UNIT, Recalled

I visited Riverside Studios at Hammersmith on Saturday 23rd November - Doctor Who's 61st anniversary - to attend the latest of the DWAS small themed conventions.

This time the subject was UNIT, specifically its peak period during Season 8. Three episodes were to be shown, and the guest list was headed by Katy Manning and John Levene.

The first episode to be shown was Part One of The Mind of Evil. Despite the colourised Blu-ray version existing, they opted to screen the instalment in its B&W form. Having watched only colourised versions of the episode in recent years, it was actually quite nice seeing the monochrome version again.

This was followed immediately by the opening episode of The Claws of Axos. Between them, these episodes had featured Fernanda Marlowe (Corporal Bell), Paul Grist (Bill Filer), Pik-Sen Lim (Capt. Chin Lee), and Derek Martin (UNIT soldier / stuntman).

They comprised the first Q&A panel.

This turned out to be Grist's very first ever fan event. Whilst some of the panel mentioned that they received residuals for their episodes, Marlowe did not, claiming to have been paid a lump sum instead. The money-conscious Martin advised her to look into this. Pik-Sen was accompanied to the event by her daughter, with whom she was pregnant at the time of recording her episodes.

Despite the intervening decades, everyone contributed to the interviews, with Martin particularly happy to talk about his non-Who work as well as his contributions to the programme (having gone from spear-carrying behind William Hartnell to a full speaking role opposite Tom Baker).

As soon as the group panel disbanded, John Levene took to the stage for a solo interview. He did precious little answering of questions, but a whole lot of joking - as anyone who's seen him will know. Derek Martin had elected to remain in the front row just in front of John, and the pair basically became a comedy double-act for a bit. John mentioned that he had just completed an interview regarding Douglas Camfield for the next The Collection Blu-ray set - but did not let on which season this covered (though we pretty much know it's Seven).

His time up, John was then asked to remain on stage whilst a presentation took place. The DWAS presented him with an outstanding achievement award, and he was joined for a time by Katy Manning.

The break then followed, during which the various photograph sessions took place. Pictures with the entire guest group seemed particularly popular. On my last visit, these sessions were held in a separate room off the main foyer, but this time they took place right outside the cinema where the event was taking place - an area that was a little too small and therefore quickly became quite crowded.

After the break came the fifth and final episode of The Daemons, after which Manning returned to the stage to be interviewed alongside John Owens, who played Devil's End villager Thorpe. Like Levene, Manning does like to talk a lot but Owens got to speak about his non-Who comedy work.

Following this Q&A, the guests reconvened in the cramped area upstairs for the autograph signings. There was much discussion amongst attendees about the just-announced colourisation of The War Games.

Not being an autograph collector, and having a rendezvous at a South London pub to see a band, I took my leave at this point.

I'm back in the district for another DWAS event in April - though not at Riverside. The one-day "Capitol Cutaway" event is being held at the Polish Centre elsewhere in Hammersmith and attendees so far include Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Jo Martin and Susan Twist.