This weekend the DT Forum attended The Lords of Time fan convention - a three day event for fans of Doctor Who presented by Massive Events and Showmasters and held at the Birmingham Hilton Metropole hotel. This was the organisers’ first Doctor Who convention and the guest list comprised of David Tennant, Anthony Head, Lachele Carl, Andrew Hayden-Smith, Mark Benton, Velile Tshabalala, Frazer Hines, James Moran, Mat Irvine, Shaun Dingwall, Nina Tousssaint-White … and K-9

The event started on Friday night with registration, the Opening Ceremony and the first of three themed parties. Friday night’s Titanic luxury space liner themed party gave everyone the chance to dress up to the nines. There were drinks, a surf board and a chance to dance the night away. We met up with fellow fansite and good friends DavidTennantCom as and several other DT Forum members. I must admit we all clean up quite well – it’s amazing what a hairbrush, some make-up and nice clothes can do.

Saturday morning was busy.  Everyone ran about getting photos with the stars and then raced back to get them signed, thanks to Showmasters’ brand new instant photo system.  There were several chances to flirt with Frazer Hines and numerous lovely personal conversations with the other guests.  In between, we had several hugs with cosplayer Matt Holden, who was dressed in full 10^th Doctor costume.   

In the afternoon, it was onto the guest panels. Mark Benton discussed everything from Waterloo Road to his episode Rose (he’d also revealed to us earlier that his character Clive was never actually seen dead and the intention was originally for him to reappear in future episodes).  James Moran did a magnificent commentary to The Fires of Pompeii – definitely one of the highlights of the event.  Following the quiz the last event before the WWII party was the auction. A script signed by David Tennant went for over £180 and the large banners signed by all the guests also sold for a high price. 

At this point the BBC decided to screen some little show called Doctor Who, so rather than get ready for the party we all sat down and watch that and went to the bar afterwards for dinner and drinks. Some partied while some just remained in the bar for chatting with friends old and new.

Sunday’s event was dominated by the presence of David Tennant. First on the table was the signing.  David arrived in a jacket, jeans and a grey Beatles T-shirt. He looked good with the stubble and his natural hair colour. The DT Forum were able to give him a few gifts from websites and contacts – in particular Kasterborous.com’s Tenth Doctor graphic novel Time Leech and the Graeme Burk / Robert Smith new series summary book Who Is The Doctor?  Both were well received.

Next was the photo shoot. David was very gracious and completely accommodating to all the guests, setting a number of the nervous ones at ease and was willing to do requested posts. One fabulous event was David’s reaction to Matt Holden’s Party Benedick outfit; many of the Forum members did their best to help Matt in his search for the items for the costume since it was first seen in last year’s Much Ado About Nothing and it was amazing to see everything coming together for this one glorious moment.

The afternoon was dominated by the talks. David’s talk started with the Q&A from the message box.  Surprisingly a lot of Forum members had their questions asked.  A more detailed account will follow; however, in summary, David talked about his time on Doctor Who, how he and Catherine Tate had decided to do the Much Ado play and a number of his new upcoming projects. He would love to do Measure for Measure or Othello but currently he has no concrete theatre plans. He also found himself unwittingly drawn into the debate that had occupied DT Forum, DavidTennantCom and a number of others for most of our free time that afternoon: how to make the perfect cup of tea! David’s answer was perhaps more profound and detailed than we could ever have hoped to receive.

There was a panel discussion with Andrew Hayden-Smith. Lachele Carl and Velile Tshabalala where we got to learn more about their Doctor Who characters and their other projects.   They were all very charming and answered the silliest of questions. Anthony Head had a panel by himself. The majority of Anthony’s questions were on Buffy but he told some fascinating zombie anecdotes thanks to his research in Haiti for the TV series True Horror. Anthony suggested that he gravitates to projects where he spends a lot of his time with dead bodies. We’re not sure what that says about him.

After Anthony it was K9 and his one of his creators, special effects genius Mat Irvine.  Fascinating stuff!  Anyone interested in technology at all could have spent hours taking apart K9 and discussing AM radio frequencies, Bluetooth technology and fiberglass modelling. Site owner and tech freak Delenn was in her element. It was good just to have the time to say thank you. At the same time, the David Tennant guest encounter was taking place and lucky news editor Visionthing had managed to scoop herself a place. Her account will follow.

The final general talk of the day was the group guest talk.  Showmasters had a number of silly questions to start off the event and we quickly deteriorated into a risqué discussion about fan fiction and photo manipulations.  And yes, David has seen the one of him and John Simm.  Showmasters concluded the group talk with announcing next year’s Lords of Time event which will be held in the same location in early May 2013.  No guests announced yet but the tickets are available for sale now.

The final event was the Gold ticket drinks reception.  The Forum, DavidTennantCom and friends had one table to ourselves and had really enjoyable time talking to the guests - so much so that this will appear in a separate summary. To whet your appetites, the conversation with David involved the mention of bras and ice cream, while the phrase ‘fourteen moving parts and a choking hazard’ almost – ALMOST – made Anthony Head blush!

All in all it was a brilliant weekend. There was the chance to meet up with a lot of Forum members, make new friends and meet a number of special people involved in a program that is very dear to us.  

Thank you to all the guests, Showmasters, DavidTennantCom, Matt, Tracy and the other DT Forum members.

Also, if you have any photos and  you would like to share with Forum please email  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  and we will try to post them on our site.