Ok then heres my extra long account of saturday night!

I left the train station from my home town at 1pm and it was one train straight into Paddington. The 2 ½ hour journey flew by and i was really excited! I was meeting up with fifi at Paddington and we found each other pretty easily then had a little chat whilst we waited for Becca, laura, cat and gemma to meet us. They arrived at around 4pm and we all made our way onto a second train to get to our hotel. A short walk from the station to the hotel and we met up with shoe and lisa and checked in. Got changed, and finally headed off to make our way to the theatre.

We discovered that there was a football match about to start in London and so the trains were an absolute nightmare. We were meant to meet everyone by 5:30 but hadn’t even boarded a train by this point so we tweeted our orders to some who were already there. Eventually, after being forced to separate our group to fit on the trains and fifi getting her head trapped in the doors we arrived at the theatre! We headed straight in and made our way to the restaurant.

We joined all the other bloggy folks who were sat at our reserved table. I took my seat and started chatting to everyone when mikey said he was shocked i could hold conversation when Damien was in the same room. I had no idea what he meant and at my confused look pointed out the Damien was stood right in front of me a couple of meters away! He looked to be chatting to a couple of fans and was signing autographs and having pictures. He was there for around 10 mins but didn’t look over or anything before disappearing.

We had our food and then went in for the play. Our seats were great. I was sat right in the middle of the stools in front of the stage and had a brilliant view. We know that Damien had 3 scenes, the first was brief but we got a little flash of the abs during a bit of stretching that happened! The second scene was brilliant. Damiens character was a horrible racist bully, but Damien put so much emotion into it. You could the passion that comes across in being human up close and it was truly amazing. This was also the scene that Damien used a cockney accent and it was really good i thought! I did wonder if he would be able to pull it off especially switching from his natural irish in the first scene but it was great, really convincing. His 3^rd scene was the longest. In this one he was a protestor and had a girlfriend. There was a lot of technical buisnussy jargen in this bit and to be honest i didn’t understand a lot of it but there were some funny bits too. It was a really good play and a couple of scenes gave me goosebumps. Particularly a scene with danny Kendrick and another actor, when he threw his hat and made a really passionate speech i was stunned and had goosebumps, it was amazing.

Once the play had finished the cast all bowed and we all clapped...then they went off and came back for an en core and that was it, i couldn’t hold it any more i whooped as loud as my throat would allow and i heard a few others which i assume would be brookesey!!!! Lol J

So then it was time to make our way to the stage door. We went straight out and the door is really easy to find its just at the side of the building. It wasn’t long before Damien came out. The one thing i was really hoping for was that he would recognise and say hello to me and my wish was granted, he said hi to everyone and then spotted me and said oh hi su! YaY! Lol. There were general hellos and thank yous and then the gift giving began. Louise lead with the teasmade. I was leaning on a heater thing so i suggested he lean on it to open it. He struggled a bit so i asked if he just wanted me to tell him what it was and he said yeh. I told him it was the teasmade that he had wanted from the being human set. He was SO excited! Really amazed that we has got it! So much so that he swore a lot!

Next came the T shirt which said “Keep calm and love the being human bloggers” and he said you know it!

Then was whimsys blanket. He said “Look at that gorgeous bastard” and held it up, it was amazing! I told him we had all been amazed at it and he said yeh its fucking amazing (literally every other word was a swear word)

Then shoe gave him the coffee, he was absolutely stunned! He said something like “omg this stuff is so expensive it would cost like £800 to go over and get some, wow i cant believe it”

Finally present giving was over. Then laura said oh su you have a gift don’t you! I wasn’t sure whether to give him the magazine or not but laura gave it to me so i just thrust it at him and said heres that magazine thing i did. He held up the brown envelope and said “Oh yeh Su Hemming superstar!” which can be seen in shoes video from earlier....embarrasing.

Then we started getting autographs. I went into organised mode and started lining people up so we could all get our programmes signed. People had individual little chats with him and i don’t know what was said. A couple of people got piccies but then damo said he needed to go because his family were waiting for him. I could see he was about to leave and becca and i wanted to get our 3some pic so i jumped in quick and asked! Then becca got in and everyone cheered! It was really funny and damo looked really smug!! Haha. He went back in after this so we all started making our way to the bar. Damien was stood at the bottom of the stairs so i said thanks again as we went past and he said thank you su.

Once we got drinks there was nowhere to sit so we just stood around chatting. Then Damien came down and sat at a table with his family. We were there until last orders and Damien was there too. We left him to it obviously and just sat enjoying our drinks and having a good time. Then as we were finishing off our lat drinks Damien came over to chat to us. He said he had just wanted to thank us for supporting him throughout being human and said yes he was obviously sad it was finishing but that it would absolutely be going out with a bang. I said thanks to him for taking the time to talk to me all of the times i had seen him on location and he said he loved seeing us there and it was a pleasure to speak to us. He also said that danny ohara had directed the last episode and that theyd had meetings about what he wanted from the episode. I asked if he had been given suggestions and direction on what he should do and how to act and he said yeh hes incredible.

Laura had a quick chat with Damien and then i asked him if we could get a quick group pic with him since we hadn’t had time at the stage door. He said yes and as we stood up i noticed that his family had gone and he had now been sat with a group of his mates. He said they would now be taking the piss out of him all evening bless him! I sneaked into poll position and grabbed a hold for the picture. It came out brilliant J Once we were to let go i said thank you again and said he had seriously made my year and it had been a pleasure to meet him, he said thanks and then asked hows the tat! I showed him and he said that really is incredible! Another set of thank yous came before he said goodbye and wandered off to the bathroom. We finished off our drinks and left him to it! And that was it! The molony madness had ended! After that we ended of buying some alcohol from an off licence and going back to the hotel to talk about our evening into the wee hours of Sunday. It was an absolutely brilliant night with fabulous people and ill never forget it! 

UJ I am so sorry to hear you became poorly during the performance! what a major bummer and very stressy too i would imagine, but glad you could watch the last couple of minutes on a monitor and caught the post show talk. the play was 'frightening'? you mean because it is so close to how thigns really are?

Matty, thank you for such an in-depth account! I for one really appreciate the sharing! It's just amazing how Damien always remembers the names of fans, is this the only time you have seen him since that time at the National stage door last year? wow!  I'm struck by how brave you were to approach him, not sure i could have done the same, amazing how gracious he always is to fans though and it sounds like he appreciated your questions and insights into things! (bet he liked the Indy book, sounds like he did!)

Interesing to hear that he enjoyed playing Jason the most of the 3 characters - well done you for asking - having read the script for the play I know what a challenging character he must be to portray. I agree with you about the play touring, not just ireland...but everywhere outside of london too, to get the message across to a wider audience....as a dystopia of sorts (although Lustgarten says it is not strictlyone as it is not really a stretch far from the truth) it is a mighty awareness raising tool..i guess there is the danger of preaching to the converted with a limited run and geography?

Wonder if Damien really does have no projects in the pipeline or if that is a red herring, we know he has another radio play coming up in May, but cannot wait to hear what he is up to next!

Laura and Uj...you were winked at? squeeeeeee!

Laura...thank you for sharing your account too, lovely to read about the Q&A. what was all that about Damien going last that Matty mentioned?

Interesting to hear Damiens perspective on Jason, he loves his complex characters....

And wow..you are so brave too! how absolutely wonderful that you met Lord Toby Whithouse and had a chance to thank him in person for BH, that has made me so very happy.. he deseves all the thanks in the world. You met Polly the producer and Daniel O'Hara one of the directors too? awesome! and Sarah Dollard! get you hob nobbing the BH glitterati!  

Exciting to hear that there will be some epic extras on the dvd, that should keep us all going for a bit, after the end. *sniff*.