MCM London Comic Con October 2017
If you haven’t been hiding under a box or hibernating you may have seen that we are in fall con season. MCM London Comic Con October 2017 was Friday 27th – Sunday 29th. London’s Excel centre was full of Fans lining up to see their idols and get an autograph. This being MCM’s second London event this year and Saturday tickets being sold out in the early stages. We sent Mo and Gia to Saturday of the weekend to see what all the fun was about.
We were only able to make it to the Saturday this time round and with it being the busiest day we thought we would get the best the show could offer.
The guest line up for this event was smaller than May’s event earlier this year. Meaning the guests we wanted would be more sought after by all. We were looking to see Hayley Atwell, Anthony Mackie and Stefan Kapicic. Hayley Atwell was not doing any press tables this meant we needed to see her in her panel. Stefan Kapicic was not available on the Saturday and we didn’t find this out until the day whilst we were sat waiting for his panel. Anthony Mackie was doing press tables, but due to ever amazing con organisation, MCM didn’t tell us until late the day before that we would have to book his time. We just missed out on this so we needed to see Anthony in one of his talks.
Arriving
We arrived at the convention centre, Excel just after 9 in the morning. Travel by train was better than expected as trains in and out of London the day before was mayhem due to accidents on the train line. As we went to the west entrance as needed for press we were directed to another entrance, the wrong entrance. We got the distinct impression the Security Guard wasn’t listening to us when we said we were press. With the help of one of the many people assigned to help people around the centre we eventually got in. But we were in the entrance for the Yu-gi-oh tournament and had to make our way through to the press desk.
Once we were signed in things ran a lot more smoothly for us. We sat down in the press room and looked at the timings and the map. We figured out who we needed to see that would be of interest to our readers and made plans. The problems we found with who we wanted was that the best talks were on the MYM Buzz couch. This meant that we needed to see most of our list there if possible.
Talks
The talks we needed to see were Hayley Atwell and Anthony Mackie. Hayley only had one talk which was on the MYM Buzz couch and this coincided with the Anthony Mackie stage talk. So Anthony Mackie like Hayley we had to see on the MYM Buzz couch.
The problem with these talks was that the MYM Buzz area is not big enough for the amount of people these guests will draw in. People would crowd around the seats which were full and sometimes not see what they needed to. Also with the couch and stage being in the main hall area unlike main stage talks the sound wasn’t good.
We also found that the internet signal for us to live tweet was not strong enough. We tried different wi-fi signals available as well as our own signal but had issues. we wanted to let you guys know as it happened anything we heard.
Hayley Atwell
Hayley looked very casual and at ease during her MYM Buzz panel. She was wearing a studded denim jacket and a floral dress. The panel lasted about 10 minutes but all the way through she kept saying meeting her fans was her favourite part of being an actor. Also that she always gets a warm reception and she genuinely likes to see how Peggy Carter or any of her characters have touched people.
Hayley told us that she didn’t think she would be in the Marvel Universe for 8 years! She talked about starting her career in the Royal Shakespeare Company doing classical pieces and when she was called to audition for Captain America she knew nothing about Marvel or comic books. Hayley explained that when she went to audition the first round was a couple of scenes and to that audition she took her theatre work ethic. After the audition she didn’t think anything of whether she would be called back. The 2nd round of auditions was 8 pages of dialogue, choreographed fight scenes and work with weapons. She said that during a scene she actually made the First Assistant Director cry, at that stage she thought that she may have the part or at least she had done “pretty good”.
credit: denofgeek.com
Peggy Carter
During her time playing Peggy Carter she put a lot into her character, so much so that it became a collaboration. When asked about her chemistry with Chris Evans, she said that Peggy was her own woman. That she was working hard in a male dominated world, working with dignity, grace and intelligence. Hayley said she wanted to portray Peggy as having the stoic British mentality or “Keep Calm and Carry On” and she feels Peggy embodied that.
Hayley spoke happily about her chemistry with James Darcy who played Jarvis. She explained that James improvised a lot of his dialogue and soon the writers were using his humour in what they were writing. The writers also watched Hayley and James as friends and wrote their relationship with what they saw.
Christopher Robin and Howards End
Hayley confirmed that she had just finished filming Christopher Robin which was the story of him as an adult. In this film Hayley plays his wife. Christopher Robin is played by Ewan McGregor who is an “old mate” from drama school. Hayley candidly spoke about working with “stuffies” who obviously don’t respond. Hayley told the crowds that first they did their scenes with the stuffies, then headless stuffies then lastly rods with lights on. Also that work like this showed the surreal power of an actors imagination. She confirmed the movie was set for release in August 2018.
Hayley said she was most proud of her upcoming role in Howards End which is due to air on the BBC, Sunday nights from November 12th. It is a female lead narrative and is different because the two female leads aren’t pitted against each other. The characters in this have complicated flaws that people will love. She thinks that people will love the show when it airs.
Hayley was extremely sweet and friendly during her panel, she seemed genuinely pleased to be there.
Anthony Mackie
Anthony Mackie is known as Falcon AKA Sam Wilson in the Marvel universe films. He first appeared in Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 2014. This was before making a return in Captain America: Civil War, Ant Man and Avengers Age of Ultron.
Credit: www.themarysue.com
When asked about working with such a great cast and their unique bonds. Anthony said that he thinks their bond is due to their careers. They have all made films that have failed and doing a run of films like this helps them bond whilst having fun.
He was also asked about a phrase he uses and what it means ‘Cut a cheque!’. He said that the phrase is due getting the job done or getting it finished. At that point three children were asked to stand up on the stage and give their best ‘Cut a cheque’ impression to win a prize. The kids were really cute and put some good effort into it and the winner was voted by the audience.
When asked if he could spill any secrets about the next Avengers film he was not giving anything away. His response was “All the Avengers are in the next Avengers film!” He was then asked to describe the next Avengers film in 5 words “A war of infinite proportions”.
He finished his talk off with having a photo session with some Avengers cosplayers. Some of the costumes were pretty amazing. Just before they came out he said he has always wanted to see a FAT Iron Man.
Julian Glover
Julian Glover will be known to people mostly for one of two roles. He played Walter Donovan in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade in 1989 opposite Harrison Ford. Most recently he has been in the HBO greatly talked about series Game of Thrones as Grand Maester Pycelle.
credit: imgur.com
Julian is such a lovely gentlemen and the first thing he said when he arrived was that he was deaf and apologised if questions had to be repeated.
When talking about how he was Aragog in Harry Potter and was asked about if Aragog was to come back. He said he hoped he wasn’t spoiling anything but Aragog didn’t survive the film. Proudly he mentioned the fact that his son is in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as Harry Potter. This shows that talent runs in his family.
He spoke a little about Game of Thrones and accidentally swore when talking about what had happened in this season. After that he realised that children are in the audience and apologised a lot.
Gaming and Merchandise
There was a massive presence of gaming at this event. This included half of one of the halls set out just for gaming. People could play state of the art games on different consoles whilst they went around the halls. There was also included a contest to try to have the fastest time with a remote control Bat-Mobile.
Not just the merchandise stalls fill an enormous halls there is also a comic village and Marvel inspired merchandise. Almost anything that you would see or want for your fandom can probably be brought at one of the stalls.
Geek Fun
This event was full of chances for you to bring out your inner geek. Some of the opportunities included being in an action figure box, sitting on a couch with the Guardians of the Galaxy and standing like you are part of the Justice League!!!
Summary
To summarise how this event went we would have to say it was a massive geek fest for all fans. The gaming and areas to see costumes and film replicas wasn’t enough to keep most people going. Honestly it was not as smooth as the May event they ran. In our opinion if the best guests are going to be on the MYM Buzz stage it needs to be bigger and have adequate seating. If you aren’t within the tiny seated area you will struggle to hear the panels.
We still think they run the show better than some other events we have been to. We believe if they had a bigger pull of guests like they did in May it would mean that more than one day would be needed. The set up and space used as always was perfect which meant we weren’t too compacted. This is good especially when the halls are buzzing with many fans.
We recommend planning your day for any event and probably plan better than we did maybe before you go. Sometimes planning needs writing down and then if any changes crop up on the day you can slip them in. Also make sure you wear comfortable shoes! We did about 15000 steps that day walking around in search of comics merchandise and some Anime cuddly cats and Alpacas.
Big annoyance!! There is hardly any internet signal in the convention centre!
We can’t wait for the next London event in 2018. We will certainly try to make it to their Birmingham event in mid November. Until then from us both take care FANdemaniacs.
