AN ACE AFTERNOON WITH SOPHIE ALDRED

On the 4th April, 1998, Sophie Aldred, who played Ace to Sylvester McCoy's seventh Doctor, made a guest appearance in Sheffield, and became the 12th member of an elite group who have all appeared at The Watchers' "An Afternoon with..." events, following in the footsteps of Richard Franklin, Elisabeth Sladen, Louise Jameson, Mary Tamm, Wendy Padbury, Lalla Ward, Caroline John, Nicola Bryant, Colin Baker, Sarah Sutton and Mark Strickson.

After a dozen events, The Watchers have the art of event organisation off to a fine art, and there were few surprises here. Sophie, however, always proves an entertaining guests, and manages to keep relatively busy in work, so there are always a stream of new stories. That said, it was good to hear the full story of the water tank again, and her love of the show shone through. If any criticism could be labelled at this event, it was that an hour and a quarter was not enough time, but this was necessary in order to fit in the day's other events, such as the charity raffle, top prize of which was a Dapol Dalek gift set, containing the extremely rare brown Daleks, and in which I won a Dapol Pertwee figure, looking rather unlike the man himself. The autographs went smoothly, and Sophie managed to retain her pleasant nature in the face of a million (or so it seemed) camera flashes and requests for autographs.

To sum up, An Ace Afternoon with Sophie Aldred was another superbly organised event, and the choice of guest was an excellent one, having finally pegged Sophie down to a date after two years of trying. Everybody enjoyed themselves enormously, and we must now look forward to the next event on June 27th, with an as-yet unnamed guest.

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