2012 Kraysler Report

For two nights before I was scheduled to fly to London to see Nicola Walker in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, I couldn’t sleep at all because I was so excited to see her on stage again! But I was also completely consumed with worry that I wouldn’t actually get to speak to her in person because she might be too busy to see me. By the time I got to London I was running on pure adrenaline. I could barely eat anything the day I went to see the play, because I was too worked up and completely overwhelmed with anticipation.

My husband and I did some sightseeing and went to some fun Spooks sites, like Borough Market which was used in episode 1.1, Mick Maudsley’s house in episdoe 5.5 and Freemason’s Hall, the fake headquarters of MI5 for the show. Finally we were sitting in Hyde Park at 4:00 pm and I said to my husband, “We have to leave right NOW so we can leave a note for Nicola!” So we rushed back to the hotel, and I scribbled a note on the card I made for her asking her to come out and say hello to us if she had time, and we hurried to the National to leave the note at the Stage Door.

Kathy in that blue “Ruth” dress


We went to dinner before the show, but I was too nervous to eat anything except a few fries. Then I changed into the blue dress that sort of looks like Ruth’s dress in Spooks Series 10. I figured that if I met Nicola I was going to ask her if she thought it looked like the one she wore on the show.

Finally it was time to see the play, and I realized I had a terrible headache from hunger and fatigue. But when Nicola came out on stage I was so excited I didn’t even notice it, because she is so captivating and beautiful and has so much stage presence you can’t take your eyes off her. Well I don’t need to say how superb she and the rest of the cast were. I had just read the book, and they really brought the characters to life. The staging was very interesting and utilized a lot of light projections and white crates that served as props. It was a very small theatre which made you feel very close to the actors.

After the play we waited outside at the Stage Door. Did I mention how nervous I was? After about 10 minutes I thought she wasn’t going to come out, but then I saw the famous butterfly shirt I’d seen her wearing in other fans’ pictures! She made eye contact with someone who was waiting for her inside and pointed to US and seemed to indicate she’d come back when she was done speaking with US!!! Then she came right out to me and gave me a big hug and thanked me for flying all the way across the Atlantic to see her show! Then she hugged my husband and apologized for not having much time because her nephew and another family member were waiting for her inside. Even so, she talked to us for about 15 minutes!! She asked us what we were doing on the rest of her trip. We told her we were coming back to her show the next night and that we’d be going to Spooks locations. And my husband said, “I’ll be going to some pubs!” I told her I was most excited to go to the Ruth/Harry goodbye site. I meant the one in episode 5.5 but she thought I meant the one in episode 10.6. She told me it’s way out in the middle of nowhere and called it “bleak” and “Dickensian” and said it’s not like other coastal towns. Then I asked her about the goodbye scene in episode 10.5 on the South Bank beach when the CIA was about to take Harry away. I told her Sam Vincent was coy with me on Twitter about whether they kissed on the cheek or the lips, and she interrupted me and said, “Oh it was the lips. It was definitely the lips. Was there even a question about it?” I jumped up and down and yelled, “I KNEW it!!”

I told her the last time I’d seen her it was before the last episode of Spooks had aired and that she had told us we’d love it. She said she had felt bad telling us that but said, “What was I going to say? You’ll hate it? I couldn’t say that!” Then she said her only regret is that during that death scene she didn’t reach up and grab Harry and kiss him like she wanted to. She felt they deserved that last kiss. She said if she’d done it, it would have given the producers the option of using that take and that it was a “lesson learned” for her as an actress.

Then she apologized that she had to go in and see her nephew and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow night!”

As we were floating on a cloud back to our hotel my appetite suddenly returned and we ate dinner along the South Bank (which was very glamorous!) and my headache went away, and I was the happiest person on the planet.

I couldn’t sleep that night because I was too excited, and I realized I’d forgotten to ask her about the blue dress and I’d forgotten to have her sign my Spooks S10 DVD that I’d bought just to have her sign!

The next night we left her a note again, and when she came out to see us after the show, she said, “You didn’t have to leave me a note, I knew you were coming!” This is one of the things I love most about Nicola Walker. She’s a hugely talented and popular star, yet she talks to you like a friend and makes you feel special. She is so down to Earth!

This time I remembered to have her sign my DVD and a picture I’d printed out of the last time we met. She signed it, “We look great!” Then she asked me if I’d had fun going to the Spooks sites and we talked a little more about Spooks. I didn’t even ask her about Peter Firth, but she brought him up and said “I miss Peter. I really miss working with Peter.” She thought it would be funny if she could have a part in his new show (I’m not sure which one she meant), but she was just kidding.

After being very patient with us and letting us take tons of pictures with her she hugged us again and said, “You are lovely people. You really are very lovely people, I really mean that, flying all the way across the Atlantic to see my show TWICE!” And then she gave us big hugs and we floated away again, and for the second night in a row I was the happiest person on the planet.

 

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