The 30th annual Doctor Who convention, Gallifrey One, took place at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott February 14-17, 2019. John Barrowman, known for his role as Captain Jack Harkness on both Doctor Who and Torchwood, though also known for his role as Malcolm Merlyn on Arrow, was one of the headliners.
By the time John Barrowman’s panel started on Saturday, February 16 at 5:00 pm, the room was completely packed, with people standing along the walls as much as the event organizers would allow for fire marshal standards, and staff was still trying to find random open seats to which they could escort people. For their two main headlining guests this year, John Barrowman and Catherine Tate, Gallifrey One featured two panels for each, and asked that attendees pick one of each and attend only one, not both, being that Program A can only hold about half the attendees who attend the convention. Catherine Tate’s panels were Friday and Saturday, while John Barrowman’s were Saturday and Sunday. Understandably, the Saturday back to back John Barrowman/Catherine Tate panels were the more popular choice. Indeed, the Friday and Sunday panels were out of our time range, so the Saturday schedule was our only choice.
Anyway, so John Barrowman entered on stage through the TARDIS, wearing a TARDIS dress and blue jacket, immediately dropping a sexual innuendo, as is typical of his humor, as you would know if you’ve seen him before. He apologized in advance for his language, though pointed out to parents that if it wasn’t something their kids had already heard out on the playground, then their kids are lying to them!
He told us about Palm Springs, where he lives, having flooded, and that he had worried whether he was even going to be able to make it out of the city to get to Gallifrey One. Luckily, he did make it safely, but upon arrival he realized he had forgotten all of his cosplay outfits! So the dress he was wearing was something that he was able to scrounge up last minute, and the jacket was one he had worn on a UK game show recently. The shoes were $30 heels which he had Swarovski crystals applied to, which made them much more valuable. I believe these are the same heels he wore at his San Diego Comic-Con panel last year.
Before things got started, he made sure to mention that he and Catherine Tate were in a war to see who could get the most ribbons (for those unaware, a big part of the Gallifrey One fun is trading ribbons with fun sayings on them, and attaching them to your badge). So he asked that if you have a ribbon, to pass it to the end of the aisle and someone will come by to pick up the ribbons and bring them to him.
He gave the audience three options of what story we wanted to hear: Birthday, jacuzzi, or Pensacola. Of course, being “greedy,” the audience demanded all three of the stories! However, John pointed out that he had another panel the next day, so he had to save a story to tell at that panel. It seemed to come down to birthday and jacuzzi.
John spoke about how he and his husband Scott often walk around their property naked (teasing that if you come to the door, when they answer they may be wearing a towel… or not – depending on who you are!) One day, John was sitting in the jacuzzi filming a video on Facebook Live, when suddenly, Scott comes up behind him and gets in the jacuzzi completely naked! And yes, it turned out that the camera had filmed Scott completely naked! Scott was very nonchalant about it, not worried about the consequences, while John was freaking out that millions of people had just seen his husband naked. Within 20 minutes, Facebook had taken the video down – but not before it went viral. A couple days later, John was visiting Scott’s parents while on business in the UK. Everything was going as normal – that is, until Scott’s parents saw the newspaper, which covered all the details about John’s revealing video of Scott. John’s mother-in-law told John to talk to “Scotty” about not showing his “cocky.” However, Scott’s father didn’t think there was anything to be ashamed about, as Scott had been described as “well hung.” John was mortified that his in-laws were talking to him about this.
He started to tell a different story, but then stopped himself, and confessed that he had been about to tell a story that he shouldn’t be telling. Of course, this then prompted the crowd to try to get him to tell the story anyway, and they began chanting, “Do it, do it, do it!” John gave in and began to tell it, saying it was a story that we had actually probably heard before, but never from his lips – it was about Eve Myles (who played Gwen, his co-star on Torchwood). When he said that, I immediately knew which story it was, as we had heard Eve Myles tell a particularly “naughty” story about John Barrowman at Gallifrey One a few years back. However, first, he went off on a tangent about a different story about him and Eve, commenting on how they often get up to all sorts of naughty things. The tangent story was that the two of them had gotten so drunk that he had forgotten getting on a transatlantic flight with her, so when he woke up on the plane in a sleeper seat, he had no idea where he was, much less the fact that they were on a plane! Also, they were sleeping in a tiny sleeper seat together! The flight attendant came over to talk to them about getting in their own seats, as they were sweating profusely from being in such close quarters, and the airline didn’t want the seat to be wet for the next passenger. However, it turned out to be a moot point, as Eve whispered to John that she had actually peed her pants!
Getting back to the original story that he was referring to, it was in fact the one that I had thought it was. One day on set, when Eve was getting her hair done in her trailer, her hair was in rollers. John decided to come up behind her and put himself through one of the rollers and said “Good morning” (of course, John emphasized that it was a very big roller). Eve didn’t bat an eyelash and just replied “Good morning” as if everything were normal! He had her take a selfie of her and himself in the roller, and now that’s the photo that pops up every time she calls him.
John made sure to take questions from the audience as well.
One question was what color he would want to dye his hair. For those who weren’t aware, he revealed that he is actually gray, so he has to dye his hair dark brown. He also told us that he had been blond before. However, he would want to dye his hair a “sun-kissed golden brown.”
John went on to tell us about his recent experience on the UK TV Series I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! where they drop you in the middle of nowhere in Australia. Each day, they would have to do challenges to win food. If you didn’t win, then you would get a small amount of rice and beans – amounting to an allowance of 600 calories daily, which caused him to lose a lot of weight. Why did he do it? To challenge himself. He told us about one day when they offered him a great amount of food – but told him that if he ate it, then no one back at camp would get any. However, there was one way that everyone would be able to get some of it: if he ate a raw bull’s penis. He joked, “It wouldn’t be the first time!” And he did in fact go ahead and eat it!
Another audience question brought up how he handled the episode where we see Captain Jack with the real Captain Jack Harkness, from whom he took his identity, and knowing that the real Captain Jack was going to die the next day. John told us about how when he has an on-screen kiss, he wants to make it look real – but without tongue – and makes sure to communicate this with his partner. After they did the kiss scene, the actor who played the real Captain Jack started crying. John went to go talk to him, wondering what it was he did that made him cry. It turned out that his brother had committed suicide because he couldn’t accept who he was, and the actor believed that if John’s character was around when his brother was still alive, he would have been able to accept who he was, just as Captain Jack does, and that his brother would still be alive. After John heard this, he was crying too.
Speaking of on-screen kisses, another audience question (which came from a young man whom John apparently found attractive and became flirty with, in spite of the man informing John that he has a wife) was which kiss was better: Billie Piper or Christopher Eccleston? John tried to downplay that it wasn’t about which kiss was better, and that it was more about it being the first time that a male kissed the Doctor, and the fact that the kiss he gave Rose was equivalent to the one he gave the Doctor. But John made sure to not so subtly hint that his answer was Chris Eccleston.
Suddenly, Catherine Tate crashed the panel – to declare herself the winner of the ribbon war! She had volunteers hold onto the end of her ribbon roll while she walked it down the aisle, stretching it as far as it would go. It was so long that it made it well more than halfway down the aisle. She pointed out that since that day was her last day there, while John was still there an extra day, the war was over and she had won.
After Catherine Tate made her exit, John continued taking audience questions. He was able to clear up any belief about Captain Jack “doing” the Tenth Doctor, saying it never happened. However, he pointed out that Captain Jack was in love with the Doctor, referring to when he had asked Martha Jones, “You too?”
He also told us about a prank he had pulled on the set of Arrow, when Stephen Amell was hanging by chains – so John took the opportunity to twist Stephen’s nipples, to which Stephen angrily exclaimed, “Barrowman!!!”
Another question was whether he preferred playing the hero Captain Jack or the villain Malcolm Merlyn. John reiterated that he doesn’t like to answer “favorites” questions, but did go on to tell us what would happen if Captain Jack and Malcolm Merlyn met. He said that Captain Jack would let Malcolm Merlyn beat him to death, then surprise him and revive, make love to him, and say “Who’s the a**hole now?”
The final question was from a 16-year old boy who was cosplaying as Captain Jack. He brought up how John has a wool allergy and asked him if he had an allergic reaction to the Captain Jack coat, which was made of wool. John revealed that the costume department had actually lined the inside of the coat with silk, so he didn’t have an allergic reaction. This had the effect of making the coat even hotter, which was unfortunate on hot days, but kept him warm on a shoot when everyone else was freezing cold. John also advised the 16-year old’s parents, who were in the audience, that they were soon going to have trouble with people knocking on their door wanting to date their son!
John ended his panel by singing Christina Perri’s A Thousand Years, complete with musical track backing him, telling us that he had recorded the song himself and it was available for purchase. This was also one of the songs we had heard him sing at San Diego Comic-Con last year.
Apart from John Barrowman’s silliness, which makes him a lot of fun to watch, he also makes sure to convey an important message: to be true to yourself. His fun and positivity always keep me coming back to his panels time and time again, and I am always looking forward to the next convention I’m able to see him! Thank you, Gallifrey One, for bringing him back this year.
Click here to continue to our recap and photos of Catherine Tate’s panel! >>
You can view more of our photos of John Barrowman at Gallifrey One 2019 below.
