BFCC 3/19

Once more unto the (geeky) breach, dear friends…

I booked my ticket for last weekend’s Film & Comic Con when Indira Varma was still listed as a guest, but sadly she cancelled due to “work commitments”, for the second time in a row! Thankfully, there were still plenty other great people to see/mildly-inconvenience, and fun talks to listen to…

First up were Oliver Ford Davies and Kate Dickie, nominally discussing Game Of Thrones, but drawing on their many years in the film industry to keep the audience entertained with anecdotes and (SPOILER-riffic) inside knowledge. For example, Dickie had intended to follow the book’s description of her character’s death in GoT, and maintain a stoic silence as she fell through the “moon door”… but she’s so afraid of heights irl that when they hauled her up to the ceiling of a green-screen studio and then dropped her down to simulate falling, she just started screaming her head off in genuine terror, and that’s what they used on-screen! Also, because she generally appears in small-scale, street-level indie flicks, she feels very intimidated when she steps onto giant, fantastical sets like the “Eyrie” in GoT or the alien ship in Prometheus. In fact, she suffered such a terrible attack of “imposter syndrome” while filming the latter that she somehow convinced herself they’d meant to cast another actress in the role, and resolved to hide away in the shadows as much as possible, in case they realised their mistake! Bless. Oh, and when asked who she thought should be sitting on the Iron Throne at series end, she opted for Arya, as compensation for everything the errant Stark had been through, and as a reward for offing “Littlefinger”!

Although Dickie was extremely chatty and super-adorable on-stage, I decided against bothering her at her signing table again this year… mostly because she never seemed to be there when I slouched past… though I did take the opportunity to inform her neighbour, Shauna MacDonald, how much I enjoyed Wedding Belles and Filth, while I was in the area. Fun fact: Apparently there was talk of spinning Belles off into a full series, back in the day, but… er… that didn’t happen… yet…

The second talk of the day was by actress/comedienne Ingrid Oliver, which I arrived a little late for. Tch-tch! To be honest, I’m not really a Doctor Who fan, and was in two-minds about attending at all until I found myself at a loose end, due to the heavily reduced number of stalls this year. I’m very glad I did stop by though, because Oliver’s a very entertaining and lively speaker, and she did touch on a variety of other topics during her set (such as a youthful stint as a Shakesperean volunteer at the Tower of London, where her soliloquies were occasionally interrupted by unappreciative tourists wanting to know where the toilets were!). She also got to drop some pretty big names when asked about upcoming projects, as she’s just finished filming a supporting role in The Hustle, a gender-flipped remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson! Note: One common theme across both talks was how much actors fib at auditions in order to score a role, from claiming to be experienced horse-riders, to wearing a borrowed pair of spectacles that they pass off as their own… though Dickie insisted that she’s too scared of getting caught-out to tell any porkies herself…

On a comic-book kick, I got my copy of Sonia Leong’s Manga Romeo & Juliet adaptation signed, and also picked up a copy of her illustrated fantasy novel A Brush With Magic… after which she was kind enough to pose for a photo at her table, which I’m gutted to see came out so blurry (along with all the other pictures on this page), because her goth-y suit was awesome, and I love the fact that she dresses so sharply for conventions. Clearly modern technology is wasted on me, and I’d be better off using an old-timey cartridge camera with a fixed focus… sigh…

Anyhoo, my gratitude/apologies to all concerned!

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