A Big Day Out

A while back, my girlfriend Courtney managed to bag tickets for a live version of one of her favourite TV shows, Who's Line Is It Anyway?, ending its run at the Adelphi Theatre today. Our plan from the start was to pop into town earlier than necessary, so we could pay a visit to Forbidden Planet ('pay' being the operative word as both of us have trouble leaving without first opening our wallets). But, when we found that a new movie we were both very interested to see (Mr Holmes) was already being phased out in favour of some new summer blockbuster, our trip into town got shifted earlier into the day so we could fit that in too, at Picturehouse Central in Piccadilly.

Now, obviously, this being a TransFormers toy blog, I'm not going to suddenly launch into a review of Mr Holmes or write about Whose Line..? but Forbidden Planet is fair game. I didn't mention at the time but, on my birthday this year, my colleagues clubbed together to get me - amongst other things - £20 of Forbidden Planet vouchers, which went towards sci-fi books and, obviously, a bit of plastic crack. This time, I picked up the Hasbro version of Generations 'Thrilling 30' Sky Byte, a Sherlock Holmes-based card game and a talking plushie K-9 for Courtney (having said I'd get her one when I first saw it announced ages ago, then completely failed to find one).

For preference, I would have got the Takara Tomy version of Sky Byte because the plastic and paint job look far superior, not least due to the chrome and the authentic asymmetry of the paint on the shark's head. In the end, I had to admit that the darker blue plastic and chrome just weren't worth the premium on an import toy and, since FP are currently selling Voyager class toys slightly cheaper than the average UK toy shop (£22.99 rather than £24/25) and having passed him by on several previous visits to FP, there was only one left on the shelf, I just caved in and picked him up. Being a 2014 'anniversary' figure that I've never seen in any normal UK toy shops, I was keen on the idea of owning him, but mostly couldn't be bothered searching for it because I know it's not that great.

After Forbidden Planet, we went in search of dinner before the show, but we clearly hadn't spent as much time in Geek Heaven as we'd thought, as we still had plenty of time to get to Strand for the show. We'd gone to a nearby Pizza Express for dinner because Courtney had a voucher and just round the corner from the branch we chose was Orbital Comics' current digs in Great Newport Street. On my few recent visits to this location, they've always had an interesting selection of TransFormers merchandise, albeit not as great as the selection they had when they split into two shops (one for comics only, the other specifically for merchandise). I'm very glad we popped in there yesterday, though, because I managed to grab the final component of Combiner Wars Defensor, Legends class Groove, and another old exclusive - OTFCC 2003's Shadow Striker and Roulette... about £40 cheaper than I've seen them on eBay.

We also popped in on a couple of stationery shops, and I've now got decent cards for my niece's upcoming birthday and her next one, as well as some gift tags... So I can finally post her present off this coming week.