2002 – Various
When I was 13 years old I decided to start an autograph collection. I wrote to all my favourite TV stars telling them how big a fan I was and asking for their autograph. I had mixed responses, ranging from no reply at all, to generic signed photos sent back from agents, right through to personalised letters from the actors themselves.
I ended up with over 40 autographs and messages all of which are still kept in a photo album over 20 years later.
7th November 2008 – Cerys Matthews
I was 19 years old and on a mission to meet my idol. I’d spent hours creating a custom t-shirt, and while 99% of the audience were watching Paul Heaton, I was on a hunt to find Cerys Matthews’ dressing room. She was lovely, and said my t-shirt was amazing (although did tease me for not doing the back as well). I was gutted after I’d left to realise I’d forgotten to show her my Londinium tattoo!
19th July 2008 – Martin Clunes
Martin Clunes was a regular visitor to Cineworld Yeovil when I worked there as a teenager – whenever a big new children’s film was released he’d bring his daughter to watch it. On this particular day it was my till he came to, to buy tickets for Wall-E. For some reason they then wandered off and arrived back after the film had already started. I offered to change their tickets for a later showing, but he said it was fine, it didn’t matter if they had missed the beginning!
24th May 2009 – Cerys Matthews
Nearly two years after passing my driving test I took my first trip across the bridge to Wales, picking up Ell on the way. We’d paid extra to go to the after party, so no sneaking around looking for dressing rooms this time!
I was thrilled that Cerys remembered my home made t-shirt by herself, before I’d asked her to sign the picture which had me wearing it.
19th October 2009 – Cerys Matthews
Continuing my tradition of not going more than 6 months without seeing a Cerys gig, Ell and I met up in Bristol. We still waited to meet Cerys again afterwards, even though there was a real risk I was going to miss the last train home.
I took my chances, and luckily when Ell’s mum arrived she offered to drive me to the station with seconds to spare.
3rd February 2010 – Olly Murs
Another day working at Cineworld, and this time Olly Murs came to watch a film while killing time before his gig in Chicago Rock that evening. A fan who saw me serve him asked what he was watching so she could try and meet him. She had already bought tickets for a different film, so I promised I’d go into the screen and signal to her when his showing was kicking out, so she could try and catch him then. It worked and he was happy to take a photo with her and have a chat.
12th April 2010 – Cerys Matthews
Cerys again, but this time Wes came with me and got to meet her too! I’d already spent 9 months subjecting him to every Catatonia and Cerys album, so he was suitably prepared.
27th September 2013 – Michael Jordan
We were pleased to meet Michael Jordan after his show, and he signed a balloon for us.
Michael Jordan the magician that is, from Hi Jinx Magic & Illusion, not the basketball player. That would have been weird.
22nd June 2014 – Teller
Wes and I very nearly got stuck in London by hanging around for this meeting! We literally dived onto the last train home just as the doors closed. It was worth it just to hear the famously silent man speak to us though – I don’t think I’d ever heard his voice before!
13th November 2015 – Dave Gorman
Although we already had most of his books, we managed to find one we didn’t own so we could get a personalised copy, rather than just get the ticket signed.
24th November 2015 – Jesse McClure
I’d just had surgery and we’d found ourselves watching a lot of Storage Hunters, so Wes arranged for Jesse McClure to send me a brilliant “get well soon” video.
1st March 2017 – Stewart Lee
He was more than happy to speak to us and sign our new DVD, but didn’t seem overly keen on taking photos with fans, so we chose not to ask for a picture for our collection.
24th June 2017 – Penn
After nearly missing the train home to meet Teller at the last show, we splashed out on a London hotel this time so we could stay to meet Penn without rushing.
So of course we naturally bumped into him earlier in the day, meaning our overnight trip hadn’t been necessary after all!
23rd May 2019 – Henning Wehn
Einfach wunderbar, Henning Wehn kennenzulernen und ihn unsere DVD unterschreiben zu lassen!
5th June 2019 – Emmy the Great
Emmy was so lovely, and even insisted on taking a second photo with us when she spotted the first one was blurry.
27th June 2019 – Alex Horne
“Front and centre, that’s how I like my seats” – Or not…
I soon regretted our choice when Alex picked on me all night, even serenading me with a song about scratching bottoms!
9th July 2020 – Mike Fielding
We’d spent the first Covid-19 lockdown re-watching all of Noel Fielding’s back catalogue, including The Mighty Boosh of course. So there was no better anniversary present than a video from Noel himself… but as he wasn’t available, I had a brilliant message from his brother Mike (Naboo) instead!
4th August 2020 – Didi Conn
Back when I was 13 and contacting celebrities asking for autographs, I wrote letters to the entire cast of Grease, and never heard back from any of them… until August 2020, 17 years after my original letter, when my parents found an envelope on their kitchen floor. It was addressed to my maiden name, forwarded on from an address they hadn’t lived at in 15 years, but date stamped from New York only 10 days before. They opened it and found this picture of Didi Conn, who had clearly been spending lockdown going through old fan mail!
Maybe there’s hope for an autograph from
Olivia Newton-John yet…
11th November 2020 – David Jason
When my father-in-law was diagnosed with a terminal illness, Wes told one of his colleagues how his dad was spending most of his time enjoying old British comedies. This colleague had a connection to David Jason’s agent and arranged for this letter and photo to be sent. It was an incredibly kind gesture, and arrived while my father-in-law was still well enough to appreciate it. He was really touched.
25th December 2020 – Meat Loaf
We usually buy my parents tickets to see a show as their main Christmas present, but this wasn’t possible in 2020 due to lockdown. Instead, we bought them a personalised video from Meat Loaf, which turned out to be a more bizarre and unique experience than we could have ever imagined.
It literally needs to be seen to be believed, but highlights include never ending Christmas songs, and pretending to be a ghost, as per the photo above.
17th October 2021 – Mark Watson
As most of the people waiting to meet Mark only knew him for his comedy, he was pleased to hear us compliment his books, especially when Wes explained their significance, as he had read them all when his dad was terminally ill.
25th July 2022 – Paul Williams
We’d been coming up with a plan to try and meet Paul during the interval, as we knew he wasn’t doing official meet and greets. Turns out we didn’t need to, as he spotted our T-shirts as he was coming off the stage, and headed straight over to talk to us! We couldn’t believe it! He was so nice, and seemed genuinely surprised we’d traveled such a long way to see him. He had his hands full at the time, carrying his laptop etc., but said he would come back and talk to us more after the show.
Sure enough, he was waiting for us in the corridor afterwards, and happily signed my t-shirt and took a photo with us. We told him how much we loved the show, and how much we love his music as well, and he was really appreciative of our support.
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8th January 2023 – Mischief Theatre
We’ve been huge fans of Mischief Theatre ever since first watching The Play That Goes Wrong in 2017, and have tried to catch everything they’ve done ever since. We’d only been expecting to be able to meet Henry Lewis and Jonathan Sayer, so it was an added bonus to have Henry Shields show up. Even though they weren’t doing official meet and greets, they were really happy to chat to fans outside and take photos.
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27th January 2023 – Phil Rosenthal
The queue to meet Phil was crazy. It started at the stage, snaked up through the stalls, out into the foyer/box office, along the front of the theatre outside, down one side, and all the way round the back of the building. There must have been 500-600 people waiting. When it was finally our turn, Wes mentioned a specific Springsteen performance (knowing Phil is a big fan) – Quarter to Three at No Nukes – as being the best live performance ever. Phil replied with “you’re a man who knows things”.
5th March 2023 – Bridget Christie
It’s not clear from the picture that underneath those shorts Bridget is wearing a full on fake vulva complete with bushy pubic hair…
28th May 2023 – Richard Herring
15th September 2023 – Victoria Coren Mitchell
I wouldn’t normally include Twitter/X comments, or this page would be far too long, but Victoria Coren Mitchell is my absolute idol, and this exchange meant a lot to me.
I’d been so excited for about a year ever since she announced she was recording the audio book of For Richer For Poorer, and had been waiting and waiting for a release date. On the morning of my birthday, only four months after mum died, my husband woke me up to say “have you seen Vicky’s tweet?!”
The audio book had been released that day with no prior announcement. I literally cried. I sent the message in the photo, and then 8 minutes later burst into tears again because she actually replied! It was the nicest and most thoughtful message too. I didn’t think it was possible to idolise her more than I already did, but it turns out it was!
7th October 2023 – Neil Patrick Harris
We knew Neil Patrick Harris liked Phantom Peak as he’d tweeted about it before, but we didn’t expect to see him there, let alone with Henry Lewis and Henry Shields (from Mischief Theatre). We spent hours debating whether to approach him, and then braved it just before the closing ceremony. We’d met Henry and Henry before and complimented them on their work with Mischief at the time, so this time we focused on the escape room side of things and told Henry Lewis how much we loved his Mystery Agency games. We told Neil Patrick Harris we loved his escape room game Box One, and we owned his Choose Your Own Adventure autobiography, and he said “I can tell we’re likeminded people”.
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18th August 2024 – Tom Cashman
We paid full price for Tom’s show as we were already fans of Taskmaster AU and had enjoyed his previous stand-up special, but as it was a “pay what you think it was worth” show, he was standing outside to take payments afterwards, so it was easy to stop and chat with him. We tried to pay extra, but his card machine wasn’t working at the time. We waited around though, and once it started working, we had a good excuse to go back for a second chat. He was very nice and friendly, and appreciated us complimenting his show.
19th August 2024 – Alison Spittle
We told Alison how much we loved her show, and Wes said he found it very touching, and it resonated with him as a big guy. She was really grateful and asked if she could give him a hug. It was a sweet moment.
19th August 2024 – Paul Williams
We literally pounced on Paul as soon as we had the opportunity, but we knew from meeting him last time that he wouldn’t mind. He immediately noticed my custom t-shirt with all of his Fanta lyrics and was genuinely impressed at some of his older songs being on there. Then Wes pointed out his t-shirt, which had a lyric from an even older song, and he was shocked! We told him how his album launch show recently was one of the best gigs we’d been to, and Paul said it was the best night of his life.
Just as we were leaving, Wes remembered to ask him what the opening line of “Nothing on Me” is, as no lyric sites have been able to figure it out, and he said “I’ll never tell”. Arghhhhh!
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22nd November 2024 – Vic Michaelis
11th January 2025 – Mischief Theatre
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1st March 2025 – Dave Hause
22nd May 2025 – Vic Michaelis
19th August 2025 – Chris Grace
19th August 2025 – Guy Williams
8th November 2025 – Ria Lina
Choni Mead 