In October 2006 Fanderson held their Sector 25 convention in London. This article is PART 1 of a 2 part article on the event. PART 2 will be posted next week. This is a fairly long article. Photos are in the gallery, but I'll try to link in some photos when I post PART 2.

 

In October of 2006 Fanderson celebrated their 25th anniversary. The celebration was the Fanderson convention held in London over the weekend of October 7-8. I attended my first fanderson convention in 2000 and had a great time. I missed the last one in 2005(?) (its a lot more complicated getting there from the USA.) but it just seemed right to go again this time. Unlike the 2000 event which was held in an oddly out of the place location, this event was set in the centre of UK's film and TV area, specifically Borehamwood/Elstree. The area is home to various studios including the famous Elstree studios, home to the (original) Star Wars and Bond movies as well as many popular TV shows such as BBC's Eastenders.

Although it looked at first like there would be a heavy bias in favour of the New Captain Scarlet crew, in the end there was a reasonable gathering of crew and cast from a variety of shows. The event was basically set over the weekend, with guests appearing one day or the other, but most appearing on both days.

One word of advice: Unless you live very close to the venue, I strongly recommend getting a room at the hotel for the duration, e.g. from friday to sunday. There are three benefits to this: 1. you can drop off your stuff in your room when you have accumulated a lot. 2. you can hang around in the bar and go to dinner with some of the other convention people, thus potentially making new friends and making the most of the event. 3. you won't have to leave in the early evening even as things are still going on in order to get home. in my case I was staying with family in Surrey, 2-3 train rides and a LONG walk from the station. No fun. Luckily for me, a friend of mine, Essad, was kind enough to give me a ride back to the station both evenings.

The event itself was deliberately set up with overlapping events in order to ensure there was always something for everyone. There was a dealer area, an exhibition, an autograph area, a main area for interviews and a smaller room for interviews. This meant that you really had to look over the schedule as soon as you got hold of it, as it was quite easy to miss something. Oddly, there were fewer if any screenings of shows. One of the things I really enjoyed at the 2000 event was the screenings which were accompanied by ad-lib comments from cast or crew members. The reasoning was that most people have the DVDs with the commentary, so room should be made for less common things like interviews. One more place people would gather was of course the main bar/snack area which was always very busy and a great place to hook up with old friends and meet new people.

Talking of people, my estimate for people attending was around 250. Oddly, I saw many people only attend for one day, but I guess if you have an interest in guests that are only there one day, why pay for both?

DAY ONE

During the first day I was lucky enough to meet Francis Matthews (Captain Scarlet), Shane Rimmer (Scott Tracy and more), David Graham (Parker, Brains etc) and many more.

OK, I admit it, I tend to have a somewhat loud voice. This really became obvious when I was standing at the bar during the lunch on the first day. I was talking to a friend about Mike Trim (designer and model maker on Thunderbirds on to Space 1999). I mentioned that I had not seen him and was a bit disappointed. As I said this, there was a lady next to me ordering some drinks. In the back of my mind I had a feeling she might know Mike, but after I finished talking, she turned to me and said "Are you looking for Mike? - he's over there" and then she points to Mike Trim sitting in the bar.

Of course, the lady turned out to be his wife. In this somewhat clumsy manner, I was finally able to meet a person who designed many of the vehicles I grew up with and really enjoyed on the shows. We sat and talked for a while and had a good laugh about it. It was a great moment and it was a great example of the kind of things that happen at conventions like this. You never know who is around the corner. I also got to meet Anthony Taylor, who runs the Fab Gear USA website and is the author of the Mike Trim book.

The first day included some interesting interviews with the cast and crew from the New Captain Scarlet show. What was most illuminating from that was Gerry Anderson's comments about the way the show was broadcast on saturday mornings. The way it was cut in half and placed in the middle of a somewhat inane and annoying TV show almost guaranteed it would not get the kind of audience many had hoped for. Many people point to the considerably different way the BBC handled the new Dr Who series as an example of how it could have been treated.

Anyway, I digress, the point Gerry made was that when he went to sell it in the US, they asked when it was broadcast and how well it did. The basic facts are that the show was aired on saturday mornings and did not do as well as expected. This is hardly what you want to be telling a potential buyer, but the facts are the facts. So to rub salt into the wounds, not only did Granada screw up any realistic chances of New Captain Scarlet doing well in the UK, they also screwed up chances for it in the US and potentially other markets. As a result, the show has not (to my knowledge) been aired in the US yet. It was clear that Gerry was quite perturbed by this, and I can't blame him for that; who wouldn't be?

As for future productions, it seems that a CGI version of Thunderbirds is still on the cards, as well as another new series. Hopefully news on these will be available soon. The other series is called "Lightsphere" or maybe "Deep Blue Sky", I think the latter but it was confusing. He also said "it has the potential to be the best show". I can't wait. At the time, we were told things would be revealed in "a few weeks". Well its 3 months later and there is still no news. Oh well. Having said this, it is easy to overlook the fact that Gerry Anderson has been producing TV shows and movies for 50 years. He's way beyond what many consider the "retirement age", yet he still keeps plugging away. God bless him, and nobody is ever going to say "stop!". I know I won't. Keep 'em coming Gerry.

The exhibition area was (I think) a bit smaller than the one I attended in 2000. This one also had no contemporary toys (for example the earlier show had some of the rarer Century 21 toys on display). Everything was either an original prop, model or a replica. There were puppets from Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, Secret Service as well as Terrahawks.

Some were replicas but most seemed original. There were plenty of models, mostly from UFO and Space:1999, but I think that most were replicas. The problem of course is that those with original items are not always keen to let them out for display. That, of course, is a shame. Along one wall was a stand showing prints of artwork from New Captain Scarlet and along another wall was art from the 1960s showing TV21 layouts by Mike Noble and many sketches by Mike Trim.

The dealers had quite a bit of space, actually occupying 2 rooms, one was just dealers and another was Fanderson sales along with Graham Bleathman who was selling some of his sketches. This second room was also used for autographs, so this hopefully meant some additional sales for Fanderson as people looked for items to get signed.

Early in the day David Graham and Shane Rimmer took the stage for a light hearted interview which was well received. It seemed to me that they have done this so many times, and the people who were there had been to these before, that the usual questions were not asked and the conversation was more adhoc and not always about Anderson shows. Nonetheless it was a treat.

Later that day, my friend Ralph introduced me to Crispin Merrill, the composer of the music from New Captain Scarlet as well as Lavender Castle. Maybe I'm getting old, but Crispin seemed quite young to me! Crispin is extremely busy and has done several hundred compositions for various people.

I also got to meet Stephen La Riviere, the producer/director of the superb Supercar documentary. He was not a guest, just a fan visiting, so it just goes to show, once again, you never know who is sitting next to you! Stephen is active in the film production community with various projects, but its unlikely we will see a follow up to the Supercar documentary any time soon.

We were treated to a preview of the Fanderson documentary, many years in the making. It looks promising and features many interviews.

One odd item I saw was a company (collectables mania) selling, of all things, poker chips with Supermarionation characters on them. Apparently they make chips for casinos and want to move into the collectors market. Good luck to them, but I don't think anyone there was too interested.

Oh wow, 5:30pm and time for my loooong journey home...