shouted at by army officers. We were assigned numbers 16, 17 & 18 (Hazel & Bradley were 14 & 15) of the patrol unit in Alpha Squad on a special emergency mission.

 And so it was that our adventure really began, as we were taken to the wreckage of the real Elysium (a space ship) and shown a video of ...guess who?.. none other than the Doctor asking us to find the TARDIS and destroy it (her). Oh, and, of course, to beware of escaped art exhibits. We kept seeing strange spacesuits crumpled on the ground everywhere.

Before we knew it, we were searching rooms and running down corridors and then, there they were... WEEPING ANGELS...DON'T BLINK!!! Everyone, except poor number 3, made it through to the control room of the ship where we got another video message from the Doctor. He told us which section to find the TARDIS in and warned us about the ship's auto-defence mechanism... but the tape cut out before he could say more.

We turned around and a suit which had been crumpled on the ground had come to life and was standing large and still... Suddenly, it lurched toward us and there was more, faster, running down dark corridors... Then more Weeping Angels, even faster, blind running down pitch black corridors with locked doors barring our way until we found ourselves in a circus?!?! in the 1800s!?!?

We were met by Dolly, a lady who had had many adventures with the Doctor (including accidentally being the first woman on the Moon, oops!).  She told us we must not destroy the TARDIS as we were the last hope for the Doctor's survival.  We used the artron energy  obtained from our jump through the time rift to charge the TARDIS key and find the TARDIS  to send it/her back to the Doctor.  

But Angels were still on hot on our heels.  Now we ran through a hall of mirrors until we finally made our escape and used artron energy to time lock the Angels.

Some of you might like to read the letter of thanks I received from the Doctor... I'll have to post a scan when I get back to Australia.  

PS Thanks to cousins Hazel & Bradley for organising the tickets and coming along xx

A Sonic, A Surprise and a Big Blue Bus

Here's Ayesha learning that she's about to do a 4 hour DOCTOR WHO filming locations tour around Cardiff...  We knew who the guide was, because he was the guy holding a SONIC SCREWDRIVER.  Du-du-du-dah, du-du-du-dah, OOOOH-WEEE-OOOOOOOH!

Outside Cardiff Castle, with panini in hand

The big blue bus which took us around

This is the church, St Johns, where The Runaway Bride was filmed with Donna dematerialising while walking down the aisle.   There are Knights of the Templar in one part of the church, but one of them was stolen, so it was replaced in a peculiar way.  Look closely at this picture...

You will be deleted...

 We went around a place that had lots of the locations for Human Nature and the Family of Blood, where we thought of Holly a lot and expected her to jump out in a scarecrow mask at any moment. The next picture shows where the TARDIS was hidden while the Doctor thought he was John Smith, a human.

We saw a lot of minis on the tour too, which made us think of Kira.  There were 2 parked on this street, can you spot them?  (The black one had a John Cooper signature on the bonnet).

Where Donna lived in Turn Left when she and her family were evacuated.

 This is the church where Rose's parents were going to a wedding when they were attacked by Reapers in Father's Day.  We also saw the intersection where her dad finally died.

Cowering in fear of reapers

 A pub in Cardiff has an interesting entrance to their toilets...

If you don't know what this is, you're a noob.

 When we got to the Ponds' blue house, I obviously listened very carefully to our guide, Matt, who has appeared in 6 episodes himself (as an extra) and is also an avid Whovian (or Wholigan, if you like).

And, finally, Ayesha took a starring role in the tour's reenactment of the Amy Pond and the Doctor scene in 'Leadworth' for The Eleventh Hour.  This took place exactly where the original scene was shot.

AYESHA: I'm just going to point out, this is the only take, no practicing AND I couldn't properly see the script.