Articles Fans of John Barrowman

 

Of course, don’t just take our word for it, regarding John Barrowman, or indeed, Gareth David-Lloyd in this month’s celebration of these two cool stars of Torchwood. Here are what some of the fans have to say about them. 

Kirsty 

“The first time I met John was about fifteen years ago. It was when he was doing a book tour with Carole, the first time round. 

I begged my boss at the time for the day off so I could go, and surprisingly she said yes. Thankfully! John wasn’t due to arrive till 2pm, but something told me to go and wait early. Boy I am glad I did. I got there about 10am, and the queue was already at the end of the store.  I met a few new people and have actually kept in touch since then. 

The second time I met him was at his second book signing. I was kinda ill, which put a dampener on the day. 

But the best time I ever met JB though?  I woke up to a text from my friend telling me JB was in town, filming Antique Roadshow with Myleen Klass. I got up, and raced into town. Luckily town is only 5 minutes down the road from my house. We talked for a while, and he told me he was learning BSL for his deaf fans. 

Then proceeded to shout after me as I was leaving... um dude?” 

Credit

Photos courtesy Kirsty Price

 

 Katherine 

“I've met Barrowman a couple of times. John is an awesome man. He's always so nice and patient and such a big kid. It's like meeting a fellow fan. He gives great hugs too.” 

Credits

Photo courtesy Katherine Pozarek

 

 

Ruthy of Torchwood Australia

I have been a fan of Torchwood since Captain Jack Harkness first appeared in Doctor Who.  And let's face it, who wouldn't love a character like Captain Jack??? 

I got heavily involved with the fandom when I took over the Torchwood Australia Website and Forum in 2008. 

I have met the entire Torchwood team at various conventions and I first met John Barrowman personally at one of the Hub Conventions in Northampton.  I had seen him in concert prior to this, both in Cardiff and in London.  I have to add, and I think most Torchwood Convention goers would agree, those Hub Conventions were the best to attend.... they were just so up close and personal and far surpassed any event that has been held since.  I've been very lucky to attend fan events worldwide, in the UK, Canada and Australia. 

John is always in fine form and very generous with his time.  I remember going to Supanova Sydney with my friend Caroline, and how John donated some signed photos for a couple of her students who were massive fans (Caroline is a school teacher) - John wanted to know all about them, and he had a great chat with Caro.  And at that particular event, we went to the VIP night and I think we spoke to Scott most of the time.  It was wonderful to finally have a chance to have a good chat with him, especially as John was surrounded by a lot of people so you couldn't really get near him anyway.  I think it might've been this Supanova event when the Tim Tam towers took off - I think John should've bought shares in Arnott's Biscuits!!! 

One of the most amazing nights 'with John' was when he performed a one-off concert in my home state of Queensland in Australia.  He performed this concert in 2019 at the Concert Hall, Queensland Performing Arts Complex, Brisbane - this is a beautiful venue, quite intimate, with gorgeous acoustics.  I had seen him in concert a number of times in various places in the UK and I wondered how this concert would go, being that he would have musicians backing him who weren't his usual crew.  He did though have Matthew his Musical Director with him on keyboard, and who oversaw the entire show.  I must say, our local musicians were brilliant, and I REALLY enjoyed the entire concert.  It was a great night - we weren't permitted to take any photos during the concert, but in a way, this was lovely not to have the distraction of photo taking.  My friend and I had VIP tix, so we attended the meet and greet after the concert, and had drinks and nibbles, and a photo taken with John. 

It was probably the most memorable night with John in concert, particularly having him perform here in Australia.  It will be a night I shall never forget. 

We of course all look forward to some normalcy returning, when COVID19 is under control, and we can travel again and attend these events to see our favourite actors/performers. 

Photos courtesy of Ruthy 

 

Teejay Peacelover

 

I’ve always been a fan of John...but he’s my hero because he saved my life. Knife in hand, headed for the bathroom to escape the planet once and for all...and John posted a social media post that arrived just as I walked past my phone, two steps from where I was going to end it all. Yeah, I was a mess...but all I needed was a distraction to regain some perspective and pull back from the edge. He gave me that moment...and literally saved my life. I can’t remember what the post was now...just that his smile, his laugh, and genuine love of his fans (that’d be ME folks!) got through to me when nothing else could. So, John Barrowman is my hero...and connected to my soul in the deepest way possible. 

I’ve allowed my love of the man to become an obsession...in a good way. I’ve used his singing to help calm me when I’m driving, his panels on YouTube to cheer me up when I needed a laugh, his TV Shows and audio books (Doctor Who, Torchwood, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, Big Finish Torchwood audios etc) as escapes when I needed head space, and getting to his events as dreams for me to chase. His smile makes my heart sing, his laugh is contagious, his relationship with his husband Scott is utterly beautiful, and love of his dogs is gorgeous, his sense of humour is wicked, and his innuendo is ‘on point’ 😉 

I’ve never had goals before. Ever.

Goal 1, to meet him in person. Check! 2am at Auckland airport (New Zealand) - yeah, I know, stalker MUCH?! But while he could have said hi and walked away...he chose to spend time with me and chat for 15 mins or so while he waited for Scott and Kelsey to get their bags...he asked me to wait with him. I love him even more for that. He also grabbed my phone and took photos of me with him, and with Scott when he caught up...unasked for, blissfully happy moments! Photos taken by John...him just off a plane ‘looking unshaven and dishevelled’ to use his words, and with me a puffy eyed mess in the middle of him and Scott! lol Yeah, I cried...he saved my life after all! I told him. He hugged me. Told me to talk to his fan family if I ever felt that way again - they’d be there for me, and yeah, they truly have been there for me because I can share my joy and love of the man with other people who understand. 

He’s a genuinely beautiful man/soul. 

Goal 2, to see him do a panel at a convention. Check - Auckland Armageddon - twice. Auckland Armageddon 2017 - BEST 4 days of my life - I got hugs and photos and autographs! And I made a great friend, an Aussie no less 😉 

Goal 3, to see him in concert. CHECK! Melbourne. Omg omg omg. Truly fanbloodytastic concert. AND I listened to him rehearse for a couple of hours first. Bliss. 

Goal 4, to see him at another convention for new stories - Melbourne check!

Then booked for Brisbane Australia - Supanova 2018! Check. I’ve since travelled to conventions in Australia multiple times to see him – and have many photos and hugs and autographs on my walls now that make me smile every day. 

Goal 5, to see John in concert in Glasgow in his Scottish accent, his home town - Check, 2019. Thanks to the truly excellent planning and booking skills of an aunty in the UK who knew how the UK systems and trains etc worked, I then followed John to Edinburgh and nine other UK destinations for the concert tour - that cost an arm and a leg - but absolutely worth it! VIP tickets, sound checks, concerts, heaven. Took me a year to pay off the debt for the trip – totally worth it. 

Goal 6, to get his autograph tattooed on my arm, tried at multiple conventions - finally got the autograph at the sound check prior to a concert in the UK thanks to another fabulous fan who also wanted one. We both got them done at the same tattooist between the meet and greet and the actual show, so I got to show it to John after the show at the VIP photo session! Lol Got the autograph tattoo from John and Captain Jack’s too! 

Goal 7 - to stay alive to see more of John, to see more concerts, to hear more of him singing...I finally lost my life long death wish mid 2019 while following his tour around the UK. It shocked me to the core. I’ve never wanted to be alive before, and I’m really quite stunned I finally kicked the ‘kill myself’ urge. My obsession with John keeps me alive, happy, and attached to the planet. He is my anchor, my hero, always there on CD or YouTube etc when I need him to calm me down or cheer me up or distract me. It’s VERY handy being able to self-medicate with a fabulous sparkle-tastic person who has SO many social media posts and shows and CDs to enjoy. 

November 2019 - I headed back to the UK, to see John in concert with his Fabulous Christmas tour. The aim was to get my happy Xmas vibe back. I lost it years ago. This concert run was HUGELY emotional for him, and it’s something he’s genuinely excited about (long story) – it was huge for me too. This last UK trip was extra huge for me as I planned and booked the whole thing myself (I’m strangely terrified of forms and numbers, and booking online is all about forms and numbers!), it’s challenged many of my fears and self-doubts - and I’ve beaten them all thanks to Barrowman. 

I was relatively recently identified with autism. I’m now 52, and was only told I was autistic a couple of years back. It explains SO much. I’ve always struggled with crowds, travel, forms, bright lights, noises, textures, overwhelming fears etc etc - since allowing my Barrowman obsession to flourish I’ve ticked SO many things off my bucket list! From 4-wheel driving to jumping off the Auckland Sky Tower, to bungee jumping, to traveling to Australia and the UK alone. He sings to me in the car and at work on night shift, he’s always there. He is my soul, my joy, my inspiration, my life. The wonderful relationship he has with his hubby Scott, seeing the love and life they have together, gives me hope. 

John Barrowman is the reason I’m on the planet, and my reason for staying.

 

Articles Fans of Gareth David-Lloyd

 

When we began putting this article together, we were a little stuck on some of the credits to add. A lot of the meetings between the fans and Gareth aren’t on Wiki, and to be fair, Wiki isn’t a reliable source of information these days, with anyone altering the data to suit themselves, so hunting for information led me only to one major source. The fans.

Naturally, if we had every fan of Gareth’s or indeed John’s fans to write a short article, this upload would last till the end of March 2022 – so we’ve just added a few for this birthday celebration article. 

Here goes: 

Kirsty (biggest fan) 

“The first time I met Gareth, I totally fangirled. I was shy and quiet, not me at all. That lasted all of ten minutes. I am profoundly deaf as some people will know, and HATE when the batteries for my Cochlear Implant go dead. I like being able to hear, so there’s me, saying quite loudly and rudely, how unhappy I was at having to change them, just as Gareth walked past with his dogs. 

Embarrassing. 

My auntie was holding a charity fun day at our local vets, which she used to own. 

The 2nd time I met him was at a signing for an audio book he spoke for. What was the point in that you ask? I can’t hear ... its Gareth that’s why. After waiting outside Forbidden Planet for a good few hours, (it’s a small shop), we made our way upstairs, where Gareth was signing stuff with a sharpie. Me, being my normal cheeky self, commented that the pen stinks. He apologised. Gonna take the guy a while to get used to me... After all, this was only the beginning. 

I have probably met Gareth now, more times than I can actually count, because

One, he’s a Newport boy so I see him in town a few times and…

Two, I ended up enjoying Blue Gillespie music so I have been to quite a few gigs. 

The first gig I went to sticks in my mind, not for a good reason. It was the second time I had ever experienced disability discrimination. Someone, who I had gone to school with as a young girl, knew I was deaf and told me, I didn’t belong there because of it.

Don’t worry it all became good after she said that (she wasn’t drunk so we knew it wasn’t the drink that made her say it) one of the guys from a different band heard this remark and wasn’t happy. Security was called and asked to remove nasty bigoted person from premises. 

More gigs after that came along, some I attended with friends, some on my own. Each time I got to know Gareth even more, and found him to be a good bloke, funny too. He got used to me and my quirky ways. Got to know Gemma, his wife, more too. 

The last time I saw Gareth was August 3rd 2013, the last home turf gig of Blue Gillespie. Their last gig ever was in Atlanta, Georgia, USA on August 30th. 

Ooh no, tell a lie. I saw him at Newport Comic Con in 2018. He wasn’t really expecting me as I had tweeted to say I was unable to make it, so to have him come round the table and give me a massive cuddle was really nice. Always nice to have someone of his profession recognise you straight off the bat."

 

Katherine Pozarek 

"I met Gareth at Dragon Con and I don't remember much, but he was awesome. I had a photo op and there was a mix up, not sure who screwed up, but they were able to get Gareth down to the photo area so I could get my pic and then rushed him out to a panel. I'd share that pic as well, but all my photo ops and autographs were stolen last year."

Ceri Marie Milton

 "I met Gareth when he was a student living in Newport."

Interviews Fans of Project: Torchwood - Scott James Kyle

If you've binge watched Outlander on the streaming channels, or caught up with the series on the television, or you have the DVDs and maybe read the books, you may already know who Scott James Kyle is, and the character that he played in the first series.

Outlander is a time travelling story, involving the leading lady stepping through a stone circle and travelling back to the Highlands in the 1700s and meets and falls in love with Jamie, the leading character in the story. Scott Kyle plays Ross, one of the Highlanders.

One of the things that has interested me about Kyle is that he follows us on Twitter, without having really watched anything of either Doctor Who since childhood or Torchwood, but it warms our hearts that he clearly enjoys what we do on our website, enough to want to keep following us, and for that, we thank him very much.

So as part of our new project, we decided to catch up with Kyle to find out what he’s been up to prior and during Lockdown. Enjoy!

Hi Kyle, how have you been spending your time in Lockdown?

Kyle: My wife (Karen) and I are really making the most of the lockdown, we have been doing a lot of work in the garden, going for walks and cycling around our local area. Over the past few months, we have visited parks and other areas that we have driven past but never explored. The lockdown has meant that we have had the time to go and walk/cycle around these places.

It's one of the things I realised about Lockdown, was the amount of freedom we all had, which got a lot of people out of their homes who would normally stay in and never leave - did you also notice this?

Kyle: I think we all have been guilty of living to work rather than working to live. The lockdown has stopped a lot of people from working and it has allowed everyone to appreciate the important things in life.

Do you still live in Scotland?

Kyle: I was born in Scotland and I still stay here with my wife Karen and Jess the neighbour’s cat who is a frequent visitor at our house.

I know a lot of actors who have gone to America and/or London to pursue their acting careers. I am happy in Scotland as I believe that the right roles will find me, they have so far anyway ha ha!

Is Outlander still filming? Is there no chance that your character would return in a later season?

Kyle: Nothing is filming at the moment in Scotland, and I’m not sure when things will change on that front. No one knows what the writers have in store for the fans, so never say never regarding seeing my character again.

What inspired you to become an actor, and were you a stage actor first?

Kyle: I’ve always enjoyed storytelling and I did drama at primary school and high school, but it was Karen (my wife) who suggested I go to college to study acting. I went to college to improve my quality of life and to try and create a better future for Karen and myself. It was a theatre course predominantly and that’s where I started. The films and television work came as a result of my success on the stage!

Does your wife, Karen also act? If you have children, are they interested in an acting career?

Kyle: Karen doesn’t act, but she is very supportive and is always by my side at the opening nights/premiers etc.

If we are fortunate enough to have kids at some point in the future, they will get all the support they need, if they choose to pursue a career in the entertainment industry.

I have to ask the Whoniverse question, as I'm still curious. You said you haven't watched either Doctor Who or Torchwood, but you must have heard of both or at least one of these. Did you ever watch Doctor Who at all when you were growing up?

Kyle: Growing up I was always out playing so watching television wasn’t a big part of my life, as I got older, I always thought, I’d rather be on the tv than watching it ha ha! My wife Karen is a big fan of watching television so she has twisted my arm over the years to watch a bit more.

I remember Doctor Who being on the tv when I was younger, but I think I was probably too scared (didn’t want to get exterminated) ha ha! I met Fraser Hines at a comic con recently and I know he was in Doctor Who so I really should go back and binge watch it!

We've been promised a thunderstorm tonight so I'm keeping the window open. It was definitely too hot to work in a stuffy warehouse with thick cotton trousers on.

What's the hottest temperature that you've worked in during filming on any film that you've been on in the past?

Kyle: Filming in Scotland most of the time means it’s more a case of trying to keep warm, but I filmed the movie Kajaki in Jordan during the summer months and the heat was unbearable. 

We had real paratroopers on set though and they were quick to remind us that they never had a 5-star hotel to go back to after a long hard day and they never had access to ice cold bottled water, so we didn’t complain too much after that!

Before you became an actor, what other career roles did you have to keep you going? Or what job did you have to fall back on, if regular work wasn't available as an actor. The plan B???

Kyle: I left school at 16 and worked in a supermarket until I was 21, that’s when I went to college and started a 3-year acting course. During my second year at college I realised lots of students were graduating and not getting work, so I set up my own theatre company to ensure that I was never out of work. As a result of the successes I had as a producer, I went on to run numerous venues and events.

Since lockdown and the closure of the arts and entertainment industry, I have been working a few nights a week with a charity that supports thousands of people across the country who need help to live as independently as possible in their own homes. It has been a fantastic experience seeing the difference such an organisation can make to people’s lives.

It is a difficult time for those in the Arts at the moment - pretty much everything is on hold and even with some businesses returning to work, it may be some time before actors are back to relative normality.

Financially, are you able to continue living in Lockdown or have you had to resort to looking at other ways you can perform as an actor, or in some way within the industry?

Kyle: I am fortunate enough that I’ve always had a full-time job through my adult life, even when I was at college, I worked full time night shift and went to college during the day, surviving on very little sleep. My studying and acting work is always as well as, not instead of my other work. So, to be honest my wife and I are busy with other passion projects that aren’t affected by the lockdown.

Growing up, did you have many posters on your walls of character actors from films or television or were you a sporty kind of fan? Also, going on from that, as an actor, have you ever been star struck while working with an actor you've probably always been a fan of? Or is it different when you're an actor, that you don't go all like jelly, and struggle to ask that question 'could I get your autograph please' :D

Kyle: It was more sports idols on my walls, lots of different players from all over the world. My favourite player was Scotland International Ally McCoist who I was fortunate enough to meet and get his autograph when I was 14 years old at a shop in Glasgow. The funny thing was 20 years later I was playing in a charity football match and Ally approached me to ask for my autograph ha ha it’s a funny old world.

Ha! That is epic. Did you mention to him that you'd met him for his autograph all those years back?

Kyle: Yes we re-created the pic, the photographer was Graeme Souness

In all the roles that you've played be it on screen or in theatre, which have been the most challenging?

Kyle: They are all challenging in different ways, and each brings different pressures. Outlander has the pressure of a huge audience watching so you don’t want to make a fool of yourself or the work.

Kajaki was a true story so it is imperative that you get it right every time you film a scene.

If you could meet your 12-year-old self, what would you tell him?

Kyle: Everyone you meet is a teacher, don’t mistake them for anything else, some will come for a short time and some for a long time, learn as much as you can.

Thank you so much for chatting to us and sharing your photos. Please stay safe!

Photos courtesy Scott James Kyle