Memorabilia 1st April 2007

Every year at the N.E.C. in Birmingham an event is on that is a dream for people up and down the country, as its a chance to wander around one of the huge event halls dressed up like a fat Darth Vader without being heckled in the streets and called a weirdo. That's right its the memorabilia show! Of course its not all about dressing up and looking daft, it's much more than that. The show covers all genre's of collectible items from T.V, film, music, sports and model making, from groundbreaking shows such as Lost to the classics like Star Wars.
Pictured here is the very car used in the filming of the Back To The Future films that rocketed Micheal J Fox into stardom in the eighties. The DeLorean was the most integral part of the film as it was the time travel machine used by Doc Brown and Marty McFly to travel to the fifties, into the future, and finally to the old west. This was the first thing that hits you as soon as you walked through the doors of the show, and for around £10.00 you could have your photo taken actually sitting in the car, a small price to pay to be pictured in a bit of film history.
Next up is this bit of memorabilia from that classic Aardman film Chicken Run. As you can see this is one of the models used in production of the film. Made from resin with modeller's clay on the surface this key piece is in wonderful condition. This amazing prop can be seen as Rocky and Ginger try to escape from the dreaded perils of the pie machine. In one scene, Rocky is inside the oven and with the doors slowly closing he falls into pie after pie in a pathetic bid to escape. This is one of those pies complete with "Rocky outline" in the crust. It is, as you would expect, a very rare piece of film history and would set you back around £350.00 but to a serious collector this is a small price to pay for a bit of film history.
The next bit of film classic we stumbled upon was an actual replica of the terminator robot used in the Terminator 2 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. This was the second film in the Terminator series and saw Arnie's role go from killer bad guy, as in the first film, to protector and hero. It was also a film in which director James Cameron used some of the best and most original C.G.I. ever used in film history to date. The film grossed millions earning $204.8 million in the States alone, and making Arnie the undisputed king of the box office in 1991. The film went on to win four Oscar's, and has also spawned countless other spin offs such as video games and comics.

Next up is another favourite of mine. This is one of the full body casts of the terrifying aliens from the Alien film series. This actual model was one that was used during the filming of the second, and most famous of the series, the 1986 Aliens. It again starred Sigourney Weaver as the heroine Ellen Ripley. She has to battle the aliens this time on a deserted terraforming colony where the crew of the first film first encountered the alien. She then has to battle the company man Burke, who has been ordered to capture an Alien and take it back to earth. She intervenes and on the way finds a child, Newt, who escaped the Alien attack on the colony. This suit was available to buy at a staggering £3000.00 and you couldn't even use it for fancy dress as it was tiny!

Back to the more easily recognisable stuff now. Picture is one of the props used in a T.V. show we all know Doctor Who. This was one of the props used in the seventies version of the show where most of the props were made from sticky back plastic and bits of plywood, but still had kids cowering from behind settee's up and down the country as the Daleks attempted to figure out how to climb the stairs! This one came complete with a fake Doctor and a cast of unknown's including Trinity from The Matrix!

Now the show is not just about films and T.V., its also a chance to meet and collect the autographs of sports stars. Pictured here is the well know Ian Wright. For around £20.00 you can buy a print of the man himself and queue up to get him to sign it for you and maybe even to get your picture taken with the man himself. Ian Wright had a fantastic playing career playing for Crystal Palace, where he got to and scored in the famous F.A. Cup final of 1990, but more famously he played for Arsenal from 1991-1998 where he won two F.A. Cups, one League Cup, one Cup Winners Cup and one League title in 1998. He also won 33 caps for England and scored 9 goals. He is now better known for his T.V. and radio work. Next on the list of all time greats to meet was the world famous Jake LaMotta, better known as The Raging Bull. He was born in 1921 and had 106 professional fights with a record of Won 83 Drew 4 Lost 19. LaMotta won the world title in 1949 beating Frenchman Marcel Cerdan in a brutal encounter. He eventually lost the title to Sugar Ray Robinson on 14th February 1951 , in a fight which was to become known as boxing's Valentines Day Massacre. In 1980, he was the subject of the film entitled Raging Bull, which starred Robert De Niro as LaMotta. It was filmed in black and white and showed the true reality of what a tough life LaMotta had, and is now acclaimed as one of the best boxing films ever.

After four hours of wandering round looking at everything (It usually takes that long as there is really that much to see) we headed back home. This time I made a few purchases myself. Some of the items were just nick knacks, like the two Homer Simpson mugs and a Rolling Stones T-Shirt, but I also managed to pick up the remaining three James Bond collector plates, depicting the films of Sean Connery one of which is extremely rare and difficult to find in mint condition. Also I picked up a Limited Edition Pewter Homer Simpson figure which is almost impossible to buy and was recently seen being sold on E-Bay for well over £100.00. I paid the whopping sum of £10.00 and I'm sure the seller had no idea of it's value. All in all it's a great day out for all the family, although if you do take the wife with you and you bump into Tony Adams like I did, you can expect this look when you shout out at him "Eh Up Tone!"