Virginie’s Report

posted on 27 October 2012

Spooks Region 2 DVD box sets

I first noticed Nicola Walker about 10 years ago when Spooks (or [MI-5] as the series is called in France) was aired on French television. I had seen the first season which I thought was really good and then in the second season, Ruth Evershed arrived. Such a great character, the kind of woman I would love to be : strong, independent, intelligent, etc. I watched the whole of the second season and also the beginning of the third season but for reasons which I can’t remember, I stopped watching Spooks until last year when season 8 aired. In that heartbreaking first episode, Nicola was so amazing and her relationship with Harry so complicated and yet so beautiful… And finally there was this Luther episode which just left me completely shaken up. Nicola’s performance was just the best, ever! So I’ve decided to watch the whole 10 series of Spooks and that’s how I became addicted to Ruth, and of course of Nicola Walker.

Thanks to Twitter and Bonkers but Brilliant [Ed : that’s us 🙂 ], I knew that Nicola was going to be in the cast of the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time play in London. Initially, I took too long to make up my mind and tickets for the first batch of performances were sold out by the time I decided to buy tickets! But lucky me, in August, the play was extended until the end of October. So I checked the availabilities and this time, I didn’t think : I went ahead and bought two tickets for my husband and myself. I was going to go to London and be in the same room as Nicola Walker! I’m going to be the happiest woman in the world. So for me, the great adventure began on the 10th of August 2012, i.e. the day I bought tickets for the play.

I had gone to see a play in London before (A Doll’s House in 2009 with Gillian Anderson) and the stage door scene was just awful : overcrowded, nearly impossible to take pictures, so I was afraid it’d be the same for the Curious Incident. But a lot of Nicola’s fans reassured me and told me that because she wasn’t as famous as Gillian Anderson, usually her stage door appearances are great!

Between the day I bought the tickets and the day of the performance, it must have been the longest two months of my life! I started counting the days, every day! Everybody at work or in the family knew I was going to London. But nobody knew Nicola. It’s so frustrating not being able to share such a big joy with someone else but thank god for the existence of Twitter and Bonkers But Brilliant. During this time, I followed all the other fans’ experiences and I just wanted to be there as well. I knew the adventure would last for only a few hours so I was thrilled and sad at the same time. Strange feeling …

Next big question : where to stay in London? Whenever my husband and I come to London, we usually stay at beautiful hotels because we always want our journey to this wonderful city to be exceptional. And our trip this year would coincide with our 8th anniversary so it had to be special! For this trip, I remembered one episode from Spooks in season 7 when Lucas met the new CIA agent; he asked which hotel she was staying in and her answer was “Claridge’s”. So I told myself, “since you’re going to see Nicola Walker who you first saw in Spooks, you must pay tribute to this series.” And just like that, our room at the Claridge’s was booked. It was an incredible feeling.

When we go to London, we usually take a flight but this time, we decided to come with the Eurostar, again to pay tribute to Spooks because some of the episodes were shot at St Pancras station. Then the D-Day came! When we arrived in St Pancras, I immediately thought about the episode where Ros and Lucas tried to save a teenager but he ended up getting shot in the lift. I took a picture of a lift which looked exactly the same as it was in that episode.

When we were queuing to show our passports, I thought, “I wonder if MI5 and someone doing Ruth’s job is going to know we’re here?” It felt so Spooks-like, being here ! Were there any MI5 agents in the station ? Probably. Any CO19 agents ? Probably not or I think we would have seen them.

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