Cult TV

This article is about the convention. You may be looking for Cult Following.

Convention
Name:	Cult TV
Dates:	1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001
Frequency:
Location:	Norfolk
Type:
Focus:	Cult Television and Animation
Organization:
Founder:
Founding Date:
URL:
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Cult TV was a UK convention for cult television and animation.

1994

Although I'm not going to Dimension Jump 94 I am going to the Cult TV weekend. To tell the truth it's my tenth wedding anniversary and I've told my wife I've booked a weekend away. Is she in for a big surprise! Hope to see some of you there.

1995

This was held in a holiday camp on the Norfolk coast. It was a very ambitious con for the committee as it was their first - I don't think that any of them had been on a con committee before, some of them had only been to one con. Given that it was a very inexperienced committee they did really well.

The had a very full guest list. Their major guest was Harlan Ellison, making his first appearance at a con here for 10 years. They also had Richard Arnold, Annette Andre (Mrs Hopkirk), Carolyn Seymour, Sophie Aldred (Ace, Dr Who), Mat Irvine and several others.

They had quite an ambitious program - main, alternative and 4 x 24 hour video rooms - which in the main worked fairly well. Like all cons I have ever attended the program faltered when guests were late or items overran but all in all it worked well, apart from the Charity Auction and the Fancy Dress, both were run be people who appeared to know nothing about either. The auction took forever to get through and they spent all their time auctioning little items for a few pounds and kept the major items to last - so everyone hung onto their money until they won or lost the item they were after - and having lost they found that the second or third choice was already gone for a price that they could have beaten.

The attendees were a mixed bunch too. They seemed to have hit a non con-going audience. Most of the people attending were on their first or second con. There were very few regular con goers. I think that they got their advertising wrong. As was pointed out to them, if they had advertised at the major SF cons they would have got a large number of people going just to listen to Harlan (his last con here was the 1984 Eastercon). I'm not sure what media cons they posted either as there seemed to be no familiar names around. They probably posted some of the minor one day cons and missed the major ones. They made a loss on the con as they did not have enough people - they hoped to get 100+ on the door registrations but the camp site was 15 miles from a railway station and at the end of a bus route - no one was going to 'wander' past and think (I'll just drop in on this con and see what was happening), the only people going past the door were already booked in! It was a great learning experience for the committee who were all heard to invoke that well known mantra "NEVER AGAIN".

Anyway, I had fun. I watched some of the new Babylon 5 episodes and Dark Horizons, and listened to some good talks.

Richard Arnold brought a whole heap of tapes with him to the con, including Dark Horizons. I could have done without them showing it a 04:30 on Monday morning but at least I got to see it. I thought that it was very good. The pacing was a little slow in places and the ending a bit too pat, I expected better than 'love conquers air from this company but all in all I thoroughly enjoyed it. The actors/actresses got back into the parts so well that it could have been made directly after the series instead of after a long break.

1997

Haven Holiday Camp, Caister, Norfolk, UK 24-27 October, 1997

... I picked up my convention registration and volunteered to help steward. They were very short on stewards at this convention, whch was a shame as they make a real effort to run a wide-ranging video programme and that's hard to do without enough stewards.

Once we'd set up my table in the dealer's room, I made my way to my first stewarding slot. This proved to be a real turkey. 'Raven - the Journey'. Some kind of American show about a martial arts expert looking for his lost son. Not my cup of tea at all. Still, I sat through it, radio in hand. The unenviable task of the steward is to stop anyone messing around with the video and to call in tech if any problems develop. After Raven was thankfully over, I took in the Simpsons and a comedy called 'Up the Elephant and Round the Castle' which featured Marina Sirtis as a barmaid from a European country with interesting local customs. That was quite amusing - pity she didn't get to do comedy on TNG.

Feeling in need of company after that, I wandered into the disco and watched for a spell while chatting to a couple of the crew. It was really too loud for my limited voice though. Come 11.30, I departed for my favourite part of the convention, the After Dark session. This is a long established Cult TV tradition, a late night, in-depth discussion session. Tonight's discussion focused on media coverage of fandom and reached some rather depressing conclusions. How much does the media love of portraying fans as 'anoracks', to get a laugh from their readers, discourage people from trying out fannish events like conventions? Is there a false belief that you have to wear fancy dress and be able to speak Klingon to be able to attend such events? In fact, I saw very few people in fancy dress at this con, possibly because of the weather. Norfolk in October is cold.

Saturday. Spent half an hour in the dealer's room chatting to Steve and Sarah. This was a very multi-purpose dealers table. I'd brought along the zines, although I didn't expect to sell many because this isn't a big B7 convention. As Jackie Pearce was appearing, I'd offered to take along a batch of Sheelagh Wells' bookmarks and audio tapes. The Servalan bookmark proved to sell quite well; I expect Jackie ended up autographing several of those. Sarah had brought along a load of second-hand TV magazines and fanzines, and Steve was there to help publicise Redemption. All three of us are on the Redemption con committee, so it was a good chance to advertise the con and maybe sell a few registrations.

At 9.30 I went to join Jackie's autograph queue. She was the only person I queued for - there were many guests here, but I'm not much of an autograph person as a rule. I'd never seen Jackie before, but she's someone I've always wanted to meet. You could have knocked me down with a feather when she looked at my name badge and said, 'Hello, Sheelagh asked me to give you her love.' I floated on air for at least the next hour! Jackie's guest interview was of course the next important event. This was very enjoyable. Jackie is amusing, outrageous and delightful (and if I look as good as her when I reach her age, I'll be well pleased). When asked about the forthcoming B7 radio play, she described with a great gusto a scene in which Servalan is lashing Avon. This image of Servalan has obviously got a firm hold with some people as in a later session she mentioned some of her fan mail. Her favourite read, 'Dear Ms Pearce, please come round my house and tie me up and beat me; but please do it after ten as my mother doesn't go to bed until then."

[...]

Went to a discussion session on Babylon 5. Has the end of the shadow war caused the series to go downhill? I love this sort of session with everyone tossing in their own point of view and commenting on the way they see the series. Listening to actors is always interesting, but fan sessions can throw up all sorts of divergent opinions. I bumped into Ed Bishop (Commander Straker from UFO) at one point in the convention and apologised that I'd have to miss his guest talk as it was my turn to look after the dealer's table. He said never mind, I'd heard all his stories now. (I'd seen him two weeks before at Starfleet Experience) What he said was true up to a point (Ed was actually very interesting to listen to and I wouldn't mind seeing him again), actors do tend to have a finite number of anecdotes - there are only so many so many things that can happen when filming any given series. Fan sessions can be a lot more varied than guest sessions as fans typically know the series details better than the cast and can offer numerous different interpretations of events and why they took place. Fan sessions rarely resolve anything, but they spark off all sorts of entertaining ideas.

[...]

11.30 and off to the After Dark session once more. They had a decent heater in this time. (I nearly froze the night before) 'Reruns and Remakes' was the topic. Should a series be allowed to run on for endless seasons, or should it stop while it is still at its best? What's the best way to end a series? With a bang like Blake's 7? Which series do we want to see repeated that never seem to get repeated? Which is best, satellite or cable? Why do film-makers insist on making movies like 'Mission Impossible' that simply alienate fans of the series? Did the film of 'The Saint' bear any relationship at all to the books and the TV series apart from the name? As you can gather, we rather got our teeth into this one... Got to bed appallingly late, but who cares?

[...]

Sunday.

Went to a session that should have been a 'Prisoner' role playing game, but it was cancelled because not enough people showed up. Pity, it sounded interesting. (It was rather cryptically described in the programme, which may help account for the low numbers). Went and watched some of the guests instead. Was rather glad to have a chance to see Ed Bishop again. The real star of this session was Barry Morse though. I begin to understand why Cult TV invite him back year after year. The man's amazing. 'Barry Who?' I hear you say. Well, he was the detective following the Fugitive and he was Professor Bergstrom in Space 1999, but mostly he's just one of these amazing raconteurs. Give a question and it will start a string of anecdotes that carry happily on for ages. By my reckoning, he has to be about 80, but he's an exceedingly spry 80.

The next guests were Lis Sladen (from Dr Who), Annette André (from Randall and Hopkirk) and Jacqueline Pearce. I was supposed to be looking after the delaer's table, but the woman on the next table looked at me, looked at the empty dealer's room and said 'Go and watch Jackie'. I decided she was entirely right and went forth to be entertained by Jackie once more. I don't really think the anecdote about the waiter is repeatable here... Annette André has a good line in ghost stories.

[...]

Back to the dealer's room. More zines, more of Sheelagh's tapes. More Redemption flyers. Sold our first dealer's table for the convention. It sounds dull, but I enjoy chatting to the people who come past.

In the afternoon, everything shut down for Tom Baker. We all went to hear him, but to be honest, I found him a bit of a disappointment. He was here to promote his new book, and most of what he was doing sounded as though he was just reciting large chunks of it from memory. Interesting, entertaining, but not in Jackie Pearce's league. Apparently Tom isn't very keen on the traditional question and answer session, although he was persuaded to answer a few questions when he was later joined on stage by Nicholas Courteney, Lis Sladen and Deborah Watling.

That evening I was stewarding once more. I wasn't madly interested in watching the cabaret, so they fitted me into a stewarding slot with sighs of relief as it was a hard time-slot to fill. Suited me fine. I got to watch Dr Who: The Androids of Tara for the first time and greatly enjoyed it. It's a complete rip-off of the Prisoner of Zenda and entirely tongue in cheek. I wasn't the only person enjoying it either. Finished stewarding and went to watch Norman Lovatt perform. He was Holly from Red Dwarf, but is also a professional comedian. He was entertaining, but not madly so. Maybe I should have watched another Dr Who episode...

After Dark once more - The Future of Conventions. I think this one went on until about two in the morning (or was it four...) An extremely interesting session as far as I was concerned, covering a wide range of factors. What different people want from conventions: do they prefer new guests, old guests, workshops, etc. The inns and outs of financing conventions, copyright, the peculiar differences of X-files fans from the rest of fandom, etc. There were a couple of extremely interesting stories that it would

probably be libellous to repeat. I went to bed a tired, but happy camper.

1998

Telford, September 1998

Photos from Steve Rogerson's web pages.

1999

Pontins Holiday Camp, Weston-super-Mare, September 1999

Photos from Steve Rogerson's web pages.

2000

Torquay, 27 to 30 October 2000

Photos from Steve Rogerson's web pages.

2001

Liverpool, 26-29 October 2001

Photos from Steve Rogerson's web pages.

2002

Southport, 25-28 October 2002

Photos from Steve Rogerson's web pages.

2003

Sand Bay Holiday Camp, Weston-super-Mare, 10-13 October 2003

Photos from Steve Rogerson's web pages.

2004

Weston-super-Mare, 8-11 October 2004

2005

Solihull, 28-31 October 2005

2006

Hemsay, Norfolk, 20-23 October 2006

2007

Oxfordshire, 19-22 October 2007