Cabin Pressure recording (6 Jan 2013)

(Heute ausnahmsweise auf Englisch, falls sich jemand per Google hierher verirrt.)

I had the enormous luck of winning two tickets for Cabin Pressure (17000 applicants for 3×200 tickets). And these tickets don't even guarantee you to get in because the BBC is of the opinion that only about half of the poeple who have tickets will turn up. This may be right for other shows, but not for Cabin Pressure. I started queueing at around 8, which got me position 39 in the queue – a queue that in the end went down the whole street and round the corner into the next street. It wasn't until 4.5 hours later when they would bring out the stickers and let us in. Queueing was fun at first because the people were nice¹ and we were shouted at by an enraged woman who threatened to call the police because we were loud (which we weren't at that point) and because we were standing there every weekend (which we definitly weren't – the recordings had a two week and a three week gap between them respectively and you could only apply for one date, so that definitely wasn't us that stood there every weekend). Anyway, she had a very colourful language and the whole incident amused us very much. At half eight, John Finnemore and Roger Allam went into the RADA studios, at quarter to nine Stephanie Cole followed and the last one to go in was Benedict Cumberbatch, at 5 minutes to nine. I have no idea how/when the guest actors have got in. John Finnemore later came out again to wave at us (he is very lovely. I need to ask the BBC if they send John Finnemores out as a birthday present.) Later on, queueing got more and more boring and cold and so on, especially as they gave us our sticker with our position in the queue directly before we got in the building. So you couldn't even go away to have breakfast (my food today consisted largely of 6 cereal bars, until I managed to eat a proper meal after 6). But we got in eventually and even in a somewhat orderly manner.

Of course I can't talk about the content of the episodes. It was the X and Y episodes, but don't ask me for the names, I didn't really understand them. Episode X is a bottle episode with only the regular cast, while episode Y features three guest stars (one of them to be expected) and it's even more dramatic than St Petersburg (I think I can even say that for me it's a more dramatic episode than The Reichenbach Fall). The recording starts with David Tyler saying a few introductory words and making a few bad jokes (he said so himself), the latter to make sure that the microphones for the audience laughter are properly calibrated. The recording was a slightly surreal experience because you not only get to see the people you normally merely hear, but you really hear all the sounds (like the famous bing-bong) and the actors visibly act. For example, there was one scene when Arthur and Douglas shove a snowman (it makes sense in context), so John Finnemore and Roger Allam really were shoving an imaginary snowman. And you can really see a shift in the actors' faces and body languages when they start speaking in character. Speaking of context, after the first run of each episode (they do all the scenes in order, what with not having to chance the set) they retook a few scenes (one because we were laughing too loud – but that's Finnemore's fault, not ours) and additionally they repeated a few scenes from previous episodes which had had some technical problems (or something like that) which really didn't much sense without having heard the episodes in question. But I now know a few things about the middle episodes. The actors also had to start some lines anew, with Cumberbatch probably having the highest number of fluffed lines (mainly due to giggling – which is totally understandable –, though Cumberbatch also wanted to retake a few scenes for artistic reasons). Anyway, the episodes were wonderful. I'd describe X more as a family episode, while Y is a big character episode and, as I said, very dramatic. No bird strikes this time, though. We asked John Finnemore (did I mention that he's very lovely?) afterwards if there will be more episodes or even a whole new series in future, but he couldn't tell us anything. But there's only Z left, so I wouldn't bet on there being another series. A Z special maybe, but I fear that that might be it. (I'll go cry in a corner now.)

Afterwards the cast came back for autographs and really, they are lovely. I even got an autograph from Stephanie Cole, who had to leave shortly after the recording. And I admire Benedict Cumberbatch for his patience because he really was beleaguered by so many people.

I hope I didn't forget anything that's worth telling because that whole day was just massive and full of wonderfull impressions. If the chance arises I'll definitely go to another recording (or a Souvenir Programme recording). Unless I explode sometime in the next 6 weeks because I can't tell anyone how wonderful these episodes were exactly.

1. Well, they were nice to the other fans, but there were some people that I think are creepy from an actor's perspective. I counted at least three Sherlock coats, one of them as a fully blown cosplay including purple shirt. It's one thing to cosplay at cons, but cosplaying as one character at an event when the actor who plays this character is playing a completely different character is a big no-no. And don't get me started on the people who showered the actors (and one actor in particular…) with gifts. Do they really think the actors keep all that? </rant >