The day Adam West visited the West End

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Lounge lizard
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The day Adam West visited the West End

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I don't know what made me think of it today but a memory flashed up in my mind of coming across a very excited large gathering of people in Oxford St, London over 30 years ago.

Oxford Street is usually very busy on the quietest of days but on that particular summer's day (July 16th) there was a huge group of people at the top end just where Tottenham Court Road meets Charing Cross.

I was even more surprised to see the queue continuing across New Oxford St so I asked somebody what the fuss was all about. "Adam West is opening the new Forbidden Planet" came the reply.

That was good enough for me so I joined the end of the queue (there had to be over a thousand people) and waited to see what happened.

I didn't have to wait long. A jet black sports car came roaring up the street and screeched to a halt outside the store and out leapt the man himself. I have to say it was spectacular entrance. Well, that Great British reserve immediately went right out of the window as people abandoned the queue and swarmed around him. My memory is he had some kind of black jacket on. That was as close as I was going to get. Once Adam had got inside the store the queue quickly resettled and it was obvious it would be a long wait to get in.

What struck me in those 1988 pre-internet days was Adam must've been getting a similar reaction wherever he went in the world, we just didn't hear about it. On that particular day he would've been signing video copies of the Batman movie and also the 'Bat Book' which had been released in the UK not long before. So, I had a look this morning to see if there was any mention of the event online. Lo and behold, there is. https://forbiddenplanet.com/posts/forbi ... d-opening/

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dell
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Re: The day Adam West visited the West End

Post by dell »

Pre-internet days... seems so long ago, like when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Cool story; thanks for sharing. Did you wait in the queue? What happened when you got inside?
dell
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Ben Bentley
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Re: The day Adam West visited the West End

Post by Ben Bentley »

Thanks for sharing this fun story and the link to the blog post with those GREAT photos! I've been to that branch of Forbidden Planet countless times and I never knew that Adam opened it, on my birthday no less!
Lounge lizard
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Re: The day Adam West visited the West End

Post by Lounge lizard »

Alas Dell, I was heading over to meet friends so couldn't hang around.
Ben, the reaction to Adam when he arrived was similar to what pop stars receive. You'll know how busy the traffic gets around there but... people didn't care. They just swarmed across the road around him! Quite a sight.
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