So here we have my signed copy of Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking.
And not just signed - it's inscribed to her 'beloved Stevyn'.
Sigh.
You can imagine our excitement at QI when, in 2014, Stephen Fry announced that he'd asked his friend Carrie to appear on the show. Princess Leia! The revengeful girlfriend in The Blues Brothers! For many of us older types, Carrie Fisher was the dream woman of our late teens. And our excitement reached fever pitch when she turned up at the studios a few weeks later to watch a few episodes to get a sense of how the show worked. She sat with us 'elves' in the Green Room during recordings and asked us questions. We got to ask her questions about her career too. And then she announced that she'd be happy to appear on the Christmas show.
What you see here is two grown men who, just like me, were incredibly excited to be sharing the stage with Princess Leia. The show ended with an explosive stunt for which ear defenders were required. Robert, our late and much-missed costume guy, somehow managed to make Carrie's look like her iconic Star Wars hair do and she wore it with glee.
The stunt involved an oil drum, some liquid nitrogen in a sealed plastic drinks bottle and lots of ping pong balls. As the nitrogen warmed up and turned to gas the bottle exploded and BANG! I filmed it from the wings of the stage on my phone.
Knowing Carrie was going to be on the show, I bought myself a copy of Wishful Drinking - as I'd recently seen and loved the stage show. Would she sign it for me, I wondered?
She exceeded all my hopes and it's a book I will treasure for as long as I live.
Enjoy your New Year's Eve celebrations tonight folks - hope they go with a bang!
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