That Awesome Time I Got To See Let's Kill Hitler (and with some of my most favourite people!)

[altogetherisi]

Oops, haven’t updated for a little while. I went to Devon, and it was lovely, and I read a book that made me think many thoughts, so I might post about that at some point. And then I came back and some stuff I don’t think I’ll talk about happened. But. Then. Last Monday I had a very excellent day in London with laliandra, hanelissar, pigrescuer and playwithfyr, which included us going to the premiere screening of the next episode of Doctor Who, Let’s Kill Hitler, so that was BRILLIANT.

 

I woke up ludicrously early but that was helpful because I was going to Bristol after London and I hadn’t packed, and I couldn’t fit everything in the bag I had intended to bring so I had to unpack and repack like three times. And also, the weather was surprisingly gorgeous so that altered the outfit I had been intending to wear.

I was fearful of being late, because I am always always late for everything, I did get out of the house promptly and my coach was on time and then there was no traffic at all and I felt a bit silly because I ended up 45 mins early. Oops.

Han turned up soon though, also early. I saw her walking toward me and I shouted her name really loudly like a crqazy person, and then she didn’t look around, and I wasn’t sure whether to keep shouting to justify the first shout, or just to shut up and pretend it hadn’t happened. Then she walked even more toward me, so I thought she’d seen me, but actually she still hadn’t, so I was all “Han. Han. Han. Hi, Han, hi.” Until she was literally right next to me and I just grabbed her.

PR wasn’t much behind, and then Lal and Play arrived just as I was about to call them, and we hugged and went to see Harry Potter in IMAX.

This was the third time I’d seen Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 but aside from it being a fish tradition and fun I’m really glad we went because sometimes I forget just how much better IMAX really is as a viewing experience than regular cinema going. The screen is. Just. So. Big. And the 3D was better. And I dunno, stuff just seemed more awesome – like the dragon, that really took my breath away.

And it is so great going with fangirls, because we could all laugh and make references all the way through and bitch when stuff was wrong or missed the point and explain away the epilogue together and yeah, it was just a lovely experience. Yay. OH AND. There were fabulous trailers, I think we had TDKR and The Woman in Black and also this totally amazing looking film about people that look after orphaned primates and baby elephants that I would love to see because it was totally mesmerising.

Afterwards we were all pretty starving, so we went to the Southbank EAT and ate on the fake grass outside Foyles. It was Play’s birthday and she and Lal had both brought cake! Lal and I turned out to have somehow managed to interpret the ending of Deathly Hallows totally differently, thus continuing our theme of “Lal and Isi think almost exactly the same ways except in relation to Harry Potter” which remains a source of bafflement. PR and Play agreed with me, Han agreed with Lal, so we went into Foyles to find a copy of the book and try to sort it out. While we were in there, Han and I did a bit of book rearranging, hiding the worst offenders and more prominently displaying others, and all the fish left Demon’s Lexicon bookmarks inside books we liked.

Then we returned, for perhaps the fourth time now, to mine and Lal’s favourite fangirling Starbucks to continue the tradition of speaking too loudly and without shame about fannish matters and to generally get far too excited about how we were about to see Doctor Who.

Started getting far too excited when we actually got to the BFI. PR put her Doctor Hoot shirt on, so she was now matching Han, and I actually looked at the tickets long enough to figure out what the screen was called. Famous people were there! Caitlin Moran! Benjamin Cook! Charlie is so cool like!

Because I’d got tickets two separate times, we split up slightly when we sat down – Lal, Han and Play sat together at the edge of the centre section of the second row. PR and I on the other hand, sat in, I am not even kidding about this, the two best seats in the entire cinema. Bang in the centre of the front row. I’d been a bit confused when the tickets had first arrived because I didn’t understand how 5 and 6 could be more in the middle than like, 18, but omg, they really were. When the Q & A happened, I was directly in front of Arthur Darvill. There was like, two metres and a coffee table between us. It was marvellous. Also, the seats were seriously comfortable. I wish I could watch all episodes of Doctor Who like this.

I think we applauded when Stephen Moffast, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill came in and sat down to watch. Moffat was wearing your general shirt and suit jacket scenario, Karen was wearing a nude tone strapless pleated maxi dress that only emphasised how insanely tall she is, and Arthur was wearing a dark silky shirt slightly undone and a dark jacket. AND ALSO. This is important. He had a beard, thanks Faustus, and he WAS LOOKING INSANELY HOT. Like, I like Arthur Darvill, and I like Rory, lots in fact, but I’ve never been sexually attracted to him before. TOTAL CONVERT OH MY GOD. Take me noooow.

Anyway, the episode.

No spoilers here.

But, I thought it was fabulous. Fast paced, and very funny.

And, well. Can I say this? This isn’t really a spoiler... I just want to say, there is a flashback bit, and IT WAS MY FAVOURITE THING EVER. Seriously, that flashback is the bit I am most excited about seeing again when it goes out on TV on the 27^th. I LOVED IT SO SO MUCH.

Other really good non spoilery things I approved of – what the Doctor is wears, the “conversation” well, maybe it’s a dialogue, in the TARDIS, and what Rory does to Hitler. Priceless.

The first shot is a field of wheat.

And honestly, I don’t know whether it was the big screen experience, the amazing seats, or just my general overexcitement, but I really sank into watching the ep really pretty deeply, and kinda forgot to worry or think about anything else. And when the credits came up, I was actually slightly surprised to come back to myself. WHY CAN’T I WATCH EVERY EPISODE LIKE THIS??

Then though, it was time for the Q & A! Excitement. They were sitting right in front of me. I made eye contact! At first, I was like, is it ok to take photos? And then everyone did, so I was like, I’ll just take a couple of each of them.

I took about 130 before I had to pause and pick up my bag, and then I decided to stop and just stare at them with my eyes and y’know, appreciate how freaking close they were. I kept trying to get ones that weren’t entirely blurred, and ones when Karen was smiling, and ones with some of Arthur’s tongue, and just generally, good ones. On reflection, most of them were of Arthur. Whatever. He was looking fiiiiine.

And, I asked a question, so that’s kinda like talking to them, right. Right, yep. The question I asked was about whether after the relatively traumatic situation Amy and Rory have found themselves in re: their first child, whether they thought they would want to have any more. Karen said yes straight away, and Arthur was like, hang on, really, you think so? And then they had a whole mini discussion, and Moffat was like, it would be just like this. Also, Han asked a question about how A Good Man Goes to War had had a dummy ending in the first script that got altered so even the actors were shocked, and so, what was that ending like? And Moffat said he had written it really halfheartedly and it just kinda stopped, there was something about the Doctor's name on the cot, so yeah, dummy endings: easy to spot because they just trail off rubbishly... (somewhat like the previously posted version of this sentence!)

They are going to put the Q & A online... at some point. After LKH obvs. Which is why I can't really be bothered to wrack my brain to remember everything that was said. I remember two annoying questions from someone stupid from the Sun, and a question from Natalie from Radio 1 whose voice I recognised instantly, and a question from someone at the back whose wife was more of a fan than he was, and the confusion resulting from someone asking whether children would know who Hitler was (um, DUH) and whether they thought IDEK if Nazis were a bit heavy subject matter (because Doctor Who never deals with tricky subject matter O_o) and if the BBC had an issue with the title (wtaf. It’s an awesome title!)

Oh, and. Stephen Moffat lies. A lot. It seems like basically his favourite thing. And he told us to, and I for one have been having A LOT of fun reading people speculate and freak out about Let’s Kill Hitler, and you know what he is so right, it feels wickedly awesome. So yeah. There’s that.

After the Q & A we had a brief chat with Charlie of Charlie is so cool like fame – apparently we ignored his sidekick person? Oops. Play and I told him how we used his brownie recipe yet still managed to mess it up, which then didn’t seem so sensible an anecdote to tell when we then proceeded to offer him one of Lal’s cupcakes. Which he politely declined. And then he gave us his last “I found Charlie” badge, which I got to have!

And then we got to chat a bit with Benjamin Cook, who I’d wanted to say hi to because I really loved the Writer Tale like a huge amount, and also it was because I follow him on twitter that I managed to get such amazingly good seats. And I’d been staring at his awesome crimson hair at points like, shall I go over now? Shall I go over now? And i felt increasingly awkward because he is a massive hipster and was there chatting to his hipster friends but I didn’t want to just leave. So I got Play to just go over and brazenly start talking to him about how his hair is awesome and how her friend was too embarrassed to disturb him. And he was lovely and we had a proper chat about the book and about how he knows everything about Doctor Who and about his amazing hair.

Then we were all both massively overexcited and also getting tired and hungry so we headed for Nando’s. On the way to Nando’s we walked past the Globe, where I have still failed to go despite wanting to since it reopened or whatever, and past such other famous London landmarks as Southwark Cathedral and the OXO tower and the Tate Modern, which we saw a mouse inside their cafeteria, which was a bit shocking and we took photos of.

And then we sat in Nando’s, eating chicken in an alcove that became the Lalcove of Love, and there were many free refills and lots of fangirling and tweeting at each other across the table.

But all good things do come to an end. And so we had to go, and Lal went home, and Han, PR, Play and I went to Han’s flat in Bristol for the second part of our adventure.