London Day 5, or The Who Shop is the best thing in the history of ever
In the morning we went to the Tower of London, which is, you know, interesting and historical and everything. I always imagined it as an actual tower, but it’s actually a big complex of buildings and many historic people were imprisoned there and I’m sure you can read all about it if you’re actually interested.
The Crown Jewels are actually in a row of cases that you stand on a slowly moving walkway to see, by the way. Not exactly depicted as in Sherlock.
Then we went to the Who Shop. It’s far out of the center of London, so it was a 45 minute tube ride, but so worth it! It’s a small shop with almost every piece of Who memorabilia crammed in, including two life-size TARDISes and at least two mini ones. We were about 3/4 of the way through our careful perusal of the store, as the only customers, when a guy walked in. In a full 10th Doctor costume. And practically squealed with glee. Pretty soon he was trying on the Tennant coat reproduction. “But it is my dream!” he said to the woman with him when she balked at the price. I mean, guy walks into the shop in a brown suit, Tennant hair, and the exact white Converse, and you know he’s serious about making sure his coat looks good with the rest of it. We never did get his name, although we took a couple of pictures, so he will be known only as “cute French David Tennant.”
Behind the shop, entered into through a TARDIS, is their Doctor Who Exhibit. The owner is a huge geek and gives a very colorful tour of all the props and costumes they have. There are a bunch of screen-used costumes for extras from the original series, a TARDIS console from the stage show, two Daleks, and what to me was the biggest deal: Tom Baker’s last costume, the reddish-purple one. Photographs are allowed, though the lighting’s not great, and he pulled down a couple of props and let us actually hold them! One was one of the alien weapons that Nine picks up and discards in “Dalek,” which turns out to be a modified stage light.
We also got a lot of information about Captain Jack’s costume. The owner is an RAF veteran himself and had both a vintage RAF coat like Jack wore in his first appearance, and the licensed costume version of his later coat. The original coats are heavy. No wonder they made a version out of lighter fabric for him!
The Crown Jewels are actually in a row of cases that you stand on a slowly moving walkway to see, by the way. Not exactly depicted as in Sherlock.
Then we went to the Who Shop. It’s far out of the center of London, so it was a 45 minute tube ride, but so worth it! It’s a small shop with almost every piece of Who memorabilia crammed in, including two life-size TARDISes and at least two mini ones. We were about 3/4 of the way through our careful perusal of the store, as the only customers, when a guy walked in. In a full 10th Doctor costume. And practically squealed with glee. Pretty soon he was trying on the Tennant coat reproduction. “But it is my dream!” he said to the woman with him when she balked at the price. I mean, guy walks into the shop in a brown suit, Tennant hair, and the exact white Converse, and you know he’s serious about making sure his coat looks good with the rest of it. We never did get his name, although we took a couple of pictures, so he will be known only as “cute French David Tennant.”
Behind the shop, entered into through a TARDIS, is their Doctor Who Exhibit. The owner is a huge geek and gives a very colorful tour of all the props and costumes they have. There are a bunch of screen-used costumes for extras from the original series, a TARDIS console from the stage show, two Daleks, and what to me was the biggest deal: Tom Baker’s last costume, the reddish-purple one. Photographs are allowed, though the lighting’s not great, and he pulled down a couple of props and let us actually hold them! One was one of the alien weapons that Nine picks up and discards in “Dalek,” which turns out to be a modified stage light.
We also got a lot of information about Captain Jack’s costume. The owner is an RAF veteran himself and had both a vintage RAF coat like Jack wore in his first appearance, and the licensed costume version of his later coat. The original coats are heavy. No wonder they made a version out of lighter fabric for him!