Between 7th and 9th of May 2010 I attended Starfury: Echo 1, the worlds first Dollhouse convention, at the Thistle Hotel, Heathrow, London. The guests attending were Tahmoh Penikett, Fran Kranz, Enver Gjokai, Dichen Lachman and Miracle Laurie who also brought along her husband (also an actor) Christopher May.

I arrived in London on Wednesday night having plans to visit Rhiarti on the Thursday and then have all day Friday to catch up with friends before the convention kicked off on Friday night.

After staying up late to watch the ever more soul destroying election results, we headed off for a leisurely lunch at The White Horse, otherwise known as the best pub in the whole world that will not now be bulldozed to make way for Terminal 3. Got one thing to thank Camerlegg (that’s what I’m calling them and you can#t stop me) for anyhow I guess. Here we caught up with some old friends, met some new ones and got excited for the opening ceremony and meet and greet.

Eating, drinking and chatting were the order of the day until it was time to get changed for the opening ceremony and head to the Thistle. The opening ceremony consists of convention organiser Sean Harry introducing each guest and bringing them out on the stage where they stare in nervous awe at the crowd and try to think of something cool to say. Tahmoh, Miracle and Dichen were old hands at this and knew what to expect, but Fran Kranz and Enver Gjokaj (who, despite Miracle’s little tweet faux pas appeared to still be an unexpected guest to many people) were very clearly overwhelmed by the support.

You can watch an edited video of the Opening Ceremony here.

With the opening ceremony over and several drinks in us, the gold ticket holders headed for the meet and greet. An informal reception where the lucky (for lucky read more money than sense) few get to mingle with the guests for a couple of hours. Our table had already made arrangements to chair hop so that everyone who wanted got a chance to sit near a guest, rather than the same two people sandwiching them in.

Tahmoh Penikett was first to our table and fit very snuggly into the space that Penikitty and I had left for him. We had plotted a card and cake for him for some time ago as it was his birthday coming up in two weeks. He was very pleased and surprised that we knew his birthday and loved his presents. He definitely liked our table and said we were very ‘warm’, explaining that sometimes these things were weird as people would just sit and stare at him and he wouldn’t know what to say. We made sure and asked him questions.

Tahmoh's Card

Dichen was next up, and it was all change so that fifinoir and carlosimous could sit next to her. She was having lots of fun at our table, joking and laughing and ignoring her PA’s attempts to get her to move to the next table. At one point we turned to see Miracle waiting patiently to sit with us, so Penikitty took the opportunity to give her the present that she had bought her. It was a Vegesarous t-shirt that Miracle had commented on at the last convention and Miracle wore it all the next day.

When Dichen eventually moved on, Miracle sat down and went around the table pointing out everyone she had met last year in an ‘I know you, I know you, you’re new, you’re new’ way. Her fiancé Chris had recognised me earlier and said hi. I love these guys. We talked about her little tweet spoiler and about politics for awhile, she was fascinated by our election process and the outcome.

Enver was up next, he was very happy with all the little treats on our table as he was hungry and he tucked in heartily with an “Hmm, don’t mind if I do”. He is an absolute riot to be around, part of it was probably nervous energy but mostly he is just a born showman who is always ‘on’, much like Vincent Kartheiser. He is a natural talent and slipped into several characters at the blink of an eye, including Victopher, much to our delight. He spoke of Olivia and how nerve racking it was to work with her, but more of that in tomorrow’s blog. We also spoke of Previously on Point Dume (which if you haven’t seen go and watch now at www.previouslyonpointdume.com and he told us he would be filming another four episodes when he got back.

Fran was the last to the table. He was probably the one who was most overwhelmed and quite nervous but such a great, great guy. We talked a lot about Cabin in the Woods and his aptitude for accidentally dropping spoilers when he was nervous and getting into whole heaps of trouble. He also talked a lot about working with Olivia Williams, which again, I will leave for tomorrow’s blog otherwise I will have nothing to say.

After he left the table, I took the rest of the Turkish Delights across to Enver, who was delighted, and gave me another “Hmmm, don’t mind if I do”.

My words can never do these guys justice, they are some of the nicest people I have ever met and I truly hope that they all go on to get more and more wonderful opportunities to show off their talent.

So that was the meet and greet, then it was time for much dancing and drunken tomfoolery, which we will not go into here.