I would have posted this earlier, but apart from real-life goings-on I had a lot of pictures and videos to sort through in order to write a report that made at least some sense. My good friend Anna (@concetta20 at Tumblr) and I enjoyed this con, not just the guests’ panels but several of the fan discussion panels as well to fit in with the upcoming 60th anniversary of the show were a lot of fun. There were a couple focused on the First Doctor era that were especially interesting.

We arrived at the convention hotel on Friday. There wasn’t much for us to do since there weren’t any panels going on —it was mainly just advance photo ops for people with the Master Plan passes (we had General Weekend passes). We traded ribbons with other fans and we built up a nice collection. This is the one we had for trade:

I also gave one to Frazer, who seemed quite amused by it and graciously thanked me.

We also got some autographs. I brought with me my DVD of “Lochinvar”, Peter Diamond’s pilot in which Frazer had a bit part back around 1968. I showed it to him and asked if he remembered filming it. He looked amazed to see it and said yes, he did remember filming it, he’d filmed it back when he was still doing Doctor Who. He said “I think I played ‘Jethro’ … or ‘Jess’…” He mentioned Peter Diamond and how he’d done work on DW, and how he felt bad that nothing ever came of the pilot. He asked if I’d seen it and I told him I had, that I’d enjoyed it. He said “Yeah, it was very good,” and again was disappointed that nothing ever came of it. He mentioned Eric Flynn starring in it and said his son (whose name I can’t remember) was now in Game of Thrones. He asked if I wanted him to sign it, which I hadn’t been planning on, but I asked him to and he signed the cover.

He also signed a pic I brought with me of The Doctor and Jamie from “The Space Pirates” (we brought photos we’d printed out to save a bit of money). When he saw it he said “Oh, how nice.”

I also had Katy Manning sign my pouch of Jo Grant loose tea, which I got from Adagio (they have a lot of really good fandom blends – the Jo tea was really nice, I also recommend the Jamie, Zoe, Third Doctor, and K9 varieties). She was so sweet and at first thought I was giving her the pouch of tea. She placed it on the floor next to her things behind her and I had to tell her, “Oh, no, I was asking if you could sign it.” She was so embarrassed, hands covering her face as she said, “Oh, I’m sorry, how embarrassing.” I told her the tea was very good, “bright and sunny, and a bit spicy, like Jo,” and she said to me, “And a bit rebellious as well, I hope?” I told her “Yes, that too!” She signed the pouch for me and then gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek.

We also went to Michael Troughton’s table where he was doing signings and had copies of his books (his dad’s biography and a very nice picture book of his life), as well as the Big Finish CDs for “Beyond the War Games” and the newly released “James Robert McCrimmon.” He was very nice as well. I bought a copy of “James Robert McCrimmon”, and he signed the cover.

On Saturday I got Paul McGann’s autograph. I found him to be very nice and a bit outgoing, with a hearty handshake. 😀 Again I had him sign a photo I’d printed out at home before we left for the con.

We also had our photo op with Frazer and Michael. Again, both of them were very sweet and they thanked us at the end.

The first panel of the day we attended was Frazer’s. He revealed that his new book is “The Evil of the Daleks.” It’s basically a novelization of the serial based on the script, but from Jamie’s point of view. He made a few funny comments about recording the audio version and doing the various voices of the characters. He said it will be out in October and I believe he mentioned we could purchase it from his website. 

He shared some behind-the-scenes tidbits from filming “Evil of the Daleks.” Brigit Forsyth who played Ruth Maxtible had said she was so nervous and worried about it, but then Frazer popped his head around the corner and had something up his nose and she knew it would be a fun show. He said he didn’t know why the Emperor Dalek wasn’t called the Empress Dalek because it had a brassiere on. His line upon seeing it was supposed to be “look at the balls on that thing, Doctor!” but he couldn’t say that, so it became “look at the size of that thing, Doctor!”

The interviewer, Andrew Beech, mentioned the official number of missing episodes and brought up the rumors circulating about more episodes having been found, and something about a big announcement about it for the 60th Anniversary. He said he’s not as connected with production and that he personally hasn’t heard anything regarding this. He said that if there is something going on they’re all being very quiet about it and we’d be surprised. But he wouldn’t hold his breath. Make of that what you will. Frazer joked about how he and Wendy had done a documentary and when they broke for coffee and were talking about fees, someone had a folder that they’d blown the dust off of, and it said that Ronald Leigh Hunt (from Seeds of Death) made such-and-such an amount an episode, and this person made such-and-such. Frazer said, “they kept the payment work but had thrown away the shows.”

He was asked whether he preferred working in the studio or alone (as in doing Big Finish audio). He said he preferred the studio because you’ve got costumes and all that, and doing it the other way you’re doing it alone and there’s no opportunity for banter. He’d rather actually meet with you.

Someone had mentioned “Kidnapped” and asked if there was any connection between that and The Highlanders. He wasn’t sure but shared that Jamie was only supposed to be a one-story character at the time. He said at the time he thought “oh it’s a silly children’s show, I’m not doing more than four episodes”, but he’s glad that he said yes because of all the places he’s seen —Australia, New Zealand, America, etc.

He told a funny story about filming The Mind Robber, that Emrys Jones who played the “Master” was sitting at a desk with all these probes attached to his head and the director kept saying “Frazer, can you get closer to the desk? Patrick, you stay there.” And then he said it again and Frazer said to him, ‘I can’t, my junk is nearly on top of the desk.’” And then Patrick (from back where he was standing) said, “Yes, so’s mine.” 

He was asked about his chemistry with Patrick, if it was something that happened right away. He talked about how Patrick was on “Smuggler’s Bay” with him. He himself was the star and Patrick played Ratzy, this old smuggler. And then 2 years later he was on Doctor Who where Patrick was the star. He said it was around the time that Ben and Polly left, that they started that whole comedy act like the scene in The Faceless Ones where Jamie mentions the TARDIS and the Doctor steps on his foot. 

He talked about coming back for The Five Doctors, and how he couldn’t get the time off he needed from Emmerdale (he was originally supposed to be with Patrick throughout the whole thing), so JNT told him if he can get a couple of days off at some point to call him. He did and when he got the script faxed to him his lines were just “Doctor! Brigadier, no! AHHHHHH!” He said if he hadn’t said those 3 lines he wouldn’t have done The Two Doctors.

Of course he talked about how stiflingly hot it was in Spain while they were on location filming that story. He said it was so hot that one day he saw a dog chasing a cat, and they were both walking. He talked about how lovely Peter Moffett was as director, that he let him do what he called “Jamie-isms.” The script had Jamie saying “Oh Doctor it’s an Androgum!” but he said Jamie wouldn’t know what an Androgum is so he’d say instead “I think she said he was an angry man!” and the Doctor would say “Oh yes, Jamie, an Androgum.” “Ah yes, that’s it, an Androgum!” And then the scene in the studio where the Doctor and Dastari were seen writhing in those tubes and the 6th Doctor says “I am he, and he is me” and Jamie says “Who will I be?” He said the director said that’s perfect, they’re keeping it. 

A fan told him she liked how Jamie’s costume evolved as time went on, that he started out very historical and then he started wearing modern clothes with the kilt, like a turtleneck sweater. She asked if he had any input in that. He said that sometimes the costume department would say, “Oh Frazer, we’ve got this costume here,” and he’d say “No, Jamie wouldn’t change his shirt,” and that’s why for a lot of stories he wore the khaki shirt and the sheepskin sort of gherkin. And then Bobbi Bartlett would say, “Oh Frazer, I’ve got this lovely shirt” and he’d go, “Oh, alright” and that’s why he wore that black shirt in The Seeds of Death. He wanted to keep it the same and he mentioned a fan who once said to him that his character came from 1746 and surely he didn’t have a wristwatch coming from then. He told him, “Yes, you know the show goes out on a Saturday night. What do you think happens on a Sunday? The Doctor teaches Jamie how to tell the time.” 

He was asked what he thinks of the animated episodes, if they hold up to the way he remembered them. He said, “I don’t like the animation because I think they’re better actors than us.” He did mention The Macra Terror and how he asked the animators if they got the right orange for the suits they wore, the horrible orange double-breasted jacket with Bermuda shorts. They replied, “No, Jamie was in a kilt,” and he said, “No, I got out of the kilt,” and said the next time they do an animation to ring him or any of the other actors because they would remember what they wore. The interviewer admitted that the animations have been called a “reinterpretation” of the episodes and they’re not slavish about it, but he did bring up that John Cura’s telesnaps show what they’re wearing. 

Anna mentioned to him about Tom Baker writing an original story for his Doctor that he co-wrote (Scratchman), and she asked if he’d consider writing an original story for Jamie. He said he’d never thought of that but he had an idea for Jamie to come back in the new series, just one story and he had the beginning and the end, he just needed help writing the middle. He mentioned seeing Chris Chibnall at the airport once, and Chris said to him, “Oh, it’s so good to meet you, I’m such a fan of yours!” And he said he felt like saying, “Then why didn’t you use me?” We were asked if anyone had any ideas and Anna said she’d like to see him in something with Zoe, something that would give closure after they both had to leave. Frazer said she’s still very fit and healthy, and still very cute. 🙂

Someone mentioned they would have liked to have seen Jamie in The Power of the Doctor, especially in the scene where the companions are all sitting together. Frazer said that he asked why Jamie wasn’t there and they said, “Oh, well, these are all companions that left on Earth.” He said, “Culloden is Earth!” He said he could just be sitting there in the kilt and shirt with the claymore and not saying anything, and the other companions could all be saying to each other, “Who’s that?” 

Another fan mentioned a crossover idea of Doctor Who and Outlander. He said that he was from 1746 and the show was about time travel, as was Outlander, and when he was 15 he did a show called The Young Jacobites, which was also in 1746. He joked that it has to be a sign.

He told a nice story about meeting up with Peter Capaldi when he was filming the show, that he ran around the TARDIS and was chasing Frazer with his phone, and Frazer was doing the same thing. Then he (Peter) had to film a scene and after it was done, he pointed to Frazer and said, “You see that man over there? If it wasn’t for him and his Doctor, we wouldn’t be here now working.” 

He was also asked how he related to the character of Jamie. He said, “we both like women and we’re very loyal to people.” The interviewer mentioned his Scottish heritage being a big factor and thinking that that’s why they cast him as Jamie. He said that Shaun Sutton remembered him having played a character called Napoleon, a little Scottish boy, many years earlier. Frazer said he’d auditioned for the part of Ben and didn’t get it, but Shaun Sutton told them about how they had a Scottish story set up and since Frazer could do a Scottish accent to get him. He had tea with Shaun who asked if he was working at the moment and he said he wasn’t, and when he got home his agent rang and said they wanted him there in 3 weeks for a wardrobe fitting. He didn’t even have to audition for it. 

He demonstrated how the Highland accent sounds, that it’s a higher, almost sing-song type of sound. He used that for the story but when he was asked to stay longer he said he couldn’t keep doing it because you can’t get any emotion out of it so he slowly watered it into his “television Scottish” accent. He did a funny little impression of Hamish Wilson’s more Glasgow type of accent when he filled in for him in The Mind Robber. 

He talked about how doing Patrick’s voice as the Doctor in the Big Finish stories came about. His first story was Helicon Prime, and at first he’d just done a generic voice as the Doctor, but when they went through the last few pages to check for glitches, he started talking in Patrick’s voice and the director liked it so much he told him to do it that way. 

Anna asked him what it was like to work with Wendy again when he started doing Big Finish. He mentioned them coming back together for The Five Doctors and when she went to put her costume on (a tight blue leotard and tights) she said she couldn’t wear it because she was pregnant. The wardrobe department then got the idea for the bubble wrap and made the little top with it. He mentioned something funny about it being smaller later on and mimed popping the bubbles in it. He mentioned the funny story about them doing Big Finish and Wendy putting her cigarette out and then talking in her higher voice as Zoe. He said she’s asked what her favorite story is, and she answers “Mind Robber”, and when asked why she says “Because Frazer was missing in an episode.” 

At the start of Frazer Con Saturday night they handed us slips of paper when we walked in with questions to fill in the blanks. They collected them and then would read them all to Frazer, having him decide which ones he liked best. I got “Frazer is on ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ and he wins the game. He decides on Curtain #3 and is horrified by what he sees when the curtain opens. It’s _____________.” I credit Anna for this — I wrote “Shockeye from The Two Doctors with a cleaver.” I wasn’t expecting him to choose that one, but he did so I won a sticker. Katy Manning and Michael Troughton were there as well. 

Another cute moment was one of the statements on some of the slips of paper was about Frazer’s house being on fire, and the first thing he’d save would be ….  Someone wrote, “his original copy of The Highlanders.”  

We attended Katy Manning’s panel Sunday morning and I can’t state enough what a sweet, positive person she is. She told us that even when things look very bad, they could always be a lot worse and you have to be thankful for what you have. I hadn’t realized she had such problems with her eyesight. I’d read she was quite myopic but they seemed more so than I’d imagined. She didn’t let it get her down at all, though. 

She shared some cute anecdotes about filming with Jon Pertwee and what a nice relationship they had, about how close they were and did everything together (had lunch and dinner, even rode a motorbike together). She said she was very nervous on the first day of filming the show, and she’d done one other series where she played a French au pair (which she was able to do because she spoke French). She said it was a magical feeling on that first day when she first met Jon and it just goes “bing!” and you realize you have so much in common. 

She also mentioned that originally they were going to have something going on between Jo and Captain Yates, and that they had Richard Franklin read with a bunch of girls and had narrowed it down to about 3 before she (“Myopic Minnie”) arrived. She said she wears glasses and can’t have them made the easy way, they have to go to Germany and be hand-ground. She said when she was little she had to have them taped behind her ears because she was so little and they were so heavy. She earned the nickname “Granny Manning.” She said glasses are cool now, but not back when she was little.

She said that she couldn’t see anything when she was working, they’d take her glasses away, so she’d see everything in her head. They asked if she could read from the script (*puts her hand over her face, shaking her head*) and she said “Um … no?” They suggested she do improvisation. They put her in a big room and said, “Imagine there’s a hat stand there, and on the hat stand is a big, furry hat. And you look at this hat and very slowly it has to turn into this big devil or demon, and you have to react to that.” She said it’s not something that you can do instantaneously, you’re standing there and you’re rooted in fear. You have to visualize this and she said “when you’re as myopic as me, darling, you can see anything.” So she saw the biggest demon devil thing and then they told her they now want her to realize that it’s just a furry hat, and they want her to find what she thought she saw funny … “and that’s how Jo Grant was born.”  She said that Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts used to always talk about how they knew when she went in there in such confusion that she would be Jo. 

She talked about her chicken impressions, how she always used to sit there and do them as a kid and one episode they were filming, there were some chickens around and Jon Pertwee jumped up and said, “At last!” She demonstrated for us how she “talks chicken.” 

She said something good about the differences between New Who and the days she was on the show, and that even in the eighties when she was in Australia the show wasn’t really known well over here or even there, and they were just on the cusp of being a cult show. It was nothing like we all know it now. She said you have to think about how the show was back then, they’d just started working with the “green screen” concept and she was the guinea pig for that. She said it was a very different time and you have to go back and imagine that they weren’t thinking back then like, “Oh I’m in this really big show and it’s amazing, and we’re doing all these conventions all over the world… No. We were actors giving everything we had to make this show work.” She said that Jon was really into doing the straight acting and making it work, and that everyone in the show has a 150% commitment going into it. 

She said that filming during the winter it was cold and she’d be wearing boots, and sometimes her feet would freeze to the ground so they had to take kettles of hot water to get them unstuck, “Otherwise it’s, ‘Run, Jo!’ ‘I can’t!!’” She said the first day she learned to tuck-roll out of a moving car, they did their own stunts and if anything happened to them they’d just say “Well, we’ll get someone else.” 

She gave a nice little tribute to William Hartnell when she was talking about The Three Doctors and said, “Isn’t it touching that this man who was the first person to create this character, lest we should ever forget, he had his last time before he went on his one ‘big adventure’… the last thing he got to do was to play that character again.” Then she said with a big smile, “In comes Patrick Troughton, what a glorious man.” 

She also said something very nice about the Classic Who shows, that when you watch them you have to take yourself back, you can’t look at it from the point of view of watching Doctor Who now. They didn’t have all the social media that we have now—it was a very different time. You have to learn about that time and go back and watch it, you’ll find it very different, even as far as the characters go. She said Jo was a very strong female if you stop and think about it and the things she did.

She said something quite lovely about the Doctor, that from all the different characters he was, looking at the fact that he has two hearts, she’s always looked at it as one heart belonging to the actor and his take on the character, and the other belongs to the Doctor. I thought that was a pretty cool way of looking at it. 

Sunday afternoon we attended Frazer and Michael’s panel, which was hosted by Michael’s wife. Frazer talked about how Patrick’s wife at the time wanted him to leave and do other stuff, and his agent wanted him to leave as well. He said that if they hadn’t had those two women nagging them you probably would never have heard of David Tennant. Michael asked him if he was sad about leaving and he said “Oh yeah, we didn’t want to leave.” 

Michael said that he didn’t want to be an actor originally, he wanted to be a scientist. He said the acting bug hit him when he was a teenager and working backstage at the Palladium. He talked about how he was on the Doctor Who set once during filming of The Web of Fear. He said that when he met Frazer for the first time he was in awe. He said he identified with Frazer because he was also a young lad and he aspired to be like him. As he watched him film he said to himself, “That is what I wanted to do” and then, “And I want to be a scientist” so he was a bit confused. He thought that the next time he really saw him again and talked to him was in 2012 at a convention. 

They both shared some lovely and interesting insights about Patrick. Frazer said that he never had a cross word with him in the three years they worked together. He said the only time Patrick shouted at him was in The Two Doctors when he was in the wheelchair, and Frazer and Colin pranked him by grabbing the wheelchair and tilting it back. Finally Patrick shouted at him saying “You should be in my gang, we should be ganging up on him!” 

They talked about doing the Big Finish stories together. Michael said that when he started doing them, he was doing some other character and when Frazer did both Jamie and his dad’s voices, it was amazing because he’d do one voice and then switch to another in the same take. He told a funny story how he went to the studio to record and they were in separate booths with windows, and Frazer was in the middle of doing a great scene where he voiced his dad’s character, and then he’d look over at Michael and mouth, “Was that alright?” and Michael would reply, “Absolute rubbish!” 

They were talking about Patrick’s mannerisms and Michael said he always remembered the cough he’d do when he’d try to remember his lines, that it was specifically to remember the next line and his brain would catch up quickly.

Michael brought up a story that Anneke Wills told about when Patrick would get his hair cut and he’d cover it up with a hat, and they’d say “No, you can’t do that, we want to see it” and from what he said this was tied into the Doctor having a thing for hats in the beginning, and then it disappeared so quickly. He said he took things like this quite seriously, that even if you took the mickey out of him he’d say something like “don’t do that”, or “you don’t mean that, do you?” He said he was quite sensitive, which made him a great actor. 

Frazer said he went to his house about 3 years into the show and didn’t realize he’d done all this painting. Michael confirmed it was like an art gallery. He said he used to do copies of paintings and an article about him once said that he was a very good forger. Michael said he was a handyman as well and once built an extension on the back of his flat. He was also apparently a very good bird-watcher and would draw beautiful pictures of what he’d seen. 

Michael told a funny story about him involving medicine. They’d have a lot of medicine lying around, which in those days was in suspension (in liquid form). He’d come into the kitchen and say, “Ooo, what’s that?” and Michael would say ‘Oh, well that’s sort of hiccup juice”, and Patrick would take a swig, and then say “Oh yeah, that’s rather nice.” And he wouldn’t care what the medicine was, he’d go for the taste. One day they had a big bottle of some lotion for dogs. It was for a skin condition and was meant to be dabbed on instead of being taken internally. He came in merrily and went “Oh I wonder what that is”, and before Michael could go “No!!” he’d taken a swig and the whole thing shot out like a projectile. And Michael told him “Well that serves you right for taking other people’s medicines!” 

Frazer said they used to go golfing together. Michael said he and his dad used to as well, that near the end of his life he got to know him a lot better because he lived around the corner from him so they got to play a lot of golf together. He said Patrick used to get so annoyed when he was playing badly, so much that he’d throw his clubs on the ground in frustration. He also had a habit of “weeing in the open”, he’d just stop and turn around in the middle of the fairway. He thinks most of the lady members got used to it but every so often someone would say, “What on earth is that man doing?” and then you’d hear, “Oh don’t worry darling, that’s just Doctor Who having a piss.” 

Frazer said he was great with the ladies, he could charm the birds off a tree. Michael said that whenever he’d go for rehearsals or read-throughs, many elderly ladies would meander up to him and say “I knew your father well.” He said he could understand why: he was such a charmer. When the ladies were around, he would light up. Frazer interjected that he wasn’t the best dresser and Michael said “No, he dressed like a tramp!” He’d have a rope tied around him instead of a belt. He said he’d wear baggy corduroys, and Frazer added the Hush Puppies that he also wore as Doctor Who. Michael said they got so worn he’d polish them. Frazer: “And they were suede!” 

Michael’s wife asked them what he was like during interviews. Frazer said that there was some big TV show back when they were doing Doctor Who (“Simon Dee” I think?) and they asked the two of them to do an interview but Patrick said no, he didn’t want to talk. Michael said that was a reason he didn’t do the conventions much —he had this feeling he would be typecast, that the association of Patrick as Doctor Who was going to stick too much. Michael would say to him, “What does it matter? You have all this other work before you”, and he mentioned that a week after he finished Doctor Who he got this series about Henry VIII. Frazer brought up about him being in The Omen. Michael said he was in it for about 10 minutes in the beginning and when he talks to most people they said that was what had such an impression on them, because he’s such a good actor. He said Patrick taught him that if you’re going to be in a film, always be in it in the beginning or in the end, not the middle because they’ll forget you. Speaking about The Omen, Michael said, “What a great death as well!” 

A fan brought up that it was said that Patrick didn’t like to do theater, and she asked if Michael knew why. He told her that he’d call it “all that shouting in the evening.” He said he had an early career in theater but then when television came around (he called it “the national theater”), it was bringing drama into the living room, you didn’t have to go out. Michael thinks he also enjoyed the subtlety that it brought, he was a very emotional actor that he brought from the inside out and didn’t like projecting large performances. Michael agrees more with him and said his brother David was different and enjoyed doing heater performances more. Michael said he didn’t do much theater after he was about 20 and did mention he did a minor tour of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” He sang a bit from that one (“Way, way back, many centuries ago…”). 

At one point Michael was talking about what Patrick was doing during the war and the lights dimmed. Frazer looked up at it and asked if Patrick was here and Michael said “He is here.” 

Anna asked Michael about his taking on the role of Patrick’s Doctor for Big Finish, was it his idea or someone else’s, and did he have any reservations about doing that because of the expectations and how to make it his own. He said Nick Briggs just phoned him up out of the blue and asked what he thought of the idea. He said that initially he was like, “I don’t know, the idea of having the son do it…” that it could have gone the wrong way but the scripts he read were so good. If he hadn’t done a good job the first time he thinks he would have stopped, but he felt he’d accomplished a good level in the first one. He did have reservations but he thinks his dad would be looking down and saying “For God’s sake, do the job! It’s money!” He’d even told them “But Frazer does it so well! Why do you want to change it?” They said, “Because it’s a new idea, the Season 6B, and it’s time to change.” They wanted to have Frazer as an older person and the scripts were going that way so he thinks that’s what kicked it. He said Frazer could play it his own age instead of the younger character because (talks in higher voice) “You have to talk high…” which led Frazer to talk like young Jamie in the higher voice (“Look a’ the size a’ THA’ thing!”) and they just went back and forth like that. Michael admitted he can still do it. A girl even told Frazer “You always sound like Jamie young no matter what you do on audio.” Michael agreed and Frazer said it always comes straight back to him 

Michael had a lot of praise for Sylvester McCoy, what a good character actor and a lovely man. Frazer mentioned that he and Sylvester had done a film called “Lost at Christmas” and Sylvester told him, “If we do it in a Highland accent we’ll have more screen time.” He said the director told them “I know what you buggers are doing, but keep it in.” 

They were asked what their favorite episodes were (of Doctor Who) and Frazer said his has to be The Highlanders and a fan called out, “So when’s the animation coming?” Frazer said he didn’t know, it should be the next one. He was asked something about the kilt, I think maybe if he’d wear it again and some fan called out, “It depends on the weather!” With that, they put a pic up on screen of Frazer wearing a kilt at a convention. We enjoyed their panel —lots of interesting info and a lot of laughs.

We also attended Paul McGann’s panel regarding his love of history and the different historical roles he portrayed. He mentioned how he got the role for the Doctor Who TV movie. He said Phil Siegel saw him in some other role (the pic they showed was of him dressed as an 1840s Irish priest) and said “Who is that? That’s my Doctor.” He said Phil couldn’t tell him and his brother Mark apart so they both had to audition for Doctor Who. He said at the time (this was 1994) they were hearing rumors about the show being brought back, that it ended in ‘89 but it was going to be brought back and Rowan Atkinson was going to be the Doctor… but then Phil called him. 

Anna asked him about being in Horatio Hornblower and he said he loved it. He felt badly that they never finished it. He came into it in the third series and said he wished they were still making it. They were about to run out of books in the series and then they lost Ioan Gruffudd (the lead actor) since he went off to make The Fantastic Four and they couldn’t get him back. He was asked if he could survive as an 18th century sailor and he said “not for a week.”

I don’t have much else to report on his panel because all the storage on my phone got used up, and then the battery of the camera I used after that to take pics and videos drained pretty quickly. But it was a very interesting panel.

That’s about it for the report. And now, pictures!

All in all it was a great time. If anyone is interested in seeing videos, let me know. But I pretty much summarized everything in the writeup. XD