Angel

The Opening Ceremony

Well, at End of Days a whopping 2,500 attendees waited restlessly in the main hall on Friday night, eager to greet the veritable plethora of guests Starfury Conventions had lined up for the weekend. To name but a few, they included Amy Acker, Vincent Kartheiser, Andy Hallett, Dayne Johnson, Stephanie Romanov, even the man behind our dearly beloved Wesley Wyndham Pryce, Mr Alexis Denisof himself... the list was long and extremely impressive. The excitement was almost tangible in the air as the attendees awaited their arrival, breathless with anticipation. Of course that might have been because they’d already started getting into the true ’School Disco’ spirit for the after party and hit the booze early... After enduring the CoA Beast’s Brew Pub Crawl the night before, both Citizens and Council were perhaps looking a little worse for wear but still anticipating seeing all those stars come out on stage to say hello and start the convention with a bang.

The crowd gets a group kiss from the honored guests.

As if the mere thought of all this wasn’t enough, the stage itself was enough to wet anybody’s appetite for a weekend of Angel based goodness. The lobby of the Hyperion, home of Angel Investigations, was reconstructed before our very eyes, complete with front desk, bell and (almost) working elevator. But before the festivities really began, who should step out on stage but event organiser Sean Harry with a little announcement for us all? We’d already figured out that J. August Richards had turned up as an unexpected but extremely welcome surprise guest (particularly welcome for some of the CoA girls) but little did we know that somebody else had been due to pay us all a little visit. As the lights were dimmed, our eyes were drawn to the screen and... two little action figures having a fight? This was our big surprise? Actually no, the man wielding the two figures, series creator Joss Whedon was the big surprise. From his office, where the magic happens, he explained that due to last minute ’work stuff’ (hmm... interesting) he was unable to join us as originally planned. Quite possibly he would have been the best surprise guest of all time, but alas, the Powers That Be thwarted us once more. So, instead, he thought he’d send us a video message and give us an insight into the making of a little show he likes to call Angel. We do hope that his entering rooms and getting attacked by masked members of the writing staff in capes isn’t a regular part of the series’ production... Of most interest to the audience, even all the non-spoiler fans present, was the big white board in the background where the writers break their story concepts. Well... Season 5 of Angel - it’s going to be huge if this is anything to go by. Here are the writer’s thoughts:

"Numfar = Sexy" "Angel not brooding enough" "Show not gay enough, more ballet!" "Hand puppets" "KILL WESLEY!" (Bet Alexis loves that idea...)

At least, we think these aren’t real spoilers. After much raucous laughter rang throughout the hall, with that little revelation out of the way it was time to get on with the show! The spotlights hit the stage and through the door to that infamous office where our favourite Dark Avenger spends his days brooding... err, I mean, working... stepped the great Glorificus, the one and only Clare Kramer as our MC for the event. The Hell God herself wasted no time in welcoming everyone and getting the party started. One by one, the guests were called out and made their entrance on stage to give a quick hello and a wave and to promise a weekend of fun and frolics, each greeted with an astonishing number of decibels as the attendees whistled, clapped and screamed their appreciation. A few of the guests even treated us to a little something extra: J August got the crowd going with a slightly revamped version of the 50 Cent hit ’In The Club’ which consisted of him telling us, "Hey Blackpool, it’s your birthday", as well as indulging in a little audience participation (a staple of any good convention).

J gets the crowd in a swingin’ mood.

Nobody needed to guess who was coming through the door next when they heard that unmistakeable voice belting out the highest note he could hit; Krevlorneswath of the Deathwok Clan has nothing on the one and only Andy Hallett. But the biggest cheer of the night naturally went to the man on his first ever UK convention appearance - when Alexis Denisof made his appearance you would have thought Elvis had just entered the building. The cheers and screams were certainly loud enough.

With the festivities over and done, the attendees and the guests wasted no time getting into the party spirit. Over all three nights of the convention the guests could be seen milling around in the bar and on the dance floor, but all the action seemed to happen on the stage where Andy decided to grace us all with a few numbers. Belting out classics such as ’Lady Marmalade’, ’I Will Survive’ and whatever song the DJ happened to be playing at the time, he quickly earned himself the title of ’Green Con Queen’ as he partied the weekend away and made it his personal responsibility to ensure that guests and attendees alike were having a good time, even managing to convince Mark Lutz and Brody Hutzler to join him in a few numbers. The three of them even developed their own unique dance (one that CoA Forum Monitor SueAngel has supposedly perfected to an art form). We’re still not exactly certain how he managed to lose his only pair of shoes while he was at it - apparently it was something to do with ’Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ and giving them away - but we’re sure he appreciated the strappy gold heels one thoughtful attendee provided as a replacement!

How many Lorne’s does it take to win a competition?

A particular highlight for guests and attendees alike was the fancy dress competition, which took place on Saturday evening. The effort and thought that goes into first choosing and then creating each character is unbelievable, and there was an exceptionally high standard of costumes. All our favourites were recreated: Angelus, Darla, Drusilla, Spike, and more. There was particular delight at the little ’Cheerleader Buffy’ recreated by one of the younger contestants; even Julie Benz and Nicole Bilderback had to stop for pictures. One of the audience favourites and eventual prizewinners was the recreation of Olaf, ex- boyfriend of Anyanka, who came pre- equipped with his own full size troll hammer (quite frankly he could have knocked somebody out with the thing, it was that sizable). There were even a few non- Buffyverse entries in the shape of the leather clad X- Men. From start to finish the fancy dress competition was a great source of entertainment and one of the highlights of the party; even that agonising wait for the judge’s decision seemed to fly by as the guests left John Cassir in charge of the rabble. You may not recognise him if you see him in a crowded room but you’ll certainly have heard him before as the voice for the Crypt keeper, Buster Bunny of ’Tiny Toons’ and from the many other voices he has provided. But what has that got to do with the price of an exorcism from Angel Investigations, you ask? Well, he also has the distinction of being Mr Julie Benz. He kept the attendees rolling in the aisles as he slipped seamlessly from voice to voice in a totally improvised presentation which was over all too soon as the judges came back with their decision. The most rapturous applause of the evening was reserved for the Lorne and Lornette duo who eventually won the ’Demon’ category; who couldn’t love a green guy in a pink suit? Certainly not Andy Hallett who was thrilled and has already put his request to Dayne Johnson for his own version to wear on the show next year (more on this later)!

Autographs

With 2500 people the autograph queues were bound to be quite long but, as the numbers were called in groups, things seemed to move along quite well, and hats off to the stewards for keeping us all in line (pardon the pun!). Whilst some guests were going through the queues like a bat out of hell, namely Keith Szarabajka and Tamara Gorski, others took a little longer. At one point, in an attempt to fulfil the queue of patient conventioneers, J. August Richards walked down the line in rock star style signing for each person as he went. Holtz’s protégé, Vincent Kartheiser, at his first ever convention appearance, was very charming and took his time with the attendees offering a little conversation to each of them. Another Convention first timer was the delicious Alexis Denisof, suffice to say, everyone wanted a piece of him and really - can you blame them? Unfortunately, due to work commitments, Alexis was unable to stay for J walked down the line in rock star style signing for each person as he went. Sunday and endeavoured to sign for as many people as humanly possible on Saturday, offering a lovely smile with each autograph. Alexis had been placed with Amy Acker to give him someone to follow, on this, one of his first signings.

There was a great moment on Sunday when Julie and Linda went through to the session with Andy Hallet, Mark Lutz, Brody Hutzler and Dayne Johnson. Andy, on fine form, was very excited when the conventioneer who had dressed as Lorne in the Fancy Dress competition last night, asked Andy to sign his Pink Jacket. Andy enthused about the coat and came around the table to try it on, asking Dayne what he thought of it and ’wouldn’t it be great if I could have one made like this for the show’. He seemed reluctant to sign the coat, worrying about spoiling it but when reassured wrote, ’Great coat’. Suddenly he exclaimed, "Oh I should have written, ’How fabulous would I look in that coat?’" One of his self confessed favourite lines from the show, he then added, ’How fabulous would I look in it!’ He also took Linda’s photo of him (from Caritas last year) to show to Dayne as he decided that he liked his haircut in said photo and would like it cut that way again. In the meantime, Mark and Dayne were patiently waiting and laughing at Andy’ antics! Brody, a first timer himself was very charming and kept the attendees amused as they waited their turn to see Andy. Of course for Andy the whole event was marred when a certain citizen on being asked to get him a coffee inadvertently served tea - well it is England!

Finally from the obvious in-jokes with the girls through to the name-calling and madness of the boys the comfort and friendship between the cast and crew was evident at all of the signing sessions. It was a pleasure to see these relationships and definitely made any waiting worthwhile. A concerted effort was made by all the staff and stewards during the autographs and even though it was known before the convention that attendees could not expect to receive a full compliment of autographs, it seemed that everyone got autographs from a good number of their favourite actors. The guests were tireless as always, often going above and beyond and always with a warm greeting for the attendees. It was impossible to go away from the weekend without a smile on one’s face.

Photos

Whilst there was a little confusion over the times at which to buy tickets for the various guest photos, the actual sessions themselves went off without a hitch. By calling the ticket numbers in batches again, the queues were run efficiently and quickly. The first sessions were on Friday with Julie Benz and Juliet Landau (together), Stephanie Romanov , Mark, Andy and Brody (together), J.August Richards and finally Clare Kramer with Nicole Bilderback. Sarah commented that she found standing between two women as beautiful as Julie and Juliet and then three men as funny and handsome as Mark, Andy and Brody was a little nerve racking but the guests had genuine smiles on their faces the whole time and seemed to really enjoy themselves.

Who wouldn’t want to stand next to this man?!

Saturday’s sessions however were a little rougher; thanks to some heavy partying and late nights for the guests on Friday. Vincent’s session was slightly delayed. He did protest his innocence saying he had only had one drink and that he was that hyper-active all the time although all evidence did point to the contrary! In Alexis’s session he was more charming than you can imagine, he had a nice comment for everyone, a warm smile and a big hug. Again, as with the autograph session, Alexis endeavoured to see as many attendees through the photo session as time allowed adding an extra 100 tickets on the Saturday morning to make up in part for his departure early the next day. J and Amy were also great on the Saturday sessions, greeting the attendees with a smile or, "How are you today?" ensuring that everyone was at ease.

The Sunday sessions also went well, with the only missing cast member being Daniel Dae Kim who did not make it to the weekend due to being cast in the new Starsky and Hutch film. Although he was missed the other guests made up for his absence with their willing smiles and friendly banter.

Andy Hallett as "Lorne"

A big treat for everyone at End of Days was the opportunity to have your picture taken with Andy Hallett made up as Lorne. Courtesy of Andy and the lovely Dayne Johnson, who graciously gave over three hours of their time to prepare Andy’s make-up, the ’Ole Green Drag Queen’ was present for a marathon photo session on Saturday evening. In an effort to beat James Marsters’ record at the 2002 SFX event any and all photo hopefuls were rushed through at a rate of approximately 9 shot’s per minute, despite working at least one camera into submission, this resulted in Andy and the crew smashing the record by getting through over 1000 photo’s in a two hour period. Absolutely tireless, Andy generously offered to continue in to the night, what a star! He looked fantastic in all his green glory and seemed on a quite a high from the record-breaking attempt, "I beat his bleached blond ass!", not to mention the many lornettes and other costumed fans who made an appearance. Even our beloved Mayor showed her true masterful colours in the last photos of the evening along with David, in their demon masks.

Fund-Raising

Apparently, a little skin goes a long way in raising funds!

The main event of the weekend, well perhaps for the female citizens, would have had to be Andy Hallett, Brody Hutzler and Amy Acker’s new husband James in various states of undress all for the benefit of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Greater Los-Angeles. The divine Mr. Hallett made a deal with the throngs of attendees present that if each one of them donated £1 he and the other gentlemen on the stage would show us the various body art adorning them. James was a good sport and took his shirt off to show the crowd his three tattoos. Brody had a tattoo on his ankle, very tasteful but the girls wanted more, so Andy went back stage with him and drew on Brody’s chest just so that he would have to take off his shirt. That was hilarious. Meanwhile Julie Benz bravely made her way through the crowd to collect their donations. On to Andy’s tattoos; one on each hip, the first being, ’Little Boo’ and the other one which is supposed to be the maritime flag for the letter ’A’ but Mark Lutz took great delight in telling everyone that a small mistake was made and the symbol he has actually means nothing! Andy bravely showed them off regardless and all the guests were very sporting, and most importantly, they raised the staggering sum of £1450. This money will go towards making children with life-threatening medical conditions dream’s come true and I’m sure we all wish them all the best in the future.

The theme for Sunday night’s party and the closing ceremony was a little poignant; just as senior prom is one of the last hurrahs of your high school years, so tonight was our last night at End of Days. Tomorrow it would be back to reality, but for tonight it was a celebration of the fantastic time had by all over the weekend. The guests said their goodbyes in the same manner as they said their hellos, one by one, each taking a personal moment to thank all the wonderful fans they had met. Sadly we had already lost Alexis, Stephanie and Clare due to other commitments but that didn’t stop the other guests from gathering up their microphones, banding together and joining to lead the room in that Angel karaoke classic ’Mandy.’ If you thought Mr Boreanaz’ version was a tear jerker (tears of laughter that is), then you would have melted at the sight of father and son, Holtz and Connor - Keith Szarabajka and Vincent Kartheiser - with their arms around each other’s shoulders, belting the tune out together. A perfect end to an unbelievable three days.

"Scram Bitch......How Dare You!"

A Convention would not be a Convention without those fabulous comedy moments. End of Days had more than its fair share and in some Q & A’s you could be forgiven for imagining you were actually watching the set of a Comedy show; such was the level of hilarity. In addition to being highly talented and respected actors, Mark Lutz and Andy Hallet are two of the funniest people you could ever see! They could write their own show and in their inimitable styles they once again succeeded in reducing an audience to tears of laughter with their antics! J. and Amy did confess to the conventioneers that Andy is the most likely to make everyone laugh on set too with the delivery of his one liners. In fact they often have to ask him to tone it down a bit as they can’t keep a straight face. His laugh is so infectious that alone is enough, he is just a seriously funny guy and if you add Mark and Brody into the equation, anything could happen as everyone discovered...

Put these 3 together and you’re in for a riot!

During the first Q & A on Friday, a lady in the audience asks Andy if Lorne will have a love interest, which prompts him to tell a story about Alexis, "Well Alexis is too funny because he made up a character that is supposed to be my love interest called Little Boo, because one of my best friends in L.A she calls me her boo and that is what my new tattoo says on my hip. Alexis knowing this said that Lorne’s girlfriend should be called ’Little Boo’, but Andy explains that you have to call her ’Lil Boo’. He explains, "So when you call her you have to do it twice and this is so stupid, when you call her you go, ’Lil Boo, Lil Boo!’ and the second ’Lil Boo’ has to be higher than the first. Well one day when we were filming there was a crow that had snuck into the building and I called out ’Lil Boo’ and the crow called back at me. Apparently Alexis does a very good impression of a crow, as the audience will find out later!

After the fun and games of Saturday night, Andy and Mark are a little late arriving, not that there are any complaints as Brody has looked after everyone splendidly. Arriving on stage a very croaky voiced Andy immediately produces a toy chicken that plays the Birdie Song which gets faster and faster. It would appear Mark and Andy are rather bemused by a sign they passed on the way to the hotel in their car, "Funeral Services," Mark laughs, "And it says Wedding Services as well." Suddenly developing the voice of a pantomime dame Mark calls out, "We are marrying this goat to this pile of ashes...do you goat take the ashes to be your best wedded man, say baa if you do" At which point Andy bleats like a goat. Mark continues, "Did you see the goat? It was so beautiful in its wedding dress. It was so lovely. I bought them as ash tray for a gift." This story continues for about 5 minutes and by this time everyone is clutching their sides.

"These shoes are killing me... I’ll give them away!" There are cheers all round as Andy asks if everyone had a good time last night. Brody quips, "Did Andy get naked at any point during the evening?" With a look of mock outrage Andy spouts, "How dare you! You had more clothes off than anyone here! I felt like I was a Chippendale!" As the audience laugh hysterically Andy quietly adds, "I do apologise if anyone was insulted by the level of nudity last night!" producing more laughter and wolf whistles. A seemingly confused Mark jokes, "What I found completely fascinating, and I have known Andy a good two years now, is that...um he gave away his shoes, ’these shoes are killing me...I’ll give them away!’" Andy croaks, "I have no shoes. I swear to god this morning...." Mark interrupts, "This morning I’m like, ’we’re late we have to go c’mon’, he’s like, ’great um... my shoes?’" As the audience laugh Andy wonders what happened to his shoes and Mark confirms, "You gave those away last night." Confessing that the shoes hurt him Andy had decided that he wanted to get rid of them and now completely forlorn he croaks, "I don’t know why...I thought it was a good idea...to give my shoes away prior to buying a new pair. Typically one buys a new pair to replenish the supply if you have only brought one pair of shoes!" this reduces the audience to tears of laughter.

After some high jinx with the three of them there is time for a question and one member of the audience has hopes that Lorne will have a family. Andy shouts with mock outrage, "I don’t! I don’t see Lorne being too much of a family man at this point" Turning to the laughing audience he admonishes them, "How dare you!" Andy continues, "I would like to expand my role, I think that would be quite fun and I think we got a chance to do that when we went to Pylea. And I think that was a very good opportunity to see where Lorne came from and to see why he left Pylea." At this point a lady appears on stage to give them some sandwiches. Everyone laughs and applauds as Andy thanks her. Mark notes, "Do you realise you are applauding sandwiches?" Turning his wit on the audience with the return of the pantomime dame he adds, "Look at those sandwiches, those are the greatest sandwiches I have ever seen." As a man from the audience thanks Andy for being there; he smiles and replies, "Oh thank you. I am sorry I walked away but that is because I took a big bite of an onion...and I was truly stunned. I didn’t expect to bite into an onion...ever!! Especially not right now." ’Dame’ Mark adds, "There is nothing like those onion sandwiches. They have the best onion sandwiches in the world, the best butter and the best onions!" Andy thanks the guy in the audience.

Moments later Dayne happens to walk through the auditorium and Andy drolly calls out, "There she goes!" As Dayne is leaving through the side curtain, he has his back to the stage and the audience. As Andy and Mark rib him, he unzips his trousers and pulls them down as he moons at them in his underwear, grinning like a Cheshire cat. As the audience howl and cheer, Andy, Mark and Brody collapse with laughter and Andy shouts, "How dare you! How dare he!" Still laughing; Mark jokes, "Well never in all my living life!" the audience are in hysterics.

Andy explains the origins of their funny sayings, "Dayne makes up all of our sayings on the set and one day J. August Richards came in and he had some incense and he was going around the trailer with sage incense, he was trying to be cleansing and spiritual this particular day hmm.." laughter, "that lasted long! And so he went into the trailer and he was just waving it around and he didn’t know anyone was in the make-up trailer and Dayne peaked around the corner and said, "Scram Bitch!" And so now we all say scram bitch to each other but it requires a little hand motion too, but you have to have your hand like hard." He demonstrates the motion, "So J. thought it was the funniest thing since sliced bread so...not that that’s funny" as everyone laughs again. Cue Mark in that voice, "Did you see that sliced bread? It was hilarious, little slices of bread. I’ve never seen anything like it!" Stop it Mark, this is too much!

Mark is asked to sing his rendit ion of Spiderman again, there was a previous rendition of this on Friday, he obliges and then tells a story, "I remember I was about 20 or something and I never knew what the words were for that one lyric" He sings it to himself, "la la la...action is his reward to him. ’What is that lyric it’s driving me nuts?’ I was watching a video by The Ramones and you know how they have those songs with lyrics and the bouncing ball? I was walking by a TV in Best Buy and they had a wall of TVs and they had this video playing, and I was like..." "There are people that really wear my clothes, and that is the scariest part." He does an over-exaggerated double take as everyone laughs. "Oh my gosh it’s the lyrics to Spiderman. It said ’wealth and fame, he’s ignored; action is’...uh huh," he sinks to his knees in dramatic style as the audience bust into laughter. "Thank You! I’m so happy. Sorry you had to witness that."

A lady in the audience asks about the wardrobe department. Andy explains that everyone assumes that his outrageous clothes and Liberachi type suits are made for him but they are not. "The funniest thing my dear is that they go down to Hollywood Boulevard and buy my clothes out of the stores. So there are people that really wear my clothes, and that is the scariest part. I always do have a ball coming onto the set after a rehearsal; when I come back on set it is usually a fun moment as everyone gets to see my costume."