MCM London 2017 Review
It’s that time of year, when MCM pull off probably the biggest event on the UK Convention circuit. Taking place at the ExCel Centre in London’s Docklands, it’s a 3 day celebration of Film, TV, Anime, Comics and everything fan-culture. Two of the team from FANdemonium Towers headed to the capital to check out the event. This is our MCM London 2017 Review. Our full gallery of pictures from the event can be found here.
Myself and Mo could only make it on the Sunday, but with press access we hoped we could still get to see all those we wanted to and ask some of the burning questions we had. We attended MCM on the Saturday last year and it had been incredibly busy. We hoped that this year, going on the Sunday things would be quieter. There was also the unexpected factor of the attack in Manchester at the start of the week which made things a little more uncertain. The convention organisers had put out messages about increased security, not bringing large bags etc. It remained to be seen whether people would be put off attending.
The guest line up for this event was pretty massive, but due to only being able to attend on Sunday we missed some of the big names like Donnie Yen (Rogue One). Our list of guests we actually wanted to meet was pretty manageable; K.J. Apa, Manu Bennett, Luke Mitchell, Rebecca Breeds, and the cast of Class. We worked out all our timings the night before. There were a couple of small clashes but we hoped to be able to work around them.
Arriving
Sunday morning travel into London meant we were cutting things a little bit fine to get to the venue before the doors opened. With some cunning tube navigation we managed with about 20 minutes to spare. We collected our press passes and were shown the way to the press room for the Class round table interview later in the day then we waited for the doors to open.
The crowds waiting at the doors were pretty small. We got in nice and easily and headed for the Smiley booth.
What are Smileys? At MCM London you queue up and buy paper tickets which you then exchange for your autographs. Last year, despite having early entry tickets, we spent so long in the queue for the Smiley tickets we missed the entire first autograph session. Thankfully this year we basically walked straight up and got them.
Once you’ve got your Smiley tickets there’s really only one thing for it – to get your autographs. The talks and photo ops we had didn’t kick off until midday so we had plenty of time to grab our autographs first. I was really excited for two autographs in particular – which is strange as it was guests I had already met. See, back in 2015 Mo backed a kickstarter as my Christmas present…
Called Men of Science Fiction, it was for a coffee table photography book featuring some of my absolute favourite genre actors. We waited…and waited…and in the intervening time I’ve met about ten of the actors in the book…without having the book. FINALLY it arrived the week of the con so I took it along to get Luke Mitchell and Manu Bennett to sign their respective sections.
Autograph Time!
Neither Luke or Manu had seen the finished book before and took a great deal of time looking through it and selecting which of their pages to sign. I showed the book to Luke’s wife, the ever wonderful Rebecca Breeds (The Originals) and I’m pretty sure she will be placing a call to the photographer to get her own copy soon. She actually fangirled over Luke’s pages and said if she wasn’t married to him she’d have such a crush on him. Girl, we hear you! Rebecca is also a total sweetheart, she remembered us from last year’s convention and we had a pretty good fangirl session over her lovely hubby.
Chatting to Luke threw up a couple of surprises for us. When we saw him last year we had told him he needed to get a role on The Originals since we’d decided he would make a great werewolf. Days later he was announced as a regular for season 2 of Blindspot. As a result of that announcement I binged the entire first season in 2 days to get ready for his appearance. We mentioned this and he decided to tell us that Julie Plec (the showrunner for The Vampire Diaries and The Originals) had actually emailed him and offered him roles!! He had just auditioned for something else so he turned them down. He didn’t get that other role, but landed Blindspot shortly after it.
I should be mad, but honestly I love Roman in Blindspot (and the show in general) so much at this point I just can’t! We chatted about his current show quite a lot, as Mo and I are both huge fans, and asked about his injured hand and what happened. He sliced it open filming a fight scene with his on-screen sister Jaimie Alexander and it’s still troubling him a bit.
Next on the list was Riverdale‘s K.J. Apa. I had to ask him about his hand and how it was doing after he broke it filming the s1 finale. He showed me a lump, said it’s still pretty broken and I have to say it looked pretty nasty. These guys and their injuries! We also spoke a bit about New Zealand, one of my favourite countries and where K.J. is from. I’d love to return one day and my autograph from him encouraged me to do exactly that. We didn’t chat to K.J. too much as we wanted to save some stuff for his panel later.
After K.J. we headed down to Manu Bennett’s queue. His queues are always pretty monster because is such a charming, talkative guy. You never feel rushed talking to Manu. He seems like he has all the time in the world for his fans. Also the warmest handshake in the world ever. Such a contrast to the character of his I first fell in love with, Crixus the gladiator in Spartacus. He spent a long time poring over the Men of Science Fiction book, checking out everyone else who was in it. It was really great to see his reaction.
The only autograph we didn’t get in the morning session was Sophie Hopkins from Class because by the time we were done with Manu’s queue it was time to head to the Silver theatre for Rebecca’s panel. We did swing by but Sophie, Greg and Fady were heading off for a short break before their panel so we kept on moving.
Luke Mitchell and Rebecca Breeds Panel
We arrived at the theatre to see a sign which said that Rebecca’s solo talk at midday had become a Luke and Rebecca double panel, at 12:15, in the Gold theatre instead. We hustled over to the Gold theatre and managed to bag seats in the second row, pretty close to the middle. Last year, only a handful of people attended Rebecca’s panel which seemed like a real shame as she is such a fun, bubbly, warm person and has great stories to tell. This year though I think being paired up with Luke made all the difference.
This panel was full of highlights:
- Luke used to live with his H20: Just Add Water co-stars Phoebe Tonkin and Caribe Heine and that Rebecca first met him at a party at their house warming party. Skip forward a few years and they both landed roles on Home and Away, got together and have been together ever since. This is even better when you factor in that 2 of Luke’s H2O co-stars, Phoebe and Andy Lees were in The Originals with Rebecca.
- They were asked about how both being working actors affects their relationship – they both said they are living their dreams, and even when they are apart they check in and as long as they are both still having fun they keep doing it. When it stops being fun they will quit and open a cafe and everyone is invited.
- They both struggle with American accents, especially words with lots of ‘R’s in. Rebecca repeatedly saying ‘horror’ in an American accent was hysterical! Luke said that an accent is just like a muscle and you have to train your mouth – which I think caused most of the women in the room to faint.
- The secret selfie war between Luke and Jaimie Alexander was the result of on set boredom. Rebecca said that Luke and Jaimie have gotten very close and are just like siblings now, they have a great relationship off-screen.
- Luke will definitely be back for season 3 of Blindspot!!!!!
- They love binge-watching shows together, especially things like Daredevil. Rebecca loves superhero stuff, especially X-Men and thought Hugh Jackman was a brilliant Wolverine. They absolutely loved Logan.
- Luke would love to do The Tomorrow People – 5 Years Later. We would totally be fine with this as long as it doesn’t involve Roman dying any time soon @MartinGero 😉
- During the scene in The Originals where Elijah compels Aurora to leave Klaus it was very intense and he was right up in her face and obviously very in the moment. He spat in her face and she couldn’t do anything about it.
- They both think it’s great how the lines between film and TV are becoming so blurred now, with big “film” actors being in TV shows. Also with the scope of things like Netflix to allow stories to unfold over multiple hours .
The disadvantage of Luke and Rebecca’s panels being merged and the time changed was that we missed the Class panel which was at 12:30, but since we knew we were seeing them for the round table later in the day we weren’t too worried.
After this we walked through the Comic Village, which was busier than I have seen it at any other MCM event, on our way back to the photo area. I picked up a couple of books in series that I love and was waiting for (reviews to come when I get a chance to actually read them) and had a chat with the ever lovely Mike Garley (Samurai Slasher, The Kill Screen) about what he’s got coming up next. I came away very glad. Knowing the next Samurai Slasher kickstarter isn’t until October gives my wallet a chance to breathe!
Best Laid Plans…
What happened next was the first of 2 hiccups in our day. We arrived back at the photo studio area for the first of my photo ops. It was with KJ Apa and I have never seen a photo queue like it.
All of these people are waiting to get their photo taken with KJ Apa!
The place was absolutely mobbed, and I started to panic. We were due upstairs in the press room at 3 and it didn’t look like there was ANY chance I was going to be done by then. Mo and I had a chat and we decided she would hang out and wait for as long as she could for me. If it was getting close to 3 she would go up to the press room alone and I would join her ASAP. All credit to the staff in the photo studios, they got everyone through seriously fast and I was out by 2:45.
Last year there were issues with the photo printing system which meant a long wait to get photos back. This year they were ready almost immediately. So I went to the collection point and there was no sign of my photo. People behind me all were getting their pictures back but there was no sign of mine. I waited, and waited, and were told that the printers had become disconnected during the shoot which is why ours weren’t there. Eventually they found those of us with missing prints on their system and gave us our pictures, but that did sour things slightly. Little did we know that wasn’t to be the only photo studio issue…but more on that later.
Class Round Table
We raced upstairs to the press room after that and made it into the room just before the cast from Class. Originally it was meant to be Greg and Fady (who we met at Wales Comic Con) plus Sophie Hopkins and Vivian Oparah. Sadly Vivian was unwell so it was just the boys and Sophie for the interview. Which was quite a lot of fun. All three of them were in great form, fielding questions from the panel of interviewers but it felt more like an informal chat. As it was our first experience of something like this, I don’t know how it compares to round tables etc at other events but it was very enjoyable.
Highlights:
- Fady is such a fidgeter. He has a fidget cube and a spinner that fans had bought him.
- Greg loves being at Comic Con. He’s a total geek and used to attend so he knows what it’s like being both sides of the table. He also loves obscure cosplays.
- Sophie is one of the most animated and lovely guests I’ve ever spoken to.
- We all made it on to Fady’s instagram story!
As soon as the Class press room was over we dashed back downstairs for photo ops with Luke and Rebecca. Rebecca’s started at the same time as KJ’s panel (4pm). We hoped we could get through them asap and still make the talk. Sadly this didn’t prove to be the case.
More Photo Snafus
It turned out that while studios A and B were printing “immediately”, studio C (Luke and Rebecca) was not. They were having issues with the camera, and the photographer was very slow. I appreciate a countdown in photo ops. The standard 3, 2, 1 is useful to make sure you’re actually looking at the camera. This photographer at one point answered his phone and was talking and trying to take photos at the same time. Not the greatest, although I’m sure not everyone minded having their arm around Luke for a little longer.
Knowing we were in the same place for Rebecca we headed out after our pics with Luke and got right to the start of the queue for Rebecca. This was where we found out that the pictures were being printed from the camera, which meant the photographer left the studio for a good while. Rebecca’s photo studio didn’t start until AFTER 4pm. Guess what that meant? No KJ Apa panel for us. There was no way, even being first in line, that we could get through and make it in time for the talk.
Since we missed KJ’s talk we decided to go cheer ourselves up by seeing the Class gang and getting Sophie’s autograph. All three of them were surrounded, even though it was only a short while until the end of the convention. They were in great form, bouncing around, taking selfies with attendees and being so friendly. I went to speak to Sophie and get her autograph and what happened next made my weekend. Sophie wrote the sweetest, most beautiful dedication that left me floored.
To Clare, Thank you for being so smiley and lovely. When I got nervous in the press room, I’d look over to you and you’re (sic) kindness and smiles totally levelled me out. Thank you, Soph
I had to confess to her that it had been our first proper press room as well. They’d all been so wonderfully approachable that it had felt easy. It was wonderful knowing I’d had such an effect. I quickly grabbed a selfie with all 3 of them, which was like trying to herd cats. By this point Fady was bouncing around like a pinball chatting to fans on their side of the table. After selfies and goodbyes the only thing left to do was grab our Luke and Rebecca prints from the photo collection point before we left.
Summary
There were good points and bad points. The bad were mostly the issues in the photo studio. The good was obviously the great responses we had from the guests that we spoke to. I promised myself last year that if I ever attended MCM London again I wouldn’t go for just one day. I broke that promise this year but it has re-affirmed what I thought. As Mo and I were leaving ExCel we realised we hadn’t had a chance to look at any merch stands. Our time in the Comic Village was all too brief. I recommend that unless you have a small and very manageable aim for your time at MCM London – give yourself more than a day!
