The SJA preview screening

[usuallyhats]

It was awesome! I'm not going to say anything detailed about the episode itself in this post, but I really really loved it - I had a few niggles, but I usually do, and overall it was great. There was a panel Q&A afterwards, and I took some photos, which are here - contains casting spoilers, and also a lot of pictures of London, because I got to the Southbank quite early and the sunset was lovely. Also there are a couple of photos of us all dressed up as Sarah Jane. (I am the one on the far right.) Anyway, onto the event itself! I expect most people know the casting spoilers already, but I shall cut this just in case. There aren't any spoilers beyond that, though. They started off by showing clips of Jo and Sarah's leaving scenes from "The Green Death" and "The Hand of Fear" - it was so much fun to see them on the big screen, with a whole lot of other geeks! Then there was a quiz, with signed SJA postcards and some Merlin stuff as prizes. I couldn't answer any of the questions and was a bit worried that I would have to hand in my geek card at the door, but I seemed to have got away with it. Then they showed the actual episode, which as I said I loved a lot.

Lastly there was a hour long Q&A/panel thing with Lis Sladen, Katy Manning, Edward Russell (SJA's brand manager), Joe Lidster (roped in to replace the producer, Brian Minchin, who was ill) and Gary Russell. This was fantastic! Katy Manning is clearly on a different planet to everyone else, but her planet sounds like an awful lot of fun. She and Lis are so tiny in real life! I have sadly forgotten most of the questions and answers, but there were some really good ones. Lis said that Davros was the villain she found the scariest, but Katy disagreed, because she thought the Daleks were scary because there was nothing human about them, no connection to humanity at all. She also praised Rob Shearman for making them scary again in "Dalek". Everyone was also full of praise for Matt Smith, both as an actor (they all called him a very clever actor) and a person, which was lovely. Katy talked about how she ended up doing SJA, which involved a lot of people phoning her and telling her that she couldn't tell anyone anything about it, but not actually telling her what she couldn't talk about! (Including at one point RTD phoning her as she was wandering around looking for the theatre she was supposed to be going to and ending up googling directions for her.) They all said how hands-on and enthusiastic RTD is, and I must admit that between that and the episode I am feeling rather more warm and fuzzy towards him than usual... The last question was about Barry Letts, which was a lovely one to end on: both Lis and Katy had a lot of good things to say about him. ♥

And then on Wednesday morning I went straight from London to UWE for lectures, not getting home until about quarter to nine, and as a consequence my brain is not working as well as it might be this morning. Also I have a headache. But it was absolutely worth it.

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you had a fab time (aside from the headache!)

[usuallyhats]

I did! It was so much fun.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

The cast and crew on the panel do indeed all sound so friendly and adorable. I'm glad that you had such a lovely time (even though I'm slightly jealous of you seeing two of the Doctor's companions live! in one place!).

[usuallyhats]

They were all so lovely! One bit that I forgot in my write-up was that when someone mentioned Liz Shaw, Lis Sladen said "oh, I love Carrie John!", which made me really happy. ♥