Fun Stuff Archive

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2015 Q&A

2015 Q&A1

The last Q&A we did with Nicola was in September 2011. Since then, Nicola has gained a whole new fan base as a result of her role (as Gillian) in Last Tango in Halifax. We thought it may be time to try for another Q&A with her.

Caveat

We must say first of all, we have not yet obtained Nicola’s consent to run this Q&A. She is a busy actress with a lot of work commitments and probably a million other things to attend to in her personal life. Whatever questions we collect from you will be handed to her for consideration during the weeks when she’s appearing on stage in A View from the Bridge at the Wyndham Theatre. She will probably need to rest up during the day in order to be in top shape for each evening’s performance. We will leave Nicola to decide whether she wants to answer some or all of the questions. If she declines to answer any questions, we will respect her decision and not badger her. From past experience, we know that Nicola is always happy to oblige whenever and wherever she can. Fingers crossed!

Some rules

Nicola will probably be more inclined to answer your questions if you make them interesting enough. So, what can you, or should you, ask her? Anything you like, but here are just a few rules :

1. Nothing too personal, please, e.g. size of any of her body parts; when’s her birthday, the exact date she got married etc. Her personal life is just that, personal to her and off limits to fans.

2. We would prefer the questions to be general in nature and not specifically about any character she has played in any shows (TV/Audio/Stage).

3. Please avoid questions about which is her favourite role to date, or her favourite leading man etc. Knowing her, she’d be too diplomatic to name any favourites.

What to ask?

Still not sure what to ask Nicola? Try some of the Q&As and interviews she’s done in the past, which you can find on this Page.

We will divide all questions collected into two groups : those which are interesting and which we think Nicola might like to answer, and those which the Editorial Team has censored but will show Nicola anyway.

As soon as we receive answers from Nicola, they will be posted on this website.

A small “Thank you” gift for the best question

If Nicola decides to answer any of your questions (from either or both groups), we will also let her choose the one which she regards as the best question. We will send a DVD box set of Last Tango in Halifax (Series 1-3) (Regions 2 and 4 compatible) to the person who asked that question as a “Thank You” gift. Hopefully we will have this signed by Nicola.

We will send the winner this little gift no matter where in the world he or she lives in. Shipping will be free but the recipient must be responsible for import duties or custom clearance (if applicable) imposed by the country where he or she lives in. It will also be up to the winner to find a DVD player which can play Regions 2 & 4 compatible DVDs. We will not send out any Region 1 DVDs.

If more than one person submitted the same or similar questions as the winning one, the person who was first in time to submit the question will get our little gift.

Go on, fill in and send us the form below. You can include as many questions as you like in one form, or you can fill in more than one form, on different days, each with a different question.

The closing date is 10 February 2015.

Email us

In case you are unable to submit the above form multiple times, or you require any clarification on what you can ask, you can always Email Us.

Update : 11 February 2015

Big thanks to everyone who has submitted questions. They range from the sublimely well thought out to the ridiculously funny. We will try our best to submit these to Nicola.

As soon as we have a reaction from Nicola, we will make an announcement here. Thanks again, everyone! 😀

Update : 10 March 2015

We have answers for you and you can read them on this Page.

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2012 Advent Calendar is here!

Once again, Liga has prepared for us an Advent Calendar, featuring the one and only Nicola Walker!

You can view the 2012 Advent Calendar HERE.

Want to see the 2011 Advent Calendar? Go HERE.

Enjoy!

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2011 Advent Calendar pt

Following the success of her Ruth Evershed in a Nutshell comic book, Liga has now put together the 2011 Advent Calendar for us. You can view the Calendar HERE. This should help you track the days leading up to Christmas.

If you like the Advent Calendar, why not leave a comment below to let Liga know. 🙂

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Ruth Evershed Scrapbook

If you have not yet seen the last ever episode of Spooks which was transmitted in the UK on 23 October 2011, and do not know what happened to Ruth Evershed, Nicola’s character, then stop reading right now and click away.

On and off (mostly on) for over 10 years, Nicola has played “Ruth Evershed”, the super brilliant analyst on the Grid in Spooks. Following the transmission of the last ever episode of Spooks in the UK on 23 October 2011 in the UK, Nicola is done playing this character. In order to commemorate the end of Spooks, we would like to put together a scrapbook of messages and fan artwork for Nicola. If you would like to contribute, please Email Us with your contributions together with the following information :

  1. your name, or the name you would like to use for this scrapbook
  2. whether you agree to have your name disclosed in the final version of the scrapbook
  3. whether you agree to share your contribution with other fans who have made contributions – if there is sufficient interest and as long as everyone agrees to share, we may make the contents available online here or publish hard copies of the scrapbook, at cost, so that fans can buy a copy.

Tell Nicola how you met Ruth Evershed, how your friendship with this character has changed or influenced your life. Tell Nicola how you feel about her interpretation of Ruth Evershed on screen, and how you feel about the end of Spooks, in particular, how they dealt with Ruth Evershed in the end.

Putting your thoughts in writing or in artwork, and having this delivered to Nicola, may help you overcome any sadness in having to say goodbye to such a beloved TV show and a much loved character.

Your contribution can be in any form : thoughts, comments, poems and/or artwork. Your contribution will not be moderated or edited for content, unless the editorial team feel that any part is inappropriate for a scrapbook of this nature.

If you are contributing artwork, make sure that it is in a format that we can read (e.g. JPG files) and that you have made the settings of those files suitable for printing.

Want to just leave a message for Ruth / Nicola? Go to the next page.
(If you cannot see the clickable link for the next page, click on the title of this Post and try again.)

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Nicola on Celebrity Master Chef

Recap by Contributor, Mandy Mulford

pic courtesy of Mr. Ian Wylie

Recap

Celebrity Masterchef is a UK reality programme which features local celebrities as contestants. For the current series, the three finalists are : actor, Nick Pickard; England rugby player, Phil Vickery and TV journalist Kirsty Wark. Their challenge this week was to cook lunch, on location, for the cast and crew of Spooks. The three contestants were asked to complete this task within 3 hours whilst working in a catering truck which did not give them too much room to move, and with equipment with which they were not familiar.

The programme started at 2:15 pm GMT and it was already half past two when thanks to Twitter I was told about this programme, specifically the Spooks connection in today’s episode and I immediately tuned in.

For all Spooks fans there was far too much time spent on showing the contestants cooking and not enough “behind the scenes” stuff, although we did manage an occasional glimpse of Simon Russell Beale (Home Secretary, William Towers) filming a scene in his office. Back outside, as filming wrapped up for lunch, we were lucky enough to spot Nicola Walker in the queue for the catering van. She was on the phone, engrossed in what looked like quite a serious conversation. Dishes available on today’s menu included Pork Belly, Vegetable Curry or Cod with a Parsley Sauce. In addition, cast and crew were able to have vegetables, cous cous, mash potatoes and tomato and fennel bake to go with their main course. For dessert, they had a choice of banana cake or caramalised pineapple.

Next time we see Nicola is at “the pass” ordering the Cod in parsley sauce with mash and carrots with a very big smile on her face. Max Brown (Dmitri Levandis) ordered the same. In the dining room, Nicola appeared to be thoroughly enjoying her meal, and actually wished her portion was larger. She also revealed, with a mischievous grin, that Max would have liked to order the Pork Belly but didn’t because he was “getting his kit off” later in the week and was therefore on a very strict diet in preparation for those scenes. Max responded with an embarrassed grin. Max said he didn’t like the fennel, thought it was quite tough. They then showed us Nicola’s empty plate and her very clean knife and fork. We never found out whether either Nicola or Max ordered any dessert.

pic courtesy of Mr. Ian Wylie

This episode of Celebrity Masterchef will be available on the BBC iPlayer for the next seven days, for those who have access to the iPlayer.

Screencaps

[screencaps provided courtesy of Lisa]

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Nicola the Gym Bunny

Ever since Spooks Series 10 started airing in the UK in September 2011, fans have noticed how good Nicola looked. Certain fans have asked, tongue in cheek, “has Nicola lost weight?” or “has Nicola had a facelift?” For a response from Nicola with regard to the facelift comment, see this Page.

Well, following a tweet posted by @equalsresults on 10 October 2011, we now know why Nicola is looking so much fitter these days. Apparently, she’s a bit of a gym bunny! “=results” is a London gym which staged a charity event over the 8th to 9th October 2011 weekend. It hosted 96 personal training sessions in 24 hours in order to to raise funds for local youth. For more details, click on the event poster below.

Nicola participated in this event and looked as though she had a great time working out at the gym. Love the “Kill Bill” style track suit 🙂

I guess that also explains the incredible energy Nicola has displayed during the recent run of Di and Viv and Rose.

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Questions for Nicola

We will be going to a couple of performances of Di and Viv and Rose. We hope to be able to meet with Nicola after the show. If you have any questions for her, we’ll be happy to put them to her, and then print all of the answers here at a later date. We will leave it to Nicola to decide which questions to answer (in case some of these are too personal in nature).

Please Email Us with your questions not later than 25 September 2011. In your email, please also let us know whether you wish to remain annonymous when we print the answers or if not, the alias you would like to use when we identify your question(s).

If you choose to make your questions public by filling out the comment form below, or if you’re using the Contact Form in the Contact Us section, please remember to answer the simple math question which appears either above or below the form (this is in place of the usual captcha phrase you are required to type to prove that you’re human and not some spambot), otherwise your attempt to lodge a question or comment will be rejected by the system.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Update : 30 September 2011

Nicola has answered your questions. You can read them HERE.

Thank you to everyone who submitted questions.

An even bigger THANK YOU to Nicola for taking the time to give such fabulous answers. We love ya!!!

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Fun Facts – pt

In the course of collecting information and other materials for this fan site, now and then we would come across some fun facts about Nicola which do not fit under any other category. We’d like to share these with you, so we’ve grouped these bits of information under “Fun Facts”. You can view them HERE.

We want these Fun Facts to be more than the Six Degrees feature which appear in our various Guides to Nicola’s work. At the same time, we also want to steer clear of any facts which pertain to the very personal aspects of Nicola’s private life (unless she has disclosed these herself in interviews).

What do you think? Do you have an interesting Fun Fact or two to share with Nicola fans? If you do, please Email Us with a full description of any such Fun Fact, with pics where possible and the name you wish to be credited with, and we will be in touch with you.

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Writing to Nicola

Contact Details

From time to time, we receive enquiries from fans as to how they can write to Nicola. We always suggest that you do this via her agents, whose address is listed in our FAQ page. However, we accept that the FAQ page may not be the most logical place to find this information, so here it is again :

R Blond & Associates
69a Kings Road
London SW3 4NX
United Kingdom

Many of you may want to write and let Nicola know how much you have enjoyed her work over the years. We have it on good authority that Nicola collects her fan mail from her agents quite regularly and enjoys reading fan letters. However, you should not expect that she will have time to send a personal response to each and every letter, it depends on how busy she is at any time. No offence to any one who has written or is considering writing to Nicola, but we’d rather she spend time filming new projects, reading scripts and/or taking meetings/going to auditions in relation to new and interesting work than writing responses to fans. 🙂

SASE

If you would like an autographed photo in return, you will need to enclose a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope (“SASE”). For those fans who live outside the UK, this may present a bit of a problem since you may not be able to purchase UK stamps where you live, but in this internet age, that is no longer a problem.

Go to the UK’s Royal Mail website where you can :

  • work out how much it will cost to have the SASE sent back to you from the UK with just one photo, which measures 4″ x 6″, (shouldn’t weigh more than 30 grams) on this page
  • buy the necessary UK stamps and have these sent to you – there is a variety of stamp books you can buy on this page

After you receive the UK stamps from Royal Mail via regular post, you can then use the UK stamps on your SASE and then send it, together with your letter to Nicola, care of her agents. Make sure that your package has the correct postage as required by the Post Office from your location. Unless you live in the UK, you will not be able to use the online postage option since once purchased, these stamps (which you can print out on your computer) only have a 24 hour validity period.

The Royal Mail online shop also has a variety of other interesting items for you to purchase, in addition to stamps. So its well worth exploring. However, you will need to give your credit card details online as the Royal Mail does not accept PayPal.

Photos

As far as we know, Nicola has done two “head shots” for work purposes. Signed copies of these head shots are often sent to fans on request, as long as any such request is accompanied with a SASE with correct postage. Here on the right is the older version, which sometimes sells for less than £1 on eBay (but you will then have to add on shipping and handling fees charged by the eBay vendor). As from November 2010, we noticed that Nicola has started to use this newer head shot (on the left), which was available on her actor’s page on the National Theatre website. We have noticed, with some interest, that recent sales on eBay of this newer version of Nicola’s head shot have gone for more than £20! There must be some very keen fans out there who have made one or two professional autograph sellers very happy. But for those of us who cannot afford these prices, writing directly to Nicola via her agent would be the most economical way to go, if you’re after a signed photo.

If you wish to send a small gift to Nicola via her agents, please make sure that you include enough postage for her agents to forward the package to Nicola.

Good luck!

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Games

The Games are back, finally, and you can download them from here.

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Ruth’s Online Dating Profile

Ruth’s has had a thoroughly miserable time in Spooks Series 9 where her love life is concerned. Her relationship with Harry seems to have reached an impasse. We thought that perhaps Ruth ought to try online dating and to that end, we have put together this Online Dating Profile for Ms. Evershed, in the hope that she might get lucky, somewhere, somehow. What do you think, should she or shouldn’t she, reach out for someone else, that is?


About Her

Country of Origin :    United Kingdom
Location :    London, England
Gender :    Female
Age :    40
Hair colour :    Dark brown
Eye colour :    Blue grey
Height :    5’ 3” (1.6 m)
Appearance :    I have been described as someone who is not conventionally beautiful, but equally friends have described me as a true beauty
Relationship status :    Single
Children :    Ask me later
Education :    Postgraduate
Occupation :    Ask me later
Income :    Ask me later
Ethnicity :    White/Caucasian
First language :    English
Other languages :    Arabic, Farsi, Greek, French and recently, Chinese (Mandarin)
Interests :    watching movies from the golden age of Hollywood music, anything from classical to pop, as long as it has a tune
Religion :    Ask me later
Drinking :    Occasional glass of wine
Personality traits :    Intelligent, realistic, loyal, independent, sensible, thoughtful, trustworthy, faithful, generous, adventurous
Pets :     prefer cats, used to own one, may acquire another one dogs are alright too
Lived abroad :    Yes, in Europe, which I enjoyed immensely
Looking for :    Let’s see what happens

In her own words

I have recently come out of a rather intense relationship which ended badly; he died. I then threw myself into work – I am an analyst with one of the biggest security organizations in the world. Lately, my job has sort of overtaken my life and now I’m trying to get back on the bus and into the world of dating. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want a relationship, I do. But I’m not about to jump into one. I don’t jump into decisions at work and there’s no way I’ll jump into a relationship either. For now, I’m more interested in going out, having fun, and getting to know someone who will respect my job and all the time it requires of me. Occasionally, weird things happen to me because of my job; nothing that you should be afraid of, but just realize that if we get together, you’re in for a wild ride. I love funny guys who can hold me spellbound with a story or make me laugh until I cry. I also love creativity and passion. The right man should not only fascinate me but also bring out the best in me. We should push each other to be the greatest people we can be. If you’re comfortable in your own skin, have a strong sense of self and aren’t afraid to expose your flaws, I’m sure we’ll get along just fine. If it turns out that we make better friends, great, and if its more than that, then even better.

Her ideal match

Country of origin :    Anywhere in the world
Location :    Anywhere in the world
Gender :    Male
Age :    Not important, but not too young
Relationship status :    single
Appearance :    not important
Height :    not important
Smoking / Drinking :    not important
Children :     not important
Education :    any
Occupation :    any
Income :    any
Ethnicity :    not important
First language :    any
Other languages :    any
Religion :    any
Personality traits    :    someone who is good at his job, has a mature outlook, a strong sense of morality but is not afraid of making a tough but perhaps questionable decision from time to time

Editor : The first four comments below were received when this Profile was first published on the old fansite back in October 2010. However, under the old format, it was difficult for us to display comments to a particular entry. With our new format, leaving comments is easy, which is why we feel that the comments already given before should be displayed here.