AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME

[cosmic_llin]

Ok, so, carawj, silly_cleo, jakera, shinyjenni, Hannah and I just got back from the Doctor Who Prom. For those who don't know, the proms are a series of concerts in the Royal Albert Hall, they do it every year, and there's all sorts of different ones and you can get very cheap standing tickets and they're accessible and informal and fun and stuff.

And yes, today was the Doctor Who one. We queued for nearly seven hours to make sure we got in, and it was totally worth it.

The cut below is mostly a 'skip my incoherent squeeing if you can't be bothered' cut, but also some really cool stuff happened that you might not want to know about if you're planning to watch it when it's on TV.



In no particular order...

* Yes. We queued forever. But it was quite nice because the Albert Hall and surrounding buildings are pretty to look at, and we were sat near the steps and we had a picnic and games and things to read and it was a nice sunny day, so it wasn't dissimilar to what we might have done anyway in that sort of weather. So the time went fairly quickly. Lots of cute kids dressed up!
* Nicholas Courtney walked right past us while we were waiting! Awed respect from all.
* We were wavering over whether to get Arena or Gallery tickets, because there were two separate queues, but we went with Arena in the end. SO GLAD. Much better experience. The gallery looked way too far away.
* In the standing area there was a fenced off square in the centre, we stood by it so that we could lean on the rail, and during the performance, a Dalek, a Weeping Angel and MATT SMITH emerged from a trapdoor inside it, so we were in the perfect place for all of it!
* Matt Smith was wonderful, he entered in character and got a kid from the audience to help him save the Albert Hall from destruction. It was very cute.
* Karen Gillan, bless her, looked very nervous. She did a good job, though! She did most of the presenting, Arthur Darvill did a bit and Matt Smith did a little bit at the end.
* In terms of non-Who music, they did Ride of the Valkyries, Short Ride in a Fast Machine, O Fortuna and Mars from the Planets. So a nice selection of hummable ones for the kids. Really enjoyable.
* For the Who music, they did videos to go with each one, and they were pretty well done. I Am The Doctor was awesome. As was Madman in the Blue Box, or whatever it's called.
* Hands down the BEST part was This Is Gallifrey. It was beautiful anyway, but for the video they'd put together clips of all the Doctors regenerating. The response was incredible - William Hartnell appeared onscreen and the crowd went wild, and then every Doctor got applauded.
* Song of Freedom was terrific. People waved Welsh flags. I wanted to wave one too but I didn't have one. :(
* Monsters came into the audience! Silurians and Cybermen and Judoon and vampires and Daleks and a Weeping Angel... one of the vampires came right up to carawj and she nearly jumped out of her skin...
* All of the music was so gorgeous and it was fantastic to hear it like that, all big and dramatic and right there in the room! And the atmosphere was amazing, everyone there was just so excited...
* Aargh, basically, I was the best fiver I ever spent!
* Also we went for crepes afterwards and I got a tropical fruit one and it was delicious!



I have stuff I want to reply to but I may not get to it all this evening, exhausted! But I wanted to get this down while it was still fresh!