Every Tuesday evening for the last five weeks, a handful (sometimes crowd) of dedicated Drop the Dead Donkey fans have queued patiently in freezing conditions outside the LWT studios in London.

The list of devotees have included;
My good self
Tim (highly amused boyfriend)
Becky (of the other BallyK pages)
Philip (of the other BallyK pages)
Carole (of the Neil Pearson pages)
Susanna (truly devoted Steve fan from Stockholm . . . and yes, she came over for just one day!!!)
Janet (equally devoted Steve fan from Scotland)
Lindsey (my mate from work)
Ben (Becky's mate from college)
Helen (Friend of Becky)
Some of these are true and loyal fans, others came to lend support and see what all the fuss was about. Special thanks must go to them for being so patient, even if they were highly amused! Particular thanks to Lindsey who had to suffer my constant cries of 'cheeseburger, cheeseburger!' in her ears (well, we came straight from work, we were hungry!)

So, general pattern was to queue until 7-ish when they opened the doors and let us all pile in out of the Arctic conditions which prevailed every Tuesday evening without fail even when the weather during the rest of the week was tropical! We were then seated in the auditorium which, even from the back was fairly close to the action. Luckily (and occasionally thanks to Janet taking no nonsense from anyone!)we always ended up with a good view, not always of Steve, but a good view none the less.

Eventually, one of the writers, Andy Hamilton, will pop up from somewhere, usually dressed like a Battenburg cake (Neil Pearson's words, not mine!) or at least a man who has got dressed in the dark. His role for the evening is *Warm-up Man*, and very good he is too. He fills in the gaps by explaining what is going on, all the technical stuff and a bit of background info about the show and the cast. He obviously does not allow for repeat visitors so his routine is the same every week. To get us all going, he spins some tale of having recorded some Gulf War footage of Damien, but not being able to afford the soundtrack, so the audience is divided up into shells, tanks, machine guns and dead, dying and wounded (yeeeeaaaaayyyyyy!!!). Having been a 'machine gun' for the last four weeks, I have always hankered after being 'dead, dying and wounded'. Imagine my disappointment when I at last get to sit in the right place, but he has changed the routine. This time it was Christians v Lions. Fortunately, there was still a role for the 'dead, dying and wounded'! Mind you, as is usually the way, as soon as I got to be dead, dying and wounded, I had a sudden urge to be a shell . . .
So, on with the show. The cast are presented one by one (applause-related pay, so cheer loudly!) and the action starts. Mostly it runs very smoothly and it's very easy to follow what's going on. Once you get used to the constant cries of 'roll to record', 'just checking that, folks' and 'we're picking it up from . . .', then you can sit back and relax.

Really, it's exactly as you see it on the screen, obviously not joined up and with a few people walking around, but it's easy to follow. The whole process takes two to two and a half hours depending on how many pick-ups they have to do, or how well the cast behave themselves.

The best thing about going is not seeing it recorded, but hearing and seeing what goes on behind the scenes where the actors are concerned. How else would you learn about the time Steve's precious eyebrow was injured by Neil in a game of table tennis, or why Neil was rushed to hospital during a game of imaginary baseball (no ball and a hoover attachment-bat!). Highlight for me was Steve telling his 'fish-cakes' joke . . .

Man goes into a fishmongers with a salmon under his arm. He covers the salmon's ears and whispers 'Do you sell fish cakes?'
'Of course,' replies the fishmonger.
'Phew,' says the man. 'It's his birthday tomorrow'
CUE LAUGHTER . . .

Of course, you have to try to make the most of every opportunity you're given in life, so we wasted no time in offering Steve money to take his clothes off. Unfortunately, whatever we bid was topped by Neil who was paying Steve to keep them on. We were about to make our final offer when we realised that Dervla was in the audience that night, sitting behind Tim and looking a touch 'Halloween-esque'! (it's the long black wig . . . )

So, to sum up, it was definitely worth the queueing and the umpteen phone calls to finally see behind the scenes of the last ever series. Just a shame that we won't be able to use our wealth of experience in DtDD queueing on another series . . .