From: Russell T Davies To Banjamin Cook, Thursday 30 OCtober 2008 23:50:10 GMT
RE: Operation Cobra
What. A. Bloody. Night. I don't mean yesterday's NTA's (I'll update you on that soon, I promise); I mean tonight...
I'd promised to re-open the Cardiff Bay Doctor Who Exhibition. Nice refit, much bigger, and with a Supreme Dalek rising out of the ground that I could have watched forever. I was only expecting about 20 people to turn up. (It's in a Cardiff shopping centre, on a Thursday Night.) When will I learn? This show! A good 300+ people turned up. Still, all very nice, and my speech was funny, and two Cybermen burst through a polystyrene door. Great fun. THen it all went wrong. I was shown through the exhibition, barely realizing that all 300 people were following me. All well and good, until I reached the end. There was this little boxed area where we sort of paused, photographers were snapping away, and I was told to wait, because they wanted me with the Cybermen, so I waited... and then 300 people appeared. Not all of them, obviously. Not at first. First of all, it was just three nice boys - autograph, photo, thanks - and then two nice girls - autograph, photo, thanks - then a lesbian couple who wanted me to sign a bowling skittle (honestly!), then a dozen people, then two dozen, then three...
Imagine one of our book signings, but with no control, no order, no queue, no table, no system, no one in charge, no post-its, no pens, no space, just people, people, people. It was a nightmare. It just wouldn't stop. As it started to get worse, people from BBC Branding and Worldwide tried to stop it and turn people away, except there was no away for them to be turned to. 'Anyway,' I said, 'you can't,' because there were wide-eyed kids all jamming forward, holding out annuals, storybooks, and bloody napkins to be signed, and parents with those cameras, those bastard cameras that never bloody work. I'm trying to sign things with nothing to rest on. It's so impossible to sign something flimsy in mid-air. Especially when the pen won't write. And the Post-It, Ben! The Post-It is a thing of genius. Take away the Post-It, and you find yourself shouting at some goggling kid, above the noise, 'What's your name?' 'Meep.' 'What's your name?' 'Meep.' 'WHAT'S YOUR NAME?!' 'Meep.' 'What, Jack? Jason? John? Joe? What. Is. Your. NAME?!!!' And that's just the first stage. Next, it's 'How do you spell that?' One girl's name was Jessamond. Lovely kid, but 'J, E, double S -' What, sorry, pardon? WHAT?!
But I can cope with that. I thought, if I have to stay here for three bloody hours, I can do it. Except then - and it's dark in this exhibition, and the space is tight, and no one knows what the hell is going on - I have a genuine, proper, rare panic attack. You'll never have seen me like that. It hardly ever happens to me these days. It happens to me in crowds, in tight spaces, if the situation is unexpected. Certain situations trigger it, and it's horrible, because everything goes hyper. It's like I can see and hear everything faster - and like I think faster, way too fast. It's all scrolling in my head. The physical signs are: I start to shake a bit, and I sweat. It pours off me. It really pours. There are, literally, drops of sweat falling off my head, not just once or twice, but all the time. All the bloody time. Kids are actually going 'Ewww,' because they're getting hit by my sweat. Can you imagine?
Oh god, I'm shamed. I've had those attacks before, but never, never, in all my life, with everyone taking photos. It's going mental in my head, all the time I'm grabbing pieces of paper - 'What's your NAME?!' - and stooping down to two-foot-four to have my photo taken with some bloody toddler who doens't even watch Doctor Who, and the camera doesn't bloody work. By now, I'm actually losing control. I'm swearing in front of these kids. Well, not at them. I was hissing at the BBC people, 'Bloody stop them!' One of the Branding Team had twigged that something was wrong, except I'm too bloody embarrassed to say anything properly, and my hands are full of SHarpies and annuals, and then he starts shouting 'Everyone get back!' But I'm going, 'Stop bloody shouting!'
I should have just stopped and walked away, but I'm beyond anything sensible by that stage. I'm shivering. I'm dropping pens and napkins, scrabbling for them on the floor, and kids can't even say their own names, and people keep taking photos. I've all these little trip-words and conditions in my head that I can repeat to calm myself down... but like I said, I've never been in that situation before, with everyone talking at me, looking at me, and photographing me, so nothing was working. Eventually - and this goes on for a solid ten minutes, an endless ten minutes - I realise that I'm trapped into signing anything that's offered, so the solution is to stop people even seeing me which means cutting off the procession at the corner. I'm hissing, 'Stop them! That corner! STOP THEM COMING ROUND THE FUCKING CORNER!!!' Some teenage girl said, 'You shouldn't swear,' and she's lucky I didn't fucking punch her.
The Branding and Worldwide people wade in, and stop the whole exhibition. And I get out. I walk out of the shopping center - still being chased by kids and families - and I'm ice cold with sweat by now, feeling ridiculous, still shaking. Oh God. Stood in the cold. I smoked five cigarettes in a row. Clamed down. Even then, I'm ashamed, because the Branding and Worldwide people won't leave me alone. They're still dancing attendance, so I have to explain myself - 'I have a problem with crowds' - knowing that will be all around the office in the morning, like I'm some bloody nutjob. I'd never tell them that normally. Oh, CHrist knows what they'll say about me tomorrow. Sod 'em.
Anyway. There we go. But then it got funny. I still had a job to do. I had to do press interviews. The first one was with a 10-year-old girl, a reporter for First News or something, 'The world's only primary-school newspaper'! Her name was Tali. She was from Hampstead. Being 10, she wrote out all my answers in longhand.'When... David... de...cided... to... leave...' Christ Almighty.
Phew. So, that was a night and a half.
