Anthony Head

Every six months or so, The Hollywood News hits the road and attends one of these so called ’fan conventions/ collector fairs’. You know the ones. You queue up for an hour or three to get your idol to charge you £20 for a bit of scribble on a 8x10 piece of paper.

Anyway, one of the better film-fairs are run by Showmasters, and every six months they hold an event entitled Collectormania in the halls of the Centre: MK in Milton Keynes. This weekend, stars from the likes of Star Trek, Quantum Leap, Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Battlestar Gallactica, Aliens, Red Dwarf, and even Only Fools and Horses decended on the city to sign autographs, pose for pics and shoot the breeze with their fans. As always, we were there to see what went down.

The first show of 2005 was a little larger than usual. No, even the studios are getting involved, with 20th Century Fox screening their latest trailers in a special cinema. There, we were treated to the full trailer for Star Wars Episode III, the Angelina Jolie/ Brad Pitt romantic comedy thriller, Mr and Mrs Smith, the next big comic book movie, Fantastic Four and the much acclaimed Nightwatch. Hell, Fox even brought a big yellow truck to the show to promote the movie (see below).

Stars from the hit BBC show Red Dwarf were also in attendence on Sunday; well Craig Charles and Danny John Jules anyway.

Gary Kurtz and Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner also made the trip, as did a few of the minor stars from the Star Wars series, including the hot little lady (below) that plays Oli Shoshan in Episodes II and III. It was also the first time I’d seen the 7ft odd tall Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca). This dude is huge. Especially when you plonk him next to Kenny Baker.

Also signing were the cast of various Doctor Who series (even the Daleks turned up), Sean Astin, Bernard Hill, John Rhys Davies, Alan Cumming, another hot looking babe from some TV series called Star Trek (?) Jolene Blalock, Anthony Head and Alexis Denisof from Buffy and Dean Stockwell from Quantum Leap.

Dozens and dozens of exhibitors also made the show, to give fans the opportunity to grans those special edition collectibles. A lot of Sin City merchandise was on show and available to buy, with fans snapping up the 12" odd figure of Marv for a bargain £30.