The A Team

The problem with lockdown is trying to fill the unforgiving hour and that has led me to spending time flipping through the endless albums of personal photographs on my computer  as well as those taken at various film and sci-fi conventions. It was these photos of me with a variety of actors, that led me to write this blog. I'm sure it's of little interest to many but my thanks in advance to any who spend a little time wandering with me down memory lane.

Obviously, many of the pictures captured a personal memory,  but sharing them gives me a chance to tell some of the stories that go with them. Why did I want to meet these particular people? Did they live up to expectations? What did they smell like? 

The celebrities I mention and who share these photographs, will most likely have no recollection of meeting me, but I will never forget the joy of meeting them…well mostly the joy…they say never meet your heroes and on occasions that’s turned out to be true.

However, the overwhelming feeling when revisiting these photograph, is one of happiness and a sense that maybe I should have started attending conventions much sooner than I did. I was almost 55 when I attended my first convention and due to Covid, the last was December 2019. Still, I managed to pack plenty in, as you will see.

I apologise that you'll have to see endless photographs of me, at various weights, and in a variety of shirts, but just ignore me and admire the beautiful and interesting folk stood at my side. 

I thought hard about which order to share these memories and decided that alphabetically was best, as that eliminates any possible favouritism from appearing…well that’s the plan!

So we begin with:

 Alfie Allen                           

John Altman

Vaughn Armstrong 

Roger Ashton-Griffiths

Sean Astin                            

René Auberjonois

Being a huge fan of Game of Thrones, and having first devoured all the audio books,  (as read by Roy Dotrice  & boy do I wish I’d had the chance to meet him),  the TV series was a ‘must watch’ for me. There is no doubt that one of the most disturbing and yet fascinating story arcs was that played out by Alfie Allen as Theon Greyjoy. I didn’t get much chance to chat to him about this on the day but it was still nice to thank him for his work in that iconic series.

One chilly Sunday in February 2018, I travelled to Burton on Trent to attend a small convention. I was there to get a photo with Two Doctors,  and had no intention or plan on meeting John Altman. But as I was walking along, there he was, pressing the flesh and encouraging people to have a selfie with him. I was aware of his work on Eastenders, of course, and back in the 1980's I'd seen him on stage in a play called Whodunnit, but not being a great soap fan, I started to walk past, nodding politely. “That’s a lovely jacket” he said. Having been raised well, I turned and thanked him, and that was it. We chatted for quite a while and not once did the subject of Eastenders come up. 

It was one of those occasions when you really had a chance to get past the character and see the actor. 

This is going to sound counter-intuitive, but I’m not very comfortable in large crowds. I also suffer with vasovagal attacks, which makes queuing somewhat of a challenge and yet I’ve been all over the country, joining with thousands of others and queuing for hours just to meet some of my heroes. There were occasions when I’ve actually collapsed in line, so I did eventually relent and acquire a walking stick which I named Jean-Luc Stickard. I know, really daft. Anyway, with Jean-Luc, an Access card and kind hearted staff at the conventions, I’ve never had to miss out on anything I wanted to do.

One of the lessons I quickly learnt at very large conventions, was to join the shortest queues, or even better, go and chat to the stars who had no queues at all. This is how I came to spend quite a bit of time chatting to Vaughn Armstrong. 

Anyone who’s ever watched Star Trek, in any of its guises, will have seen Mr Armstrong’s work. He’s played twelve distinct characters in twenty-eight episodes over four separate series. He can boast an almost 50 year acting career, with a CV covering work in classic TV series like Lou Grant and Remington Steele right through the likes of ER and Criminal Minds. I guess he’s the epitome of a jobbing actor. He also turned out to be a very nice man to chat with and we must have shared a good fifteen minutes of uninterrupted conversation about Trek and his wider career. He’s on the list of people I’d love to meet again. 

Roger Ashton-Griffiths played Mace Tyrell in Game of Thrones. A not unimportant role but not a starring one as such. I met him at a convention in Nottingham and he was most surprised when I starting asking him about being on University Challenge. He’d been on one of the Christmas specials when former alumni come back to embarrass themselves publicly. I can’t recall what else we chatted about but he was a very affable fellow. 

Meeting Sean Astin was great but it was a fleeting moment captured on film. Listening to the staff at the convention speak about him, they were of the opinion he was a nice bloke. Good. 

I’ve used the word ‘hero’ a couple of times already, to refer to these wonderful people I met along the way. In truth very few were actual heroes but this final man qualified fully. It was one of the greatest pleasures in my life to meet René Auberjonois. 

I’m not going to list his resumé, his career in theatre, film and TV really does speak for itself. 

I have always admired the work of character actors and René Auberjonois was an early favourite for me because of his work on shows like Ellery Queen and the disaster movie The Hindenburg. Of course it was as Clayton Endicott III in Benson that he really became a favourite actor. Later, as Odo in Deep Space Nine, he showed just how brilliant an actor he was. With the restricting prosthetic makeup on his face, he still managed to express so much power and emotion. 

I later became aware of his Broadway credentials, winning a Tony Award in 1970 for this role in Coco. His rendition of Fiasco is often popping up in my music play list, and of course we cannot forget his voice work as Chef Louis in The Little Mermaid. 

Talking about his voice, it was his voice that brought one of my favourite literary characters to life. I’m a great lover of audio books, having graduated to using them about 12 years ago. Prior to that point  I had read a couple of books by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The first was entitled Relic and this was followed by the sequel Reliquary. They introduced the character of Special Agent AXL Pendergast.  I don’t know about you, but when I read a book I tend to hear the characters voice in my head, so when I moved to the audio books I was very happy to see that it was René Auberjonois providing the voices. His performance as Pendergast was immaculate. I have listened to all 19 books that he recorded prior to his death in 2019.

On the occasion shown in this picture, I had been talking to him about Pendergast and he very honestly revealed that he didn’t really like the character, but it was good work…and of course that’s the bottom line for all actors I guess. It didn’t diminish him in my eyes, in fact I admired him all the more for his somewhat grumpy honesty. 

I got to chat to him three times over the course of the convention weekend in 2018, just about a year before he died.  I admit that upon hearing the news of his death, I shed a tear. Thanks for the memories René.

So that’s A good start. B back soon with the next batch of those I met along the way.