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Book Launch, London Waterstones, 6th NovemberIt's 6.25pm at Waterstones in Piccadilly, London and a long queue of people are getting nervous about the planned talk from Brian Sibley and Jude Fisher. Or, more accurately, about a rumoured special guest. |
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That guest is Andy Serkis (Gollum) and the rumour is that although he had been booked for
an earlier children's talk, he has stayed on past his
original 4pm deadline - and MAY make a surprise appearance at the adults' evening talk too. But he HAS to leave at 7pm! It's getting closer to the
6.30pm talk start and there's no sign of the doors opening to let those who have been queueing, for the best part of an hour, into the lecture room.
6.30pm arrives and we seem to be no nearer to the doors opening. Will Mr Serkis have to leave before the talk starts? And then, suddenly, there's a sign of activity - and a
loud screeching noise as the fire alarms go off! As we evacuate the large building, the very same building, apparently, that was
used to film the famous Grace Brothers store in the BBC sitcom "Are you being served?" it's hard not to feel like one's taking part in a modern-day
episode of that farce-oriented series.
As we descend through the catacombs, wondering what could have set off the alarms, guest speaker Brian Sibley quips "I think J.K. Rowling's
gone too far this time!"
In fact, nobody need have worried. The false alarm was quickly over. The talk commenced not too much later than planned, Andy Serkis appeared and... but wait, I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's go back to the beginning.... A horrid cold, wet, windy day - the sort that England is famous for - got the day off to a less than thrilling start. Arriving at Waterstones impressive six story building not long after 10am, business was quiet, although the video wall (projecting promotional material for the forthcoming The Two Towers movie and the four books launched today by Harper Collins to tie-in with the movie) was attracting a lot of interest from passers by. Early reports had suggested that this footage included new exclusive material from "The Two Towers". I can neither confirm or deny this story. I saw what appeared to be a looped video of a few minutes of material already seen but in the pouring rain wasn't prepared to stick around to see if the loop changed after a certain number of plays. Inside the store, things were more impressive. The whole place - all six floors of it - had been decked out with promotional material, the staff all had "Lord of the Rings" t-shirts on, and a small group of brave volunteers were assembled by the face painter on the second floor in costume that may, or may not, have had something to do with Middle-Earth (first picture above). "Are you store staff or members of the Tolkien Society?" I inquired, committing not just one faux-pas, but two (sorry TS!). "Store staff" came the reply. "I hope they're paying you extra for this" I commented - a remark that seemed to provide some unexpected hilarity (left). One by one the brave assistants lined up to be given the face paint treatment. It says a lot about living in London I guess that a couple of hours later, as I sat in the book shop's basement cafeteria, I noticed that a married couple of rather senior years, didn't bat an eyelid when a green-faced chain-mail clad knight passed in front of them as they tried to read a large menu. Life as normal in the heart of the City, I guess! One young lady (left) was being given a white beard and wasn't at all sure about it. Ian Collier from the Tolkien Society was fortunately on hand to give advice: "Do scary! It works then", he advised. The lady did scary - as passable an imitation of Christopher Lee's Saruman as it's possible to do when you're the wrong sex. Collier was proved right - in fact it was so damned scary I fled to the safety of the EA games area in another section of the store! After drooling over the 62 inch plasma (yes, you read that right - 62 inches!!!) being used to promote the game for The Two Towers, I collared EA's Neil Kelly about the lack of an X-box version of the game. He had some bad news and some good news for me. The bad news: the X-Box version isn't due out until next June. The good news: the reason for the delay is they don't want to just do a straight port - the X Box has more powerful graphics than the PS2 hardware the game has been launched on and they know that we X-Box owners expect games to make use of those advanced capabilities. EA will be doing just that. Discussing "The Two Towers" game Neil revealed that it is based on both the first movie and the second movie, and that it features some 30 minutes of actual footage from the film, even though the film isn't out yet. The plasma screen showed some great trailers for the game, featuring Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood and Orlando Bloom recording their parts for the game, John Rhys-Davies doing a hilarious critique of the non-dwarvish characters in the game, and battle scenes from the game and movie. And for those wondering: Yes, there will be a new game this time next year to tie-in with the third film's release. |
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Over in a separate part of the store Games Workshop were running three battle games that were
very popular with the schoolchildren who were visiting the stand. As with the demonstration at Comic-Con in San Diego, the enthusiasm of
the staff rubbed off on most of those in attendance - the only difference being that American evangelical enthusiasm was replaced with Cockney
evalengelical enthusiasm! For those who preferred quieter pursuits the staff were also running a soldier painting bench which was also
proving very popular at the time I visited.
Seeking momentary respite, having done my "quick reccie" and with close to an hour to kill before the first "children's talk" I headed for the studio bar on the fifth floor (warning: not cheap!). The bar had a nice laid-back student atmosphere, with an added treat of a gallery of 20 portraits of cast members from the movies. There were some stunning photographs here, a few of which will be familiar to Empire readers who got free copies of some of them with this month's issue, but which, of course, look that much better when properly displayed at a larger size. |
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With the time of "the children's talk" and then "the signing" fast
approaching, it was time to purchase the required books that were being promoted.
And this is where things got a little bizarre. The books which had previously been lined up by the face painting area were gone. Staff on the second floor suggested trying the first floor. Staff on the first floor suggested the ground floor. There was a window display on the ground floor of about 20 copies in a nice spiral, but it seemed a shame to spoil it. "They're over there on the stand" an assistant advised, pointing me to a stand that contained only last year's "Art of Fellowship of the Ring" and Brian Sibley's earlier book. Eventually, after trips backwards and forwards from floor to floor, copies were located, and by the time of the evening talk things seemed to have been properly sorted, with attendees being correctly directed to an area where copies were plentiful. But it seemed very odd that at an event that was supposed to be promoting four new books, that the promotion actually seemed to be about everything to do with the movies EXCEPT the books. I never did find the two new books apparently aimed at children! On a happier note, the staff were excellent at agreeing to hold books behind the counter, ready for signing later in the day, for those of us who did not want to lug them around. At around 1.45pm, earlier than scheduled, the authors Jude Fisher (a.k.a. Jane Johnson) and Brian Sibley arrived, we took our positions at the back of the cordoned off area, while kids from a couple of schools were shephered in and a couple of professional photographers positioned the authors and a trio of kids for some publicity shots. At about 2pm. as scheduled, the talk started. Click here for next page of this report |
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| Email: ian@iansmith.co.uk |