South Shields Lecture

[moonlettuce]

So, on Friday alyse and I went to the South Shields lecture.

Oh. My. God. It was amazing. I mean, I willingly admit that I could sit and listen to Patrick Stewart recite the phone book and I'd be happy, but he was funny and reflective and frank and fabulous. Apparently the tickets for this year were three times more in demand than the ones for last year, when Tony Blair was guest speaker.

He spoke about his childhood, about how he got into acting, about how coming from a poor family has reflected on a lot of the decisions he made in later life. He peppered the time with anecdotes both humorous and contemplative. PS spoke for a little over an hour and I could have easily listened to him for three times as long.

And then he took some questions. I was debating on whether or not to ask one and then I thought that if I don't ask I'd regret it, so in the last round of questions I stuck my hand up and grinned at David Miliband (who is rather adorable, btw) when he pointed to me. (Please note, for anyone who was there, I wasn't the lass who asked him if his physique in First Contact was real or if he'd been computer enhanced / had a stand-in.) I asked him which role he'd played had affected him the most, to which his reply was MacBeth, as he believes that there are only so many times you can go on stage and speak the words of blood and murder and betrayal before they get to you. (Although part of me wanted to ask him to confirm the rumour that he's going to appear in Doctor Who, but I think if I had and he'd said 'yes' my head may have exploded with squee.)

I'd taken my camera on the off-chance (I'd rather have had it with me and not use it, then be told "Yes, you can take photos" and be all "Bugger!") and people were taking photos. They were all done with the flash off, and my camera's not a crash-hot one, so they're pretty much all blurry, but I'm going to inflict them on you anyway. There is one where I'd forgot to take the flash off, so that's okay, but still not amazing :)

The back of PS's head!


A blurry PS at the lectern:


A blurry DM giving PS a picture that a local artist had done, incorporating various aspects of PS's life:


A not-entirely-blurry-although-Photoshopped-to-give-better-light PS and DM after the questions:


So, yeah, Friday night? Bloody amazing.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_bettina_/]

Wow, so cool! :-D

[telperion-15.livejournal.com]

Everyone needs some 'celebrity blob' photos! I have a bunch of Patrick Stewart from when I saw him at a con a few years back, and they're all almost exactly like this! Except he's smaller and even more blob-like in mine!

[temaris.livejournal.com]

So envious. *sigh*

[catwalksalone]

\o/

My colleague was going to go to that, I do believe. Worlds collide!

[tipsywitch.livejournal.com]

Awesome stuff! Please - what is this south shields lecture you speak of? - and then back to the awesome and thank you for sharing!!!

[saffronra.livejournal.com]

Yay, I'm glad it was awesome :D

[moonlettuce.livejournal.com]

It was! It was fantastic :D

[moonlettuce.livejournal.com]

Thanks to sitting at the back at conventions and a camera that's not the best, I have many celebrity blob photos ::g::

[moonlettuce.livejournal.com]

Dude! It was fabulous. Er, I mean it was awful. You didn't miss a thing...

[moonlettuce.livejournal.com]

::grin::

[moonlettuce.livejournal.com]

It was indeed awesome ::g::

[moonlettuce.livejournal.com]

About seven years ago David Miliband (who is the MP for the South Shields constituency) invited a guest speaker to give a lecture (I think the first one was Neil Kinnock, but I may be wrong). Every year since then, a famous bod gets invited along to speak. Last year it was Tony Blair, this year it was Patrick Stewart :D Hence me and the squeeage ;)

[planetkiller.livejournal.com]

That sounds so awesome!

[moonlettuce.livejournal.com]

It was. Even more awesome than I'd hoped ::g::