Josh Maxton is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.
If you already read the title (like the clever little Kasterborite you are), you might notice something. “But wait,” you’re saying, “Haven’t I heard something about Time Eddy before?” Indeed, you have, my dear reader. We’ve brought you several news reports, and even an interview about Time Eddy. Unfortunately, however, this convention review got lost amidst the thousands of filing cabinets at the K towers, and then it got shredded (probably by Philip Bates), and then it was rewritten, and then it got lost in a time eddy. However, now, at long last, it has arrived! So, anyway, here we go…!
Now, raise your hand if you love all things Doctor Who.
Well, of course, all your hands probably shot up, and your hearts started racing a little bit faster.
Have you ever been to a Whovian convention? I don’t mean like Comic-Con or anything that might have Doctor Who guests included in its line-up: I mean a convention that was thought up by Whovians, organized by Whovians, and run by Whovians. Obviously, this type of convention isn’t as popular as larger cons. But they are much better in many ways.
This past October, fans stateside flocked to the very first Time Eddy convention in Wichita, Kansas. It was put together by Kieran Kinsella—a super-fan with plenty of experience with conventions—and the Whovians of Wichita (a local fan group). October 2nd through October 4th, over 1,100 packed into the Best Western hotel in North Wichita to meet a host of stars from the shows’ past and present. Run by fans, the convention revolved around the idea of giving attendees and celebrity guests a better chance to interact with each other than they might get at a larger convention. Kieran Kinsella explained this to us in our exclusive interview with him:
“I don’t like these mega-cons, where you go and you wait in line for three hours and pay $200 just to get a signed photo of someone who you see for two seconds. Time Eddy’s going to be a bit more old school. There will be a lot of guest interaction with the attendees. There were a couple of writers that I spoke to that were going to come but weren’t able to because of work. One of them said to me ‘Look, I’m not going to come, if it’s like when I went to Comic-Con and you just stick me in some booth and people just drift by me so I can give autographs. I’m only coming if I get to interact with the fans’ And I was like ‘That’s exactly how I want it to be.’ So that’s what we’re going for. The guests will be very accessible. We want to do a lot of fun activities that the guests are involved in.”
Obviously, this really set Time Eddy apart from other conventions of similar size. It’s also really cool that this desire of fan/celebrity guest interaction is one that’s even held by some celebrities themselves. Everything about Time Eddy was a fantastic example of the fact that while celebrities certainly are rich and famous (and they might have a nicer house than you – or maybe not; we’re not here to judge), we’re all human underneath.
What also made the convention shine was the impeccable amount of celebrity guests that were there. Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon), Colin Baker (The Sixth Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri Brown), Peter Purves (Steven Taylor), Daphne Ashbrook (Grace Holloway), Ellis George (Courtney Woods), Victor Pemberton (writer for the Troughton era; inventor of the sonic screwdriver), Deborah Watling (Victoria Waterfield), Nev Fountain (writer for Big Finish) and Andrew Cartmel (script editor for the McCoy era; New Virgin Adventures author) all found their way to Kansas. Yeah, a lot of guests. Quite a bit. The number of guests even came as a shock to the Master of Ceremonies, Peter Pixie (pictured below):
“You know I’ve never seen a convention in Wichita with this many guests. There’s so many I have to write them down. Usually, there’s like three – but we had three before we even got started.”
Well, Peter, as you probably already know, there are already three guests confirmed for Time Eddy II (October 14th-October 16th, 2016). Oh dear… Spoilers, sorry. More on the follow-up convention below.
Anyway, moving on…
Peter Pixie gave Time Eddy an extra charm. He was the icing on the cake to the already delicious weekend. For more info about Peter Pixie and his work, visit his official website.
Now that you know some of the basics, let’s go over some of the background. Time Eddy was thought up, pieced together, and brought to life by Kieran Kinsella. Growing up in England, Kieran got into Doctor Who at a young age – much inspired by his Whovian father. In high school, he became friends with John Dorney [writer and actor for Big Finish, whose audio dramas include 1963: The Assassination Games, Requiem for the Rocket Men, and the critically-acclaimed Iterations of I]. The two started up their own Doctor Who fan group, and eventually decided to try and get guests to come to their fan meetings. They were met with great success.
Later on, they decided to do a convention, as Kieran explained:
“Within a couple of years, we decided to do a convention. It was fairly easy because most of the people were pretty up for it since the show was kind of in hiatus when we did the convention. It was after McCoy had finished, but the show was not officially finished yet; there was a chance it could’ve come back. So, a lot of people were quite keen, like Sophie Aldred came to the convention because she was hoping the show might come back still. We got Deborah Watling, Barry Letts, Terrance Dicks, Gareth Roberts (who worked on the New Adventures at the time) and a few more too. The convention was really successful. We got people coming from pretty far and wide; we got some fans from Scotland, and I was in London. The local newspaper thought it was pretty cool too.”
Eventually coming to Kansas City because of work, Kieran got a bold idea. He wanted to do a Doctor Who convention. But there was one issue. Kansas City didn’t seem like the right place. Kieran wanted somewhere that didn’t have a regular Doctor Who convention yet. Once he found out about the Whovians of Wichita, everything fell into place. Kieran and the Whovians of Wichita fit together perfectly. Time Eddy was born.
When the big day finally came, the convention turned out to be a huge success. One interesting feature was how many panels and discussions there were. All different kinds of topics were brought up. Comparing the processes behind Doctor Who production back in the ’60s with how it is now, why so many Hartnell and Troughton episodes are missing, and what the idea behind the sonic screwdriver are only a few of the extensive themes that were discussed.
The biggest issue with this convention is that it is virtually impossible to squeeze all its highlights into one article. To not mention every detail seems like treachery. However, an article can only be so long – which is why we included that handy video at the top. See? Method to the madness.
According to Peter Purves, back in the 1960s, Doctor Who was filmed similar to how stock companies (nicknamed “stocks”) or repertory theatres (nicknamed “reps”) work today. Rehearsal began on Monday, and they recorded that episode on Friday. The episode was then finalized and broadcasted not the day afterwards, but the Saturday after that. He also said that the budget back then only allowed for 3 edits per episode. This meant that if the TARDIS was seen arriving and disappearing, that counted as two of their three edits since the tape had to be stopped twice in order to do the effect. This made everyone have to do their best to get it exactly right. According to Peter, it’s a wonder that more errors aren’t found in the episodes from that era.
Ellis George’s experience on Doctor Who, about 50 years after Purves was on the show, is very different:
Kieran Kinsella: So, Ellis, by comparison, when you met up with Steven Moffat, what was it like?
Ellis: Well, it was a bit weird when I found out I got it. A couple weeks later, they called and said I had to come in for a read-through. And obviously, this is like Peter [Capaldi]’s first readthrough, because it was the first script of the whole series. So, it was really interesting to be there for that. A week later or so, they called, saying, ‘Ok, we’d like you to come in to film a scene.’ But now (in comparison to how it was for Peter Purves and the rest of the cast in the ’60s), they’re like ‘Oh, you messed up the line here. That’s okay; we’ll just shoot it again.’ But, of course, it’s not a case of ‘mess up as many times as you want.’ They still have a budget. You still can’t go over a certain amount of money. It’s more of the case of where it’s not too bad if you mess up once or twice. That’s okay. But if you mess up like ten times every time you do a take, then that’s just ridiculous. However, I still think it’s very different from how it used to be. Like, for example, it’s so much easier and it’s really relaxed. You feel like ‘It’s okay, everybody here is here to help. It’s not going to be too hard’.
“There were so many times that I just could not get this one paragraph in this one scene. I don’t know if you remember it or not. I was talking to the Doctor and I was saying, ‘Oh, so you don’t think I’m special?’ I literally, for so long, just did not know how to do this line. I got on set and Peter was like, ‘Okay, shout at me.’ I was like, ‘What?’ You know? Peter Capaldi is telling me to shout at him. And I was like, ‘You sure?’, and he was like, ‘Yeah, just shout at me.’ So I started shouting my lines at him. He was like, ‘Come on, get angry.’ I was just thinking to myself how crazy it was that Peter Capaldi was telling me to get angry and shout at him. It was a good time, though. At least, I had help when I got stuck on something.”
All the panels brought memories from the past, theorizing for the present, and speculation for the future all together. With panel discussions for several of the shows eras, in addition to other topics, the panels of Time Eddy really had something for everyone. There was even a lecture on time travel from Dr. Behrman of Wichita State University.
What do you like to do at conventions when you’re not listening to theories about how Captain Kirk is actually a regenerated Meddling Monk (okay, so that wasn’t actually discussed at Time Eddy)? You saunter off to the vendors’ room and buy cool stuff, of course: Big Finish audio adventures, fezzes, Whovian t-shirts, custom Whovian LEGOS, and even petrichor-scented soap! Don’t ask us who wants to smell of dust after rain.
While on the smaller side, Time Eddy‘s venue, the Best Western in North Wichita, could be perfectly described as “just right” for a brand new convention. In fact, this specific hotel has been the birthplace of many Wichita conventions that are now annual events.
We’ve talked about the number of guests, and the panels, and the vendors, and the venue for the convention, but we haven’t talked about the guests themselves. Hands-down, the celebrity guests were easily the best part of the convention. “Why?” you might ask. Very simply because of how outrageously kind and down to earth they were. The guests at Time Eddy were very accessible. Perhaps the best example of the celebrity guests’ mindset was seen in a special moment between Daphne Ashbrook and a young friend. At the venue, there was a miniature golf course. I was strolling on by in my hoodie and my sonic sunglasses when I happened to stumble upon Ashbrook playing golf with this young fan.
Perfect timing. For me, it harkened all the way back to Kieran Kinsella explaining that even the guests desire the interaction with the attendees. Very cool.
The several meals offered with the guests were a great idea too. Tickets for these meals were sold separately from the regular Time Eddy admission, but the few lucky Whovians got to eat breakfast on one day with some of the guests, and lunch the next. Although, speaking of meals, I do wonder what Colin Baker’s favorite midday snack is. Suggestions anyone? Probably something to do with carrot juice. Ah, just a guess.
So, in retrospect, Time Eddy was absolutely fantastic. A good representation of both Doctor Who’s past and present was there for sure. Time Eddy reminded fans just how fun it is to be a Whovian. We all watch this show about a man who travels in time. It’s a bit crazy at times, but it’s never Not Fun.
Peter Pixie himself summed it up better than anyone else could have:
“The main point of this weekend is this… The Doctor is the kind of person who stands up for those who can’t. He vows to never be cruel nor cowardly. I think we should all try to be more like that. If we can’t, we should support those who can.”
The best news about Time Eddy that I can give you is this: it’s coming back!
As I teased earlier, three guests have already been announced for Time Eddy II. Mark Strickson (Turlough) is included in the celebrity line up that’s, erm, in the process of being lined up, alongside composer Dominic Glynn, and Nabil Shaban aka Sil the Mentor from Vengeance on Varos and Mindwarp.
Blimey! Even so far that’s a solid line up of guests for next year. The wonderful thing is there are even more to be added!
Thanks for stopping by the towers of Kasterborous!
Keep an eye out for Time Eddy on Facebook and at their official website. New guest announcements for Time Eddy II will drop on December 26th (Boxing Day)!
The post Time Eddy: A Convention In Review appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.
