Scale It Back - the reunion!

When I moved to Redditch, I had no idea it was the national hub of Star Wars figure collectors' events, but it is - a couple of times a year, a huge space in the Kingfisher Centre is dedicated to an astonishing volume of toys, costumes, exhibits and celebrity guests! The one today was particularly special, because the theme was Jabba's Palace!

Return of the Jedi was my Star Wars - it was the first of the films I saw, and the time when I first got into the world of toys, books, comics and all the Return of the Jedi merchandise flooding the shops in the early eighties! And obviously the coolest part of the film was Jabba and his palace full of fantastic monsters!

Which made it especially cool when, twelve years ago, I had the opportunity to star in the fantastic music video to Scale It Back, by DJ Shadow, and meet Toby Philpott, left arm of Jabba the Hutt! Most people who appeared in that video must have found it the strangest collection of costumes they'd ever seen gathered together in one place, but Toby, seen here at rehearsal with the monkey puppet, had a collection of much wilder experiences to tell us all about!

He was a guest at Jabba's Palace today, and I and my brother (memorably represented by a cardboard cut-out in the music video) went along and said hello. It was a great reunion, and maybe we should track down some of the other stars of that day! They should make action figures, in fact, and hold big collector fairs for them a few years later!