What a fun day it was! We kicked off with a burst of film studies, taking apart the first 5 minutes of the comedy murder mystery film Murder by Death. Lots of people in the audience knew the famous actors, such as Peter Sellers (from the Pink Panther), Maggie Smith (Ladies in Lavender and lots of others), David Niven…. We paused the film at different points to look closely at what was on the screen and to discuss why the film-maker had chosen that scenery, lighting or whatever.
Next up was a BBC special. The CBBC presenter Gemma Hunt came with CBBC’s head of entertainment, Joe Godwin and a camera crew. 20 lucky people had the chance to interview Gemma and be interviewed by her. Some of this bunch had written about things they feel strongly about and the audience could see them being filmed. And they could watch this at the same time on a huge TV screen.
Lunchtime was 3DTV time. The chance for loads of people to join in with a TV programme – The Really Wild Show. I’m still being teased about the safari clothes I wore, but I stand by, or underneath, them. It was great to see lots and lots of people in Islington acting as buffalos and watching out for dangerous animals.
There’s no question that the part of the day that people were most excited about was the EastEnders’ special in the afternoon. Hundreds of fans squeezed into the Mediazone to see and chat with the actors who play Billy and Honey, Perry Fenwick and Emma Barton. In the storyline on EastEnders, Billy and Honey have a baby who has Down’s Syndrome, the adorable ‘Petal’. We were really lucky to have ‘Petal’ (whose real name is Grace) and her parents join Perry and Emma in the Mediazone. Kate Powell also came to talk about how the Down’s Syndrome Association have been working with EastEnders on this storyline. Kate is the editor of Down to Earth magazine for people with Down’s Syndrome.
People asked some really interesting questions and all the speakers gave very honest answers about how it has been for them to be involved with the Down’s Syndrome storyline. And one lucky woman won Honey’s maternity jacket for asking the most interesting question, which was to Grace’s parents, asking them how they felt about the storyline.
It’s really unusual for actors and the real life people they are pretending to be to meet with fans and we were very grateful that each of them had made time to meet with everyone. The storyline is very uncomfortable at the moment, as Honey is saying she can’t cope with having a baby who has Down’s Syndrome and wants to have the baby adopted. Billy adores Petal and is trying to help Honey to cope. But fans were clear that this is a story, not real life, and that the story may turn out to be that Honey comes round and sees how special and lovely Petal is.
Photos of all these different activities at LDT 06 are on this website in the picture gallery.
Posted by Marion 
