Idiot's Lantern Set Report 1

Emma Sandrey

So first off the day before [ie; yesterday] I had seen flags and army people in the Uni gardens. Kinda thought "that must be Doctor Who" because well 1) everything was clean and 2) they had only the union jack flying [if it had been something to do with Wales there would've been the Welsh one too. A lot of Doctor Who is set in London but filmed in Cardiff ergo the Jack on its own screamed Doctor Who. Well, to me at least. heh. Couldn't stop then though because I had a lecture. Though interestingly this morning I noticed there were set decorations on a statue in the Civic Centre so I dunno if they plan to film there too.

Anyway, on to the good stuff. So I arrived about 12ish. A few of the girls from the Cardiff Uni HP soc were already there [including Kathryn who stayed the longest]. Tonks [a girl from the HP soc nicknamed as such because she used to have bright pink hair] said they had earlier filmed scenes where the Doctor aka David Tennant was riding a moped into the TARDIS. Thrilling stuff.

The security guys were for the most part very helpful and even gave us guidance on where to stand so that we could see stuff but also be out of the shot and out of the way. Florentia Street was decorated with loads of Union Jack flags. Rose aka Billie Piper was wearing a bright pink skirt and what looked like a blue denim top and the Doctor was in his usual suit with a fifties hairstyle. From what I've heard about the episode it has something to do with the Coronation of the Queen and TV sets. Lots of extras were dressed up, most of the men in flat caps. However one of the guards said to us it was to do with the Olympics though I don't know how true that is. Maybe he was trying to fob us off *shrug*

We mainly saw three scenes. One where someone was being pushed into an old fashioned Rolls Royce. Another was of the Doctor and Rose making what looked like a getaway on the aforementioned moped. The rehearsal of this was particularly funny because it was sans moped so Billie kind of jumped onto David's back.

Shortly after the cast and crew went for lunch and being the avid fans that we are, Kathryn and I [along with several new-found DW enthusiast friends] proceeded around the corner and hovered outside the place where the trailers were. We stood there for a long time. Eventually Billie Piper and David Tennant emerged but they seemed in a rush so I assume they were behind schedule [by that point it had also started spitting with rain].

As David turned the corner Kathryn grabbed my arm, pointed and we both started bouncing and squealing. Looking back I can't imagine what we must've looked like, especially with our Slytherin scarfs. Shameless fangirls. After that we managed to watch a scene actually being filmed [rather than rehearsed] involving the Doctor talking to someone in a car and then making a speech about how wonderful life was [or something like that]. Couldn't really hear the exact dialogue because we were too far away but we could make out his high-pitched shrieks and it was funny seeing him bounce around. Then someone screamed and the Doctor and Rose ran in the direction of a house [which a bunch of people had taken a TV into earlier in the scene]. They repeated that same sequence 3 or 4 times and then moved on again. At which point we left because it was getting really cold.