Hayden
Doctor Who Experience; The Trip of a Lifetime
By Hayden Gribble
WARNING SPOILERS!
Remember that dream you had when you were a kid. The one when you are lying awake in bed, your young restlessness refusing you sleep and wishing something, anything will prevent that the inevibility of school the next day. When all of a sudden, an all too familiar whooshing sound erupts in the corner of your room and a bluer than blue box materializes before your eyes. You throw back the bedsheets, gasping in awe as one of the doors creaks into life and bursts open revealing a universe of wonder inside. Not to mention a strange looking man who promises to show you all the wonders you could ever imagine and who has more magic in his eyes than Christmas Day.
What we would give for a trip in the TARDIS, an adventure through time and space and the chance to celebrate our favourite programme in the world. Well now dig deep for that inner child inside of you and get yourself to Olympia and join the adventure first hand. As soon as I heard the plans for the new Doctor Who Experience I thought it was a fantastic idea and one that filled me with excitement. The 10 year-old inside me was screaming to get out and have a once in a lifetime adventure inside the TARDIS.
So with the new exhibition barely a few days old I leave my house bound for Olympia armed with my tickets and a friend of equal love for Doctor Who, both boiling over with the anticipation of a memorable day. Not even the dark clouds and moist February air could dampen our spirits as we set off at the crack of dawn on that gloomy Saturday morning.
After a trek across London, our final destination was Kensington Olympia and we were greeted with more rain and a queue the size of the station itself. I couldn’t believe it. Here we were sodden and tired and we had to participate in the most British of past times. Waiting. Luckily for us, this was the line to see Who Do You Think You Are? Live and the queue for the Experience was far more modest but still none the less impressive. I do have to pinch myself at just how successful the show has become since its hiatus.
Before we know it we are sheltering indoors waiting to enter the main Experience. To the left of me is one of Bracewell’s ironside Daleks, to the right, Liz 10’ costume and mask and that of one of the winders stand proudly to attention as the Doctor’s Theme booms around us. Small Children wait eagerly in bow ties and Fezzes, wielding their sonic screwdrivers whilst counting down to what they have been waiting for all week. Apart of me wishes I was that age again, looking through fresh eyes instead of my dark bags from a late night the night before.
We are invited by the guides to sit on the benches and watch a sort of highlights package from the last series with added narration from Doctor 11, which culminates with the crack in the universe opening the screen, to reveal another world.
Then all of a sudden, the crack opens and we are standing on the Starship UK, where we are greeted by a strangely lifelike and eerie hologram of an information post like the one seen in Silence In The Library/Forrest Of The Dead talking us through the many artifacts in the room. It’s a what’s what of Doctor Who memorabilia, including the telescope from Tooth and Claw, a Smiler, Rosanna’s throne from The Vampires Of Venice and Van Gogh’s painting of the exploding TARDIS. Hard to believe the exhibition bit hadn’t even started yet! All of a sudden an incoming alert disrupts the scary face to reveal the Doctor i.e. Matt Smith trapped in the Pandorica 2 dismaying that instead of finding Amy and Rory he has to rely on us ‘shoppers’ to get him out.
Then before we know it, that old familiar whooshing sound engulfs the airwaves and the TARDIS materializes before our eyes (well everyone elses since I was looking the wrong way). Then I hear the magic words. “Everybody Inside, Quickly!” The stuff of dreams is now reality and I’m running with everyone on board. It isn’t the real interior, but it is a very faithful, if not slightly smaller realization. As the Doctor beckons the children to pilot, the floor shakes and moves and we are off. We really are apart of the adventure. We are off to rescue the Doctor, until a black hole disrupts the journey and we are captured by Daleks. Ah. Whoops.
A run through some very typical Sci-Fi corridors leads us to something truly terrifying indeed. A Dalek Saucer.
At this moment I can feel my friends fingernails digging into my arm as we await our imminent slaughter to the new Dalek Paradigm. Three of the new Jelly Baby Daleks emerge from the shadows to all give us a lump in our throats. But we are saved by an attack by Davro’s Daleks and once again we are running for our lives. The frights are not over yet. For the Weeping Angels await us in the dark.
Although the Angels were kept in the dark this made for a truly chilling part of the experience as the expectation for them to jump out at us built and built. The tension soon subsided as we survived the forest and stood in a chamber with only a dismembered Cyberman arm and the Pandorica for company. Now here was came the Hi-Tech bit. Armed with 3-D glasses, the Doctor was free from the Pandorica (how I don’t recall as it seemed slightly baffling and definitely wibbley wobbly timey wimey) and we were being sucked into the crack and the monsters were coming to get us. As we watched we saw bolts from the Cybermen’s guns blaze towards us, a Daleks sink plunger nearly bop us on the nose and a Weeping Angel clawing at your eyes every time you blinked, which is something I have heard you shouldn’t do.
Whilst all of this is happening I have been oblivious to the Doctor’s attempts to save us on the screen to my left and the monsters hurtle way from us quicker than they did towards us and the crack finally seals. The adventure is over. The Doctor says goodbye, but the Experience is not over.
The exhibits were as extraordinary as they were interesting and insightful. At first there seemed too much to see, as I had later thought I had missed parts out. The Radiotimes front covers, starting from William Hartnell’s Marco Polo debut to the latest Matt Smith cover plastered the walls leading to the pieces of Who History. And then there they are, all ten of the previous incarnations costumes lovingly semi-circling the current TARDIS prop and a realistic waxwork of Matt Smith, complete with sonic screwdriver.
I asked the attendant if these were really what the great men wore, to which he replied mostly, although I am saddened to report that William Hartnell’s wig, Patrick Troughton’s recorder and Sylvester McCoy’s trademark umbrella were sadly absent. Thank god for Tom Baker’s god like scarf and the fresh stick of celery in Peter Davison’s lapel, the former something religious sects in a thousand years will worship like the Turin Shroud. One grumble though, where was Bessie!
To me the older parts of the exhibition the most impressive such as Bernard Bresslaw’s restored Ice Warrior costume, Robot K-1 in all its metallic splendour, and a Sontaran whose eyes seemed to follow you around the room. Maybe it was because I had previously visited the Earls Court event three years previously that I did not find the latest monsters on display as exciting to see, but then again in twenty years time I might go mad at the sight of an Ood or two.
Another highlight were the staggering inclusions of Peter Davison’s console room and the coral console room from Mr.’s Eccleston and Tennant’s reign, accompanied by a clip of the the latter’s violent regeneration. Unfortnately for us fans both of the consoles are sealed off so we can’t touch them but still, I’ve stood on the TARDIS set! One dream fulfilled then.
Then there are the costumes for each and every companion since the show’s return in 2005. Apart from Mickey and Wilf, who have been surprisingly excluded from the collection, even Kylie Minogue’s tiny dress from Voyage Of The Damned is held aloft with the K-9 prop thrown in for deserved measure. Even the 1980’s TRADIS prop and the Melkur hover in the corner of the room, although somewhat hidden in the dark.
They are all here. The stuff of nightmares I mentioned earlier. What a funny feeling to be standing next to these fictional giants who have frightened children of many generations into their Mother’s bosom and feel totally in awe yet wary that when your wits are missing, they may still come and get you. Decapitated heads of every model of Cybermen we have seen sit in spooky cubby holes, a line of Daleks through the ages poised on the command of a likeness of Davros and a cubby hole where you can move like a monster, design one for Doctor Who Adventures or make a noise like a Dalek, this experience ticks every box for every fan. There is even a recreation of the Mill’s Visual Effects Office, which sadly the non-fans in the audience found to be rather pointless, but I found an insightful nugget into how the show is made.
Headphones provide you the chance to mix that everlasting them tune yourself and there is even a tribute to Delia Derbyshire in the form of a documentary presented by music man Stuart Maconie in a booth entitled ‘The Sound of Doctor Who’ which was an affectionate storytelling device to inform the younger fans of how the theme tune was created. Time will only tell if a tribute to the one and only Nicholas Courtney will also be included after ‘The Brig’ sadly passed away just a couple of days before we visited Olympia. Splendid Chap.
After a chance for a picture in the Pandorica chair (for an extra cost) and a glimpse of the next series on a flat screen (which looks brilliant I must say!) the Experience ends with a visit to The Who Shop, which was quite dear and made my eyes water a little. Apart from that, I left the Experience with a smile on my face and a memory placed in my minds eye forever by the Doctor and those strange, strange creatures. This is an opportunity not to be missed and I hope I haven’t spoilt it for you if you have not gone yet, just wet your appetite a little. You’ll Love it.
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