- 2 months ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Υπότιτλοι AUTHORWAVE
00:30Υπότιτλοι AUTHORWAVE
01:00...when Barry and I took over, we got stuck with various decisions by our predecessors, all of them bad.
01:08I mean, there was to exile the Doctor to Earth, which was purely financial, because, you know, you could go out and do things more or less in the streets.
01:18So Barry and I both felt that we should reverse that decision. And in fact, you see, it's reversed eventually. It took us a long time in this show.
01:28Writer Terence Dix had come on board as script editor in 1969, and was soon joined by Barry Letts, ex-actor and director of the 1967 story, Enemy of the World.
01:40Oh, how pretty crockery this is. Sad, really, isn't it? People spend all their time making nice things, and other people come along and break them.
01:50Barry Letts joined as producer, and he and I sort of hit it off immediately.
01:56The team oversaw the heady days of Unit, a great success all round. But a certain birthday was approaching. Since its first broadcast on the 23rd of November 1963, Doctor Who was reaching its 10th birthday.
02:11At the beginning of every season, we'd like to have some kind of special show. And in particular, you know, this was an anniversary show, so we wanted something particularly special.
02:23So Barry and I retired to the BBC bar. Well, we spent a fair amount of time, actually, to be honest.
02:31One of the things that Terence and I came up with when we were discussing, having the perennial discussion about what we should have as the first story of the...
02:41of the new season, was the idea that the Doctor should meet himself in his previous incarnations.
02:51Well, strangely enough, it came from the fans, because it was the sort of things that fan letters write in, saying, you know,
02:58why don't you have the Daleks battling the Cybermen, or something like that, you know, which we always thought were dumb.
03:05It wasn't particularly our idea, because people had often come up to me and said, I've got a marvellous idea, why doesn't the Doctor meet himself?
03:13Why don't you have all the Doctors appear together, you see, and we'd look at that and say, God, daft, you know.
03:18And in our discussions, we suddenly thought, well, why are we so against it? Because it's rather a nice idea.
03:25We, you know, and we said, well, all right, let's try.
03:29So I thought, well, let's find out if it's possible.
03:32And I rang Pat Trout and I said, well, would you be up for it? And he said, well, yes.
03:37And then there was the first Doctor himself, William Hartnell.
03:41Ill health had forced him to retire from the role in 1966.
03:44I rang Bill Hartnell's number and I got Bill. And I explained and said, would you like to do it?
03:52He said, oh, yes, I would love to do it, you see.
03:55So with all the Doctors willing, someone had to actually write a script.
03:58We decided Bob Baker and Dave Martin should write it, collectively known as the Bristol Boys.
04:04Bob and Dave, an animator and ad-man respectively, had started writing together in the mid-1960s.
04:10We had a call from London and so we went to see them and that's when I first met Terence and I think it was Barry Letts.
04:18They took us to the bar and got us absolutely drunk and they said, well, do you know what we do?
04:23I said, no. And they said, well, we do Doctor Who. I said, oh, great, fantastic.
04:28The probably rather blurry meeting resulted in their first commission, a four-parter for season eight.
04:35We were having problems with Axos because it was our first one, you know, and we had lots of relax to do on that.
04:39Lots of fiddly things, you know, that we hadn't overlooked because we were very young at it, you know.
04:46Claws of Axos, I sort of took all their mad storylines, boiled them down, sat down and wrote the storyline myself
04:54and gave them the storyline and said, write this. I said, go away and write this and don't change it.
05:01You know, even then it came back pretty extravagant.
05:03They were a lot of trouble, but they were worth the effort because they were wildly original writers.
05:10So Bob and Dave were asked back and started digging around for inspiration.
05:16The book just came out, which was called Black Holes.
05:19We both read it and we said, well, let's do something about this.
05:22You know, we'll get the black hole idea, you know, the idea of the event horizon and, you know,
05:28anything comes, anything can happen once you're inside the event horizon.
05:33We got this super, super time lord called Omega who'd set up all the time traveling stuff
05:39and that was a good, you know, nice plot point, that structure thing because it brought it back to them.
05:44The time lords, well, things are pretty serious.
05:47Yes, they are.
05:49He knew them, you know, it was a nice sort of third thing.
05:53All my life I've known of you and honoured you as our greatest hero.
05:56Fuck you, you know.
05:57I could have been a god, you know, that kind of line.
06:00We love those sort of things.
06:02Well, theoretically, of course, all this is quite impossible.
06:05I remember we got the episodes, episode one done,
06:10and then we had this big bombshell that William Hartnell was ill.
06:16Now aged 64, Hartnell had advanced arteriosclerosis,
06:20allowing him only occasional periods of lucidity.
06:23The whole thing was announced and everything and it got underway
06:26and then Barry got a phone call from Mrs Hartnell
06:30and said, Bill seems to think he's going to be in a Doctor Who, is that right?
06:35And I said, well, yes, we haven't done anything by contracts and things yet
06:39because we don't know exactly what his involvement will be
06:42until we get all the scripts in, but yes, I did ask him.
06:45She said, he couldn't do it.
06:47She said, you must have got him on one of his good days,
06:50you know, when he was feeling bright and cheerful.
06:52but she said there was really no way that he could, you know,
06:56support the strain of doing an entire show.
07:00So, you know, immediate sort of crisis meetings and things, you see.
07:05Now we were stuck with the three Doctors by this time.
07:07It had gone out in the publicity and all the rest of it.
07:10So, Terence sat down and, with the permission of the Bristol Boys, rewrote it.
07:20There probably wasn't any footage that would fit in easily, you know,
07:23because Billy, bless him, was all in black and white.
07:26So, I said to Barry, can we have a little of him?
07:31You know, is there any, could he do a minimal appearance, as it were,
07:34just show his face so that we can call it the three Doctors?
07:38I'd established that it would be okay with his wife
07:42if he sat in a chair and just read his lines off a board.
07:48They took him to Ealing, I think,
07:50and they sent a car for him, took him there in the car,
07:53sat him down in a chair against black, you know, costume and make-up,
07:57sat him down in a chair against black drapes,
07:59and then all his lines, of which there were only, you know, a dozen or so,
08:05were written on prompt things
08:07and somebody would hold them up and he just had to read the line.
08:10And he did it and he did it perfectly well and it works very well.
08:16What we did was to keep a tape of the sound of it
08:23and play it in at the relevant times in the rehearsals
08:26so that Patrick and John got used to talking to him
08:31as if he was really there.
08:33So when we got into the studio
08:34and actually played in the film that we'd done into the monitor,
08:39it felt absolutely natural and it worked very well.
08:45Ah, there you are.
08:48I seem to be stuck up here.
08:49He only appears on the TARDIS monitor screen
08:52and says the occasional caustic line
08:55and ticks the others off, you see.
08:56It just shows what an amazing man he was.
08:58There he was, you know, basically not long before he died,
09:02having had, I think, several strokes over a period of time.
09:07So it took a long time to shoot.
09:11Have you done anything?
09:13Well, we've assessed the situation.
09:15Just as I thought.
09:18Nothing.
09:18Well, we got away with it, you know, just about.
09:22William Hartnell died just three years later.
09:26The Three Doctors was his final appearance in the role that he created
09:29and still goes on.
09:35Hired as director was TV veteran Lenny Main,
09:37who had helmed the previous year's story,
09:39The Curse of Peladon.
09:42Lenny Main, who was Australian.
09:44Now, originally, Lenny Main was a dancer.
09:45I can't remember exactly who recommended Lenny Main to me.
09:50He was a great friend of Dudley Simpson,
09:54the chap who did our music.
09:56They were both Australians
09:57and they both had contact with ballet.
10:00Lenny Main was a wonderful man,
10:02sort of, oh, had huge energy.
10:06He sort of vibrated, if you stood next to him,
10:08like a very taut wire.
10:10He was a lovely man, delightful.
10:12And he was a true, you know,
10:15Ocker-Ozzy.
10:16Was our Lenny.
10:17He was a naughty little boy.
10:20But a wonderful, wonderful director.
10:23John adored him as well.
10:25And because he had this very quirky sense of humour,
10:28but he had that lovely Australian thing of, you know,
10:30saying how it is,
10:32he did.
10:34And I think that kept the whole thing,
10:37once again, with a humour,
10:39was being injected by Lenny.
10:41Lenny dealt with this brilliantly.
10:43Goodbye.
10:44It's been so nice to meet me.
10:47Yes, I see what you mean.
10:49I hope I don't meet me again.
10:51Another person who's gone.
10:54It's, uh,
10:54I'm getting to that age in life now
10:56where a lot of people are leaving me
10:58and going to the great thing TARDIS in the sky.
11:01But there was one more major casting decision to make.
11:04The script dictated that Omega wore a mask all the time,
11:07so it needed an actor with great vocal presence.
11:10Step-up experienced radio and theatre performer Stephen Thorne.
11:14I'd done one other Doctor Who.
11:16I'd been at Stratford for three years.
11:19I'd been at the Old Vic for a year.
11:21I'd been at Bristol Old Vic for a time.
11:24and what else was I doing at the time?
11:28I was doing a lot of radio.
11:29That's when I first began my love affair with radio,
11:32which lasted a very long time.
11:34And I was asked if I'd like to do it,
11:36and I said yes,
11:37and they said,
11:38right, come along and do it.
11:39I think on the strength of Azhar.
11:40This action does not thrill it!
11:45Stephen had played Azhar
11:46in the previous season's finale, The Demons.
11:49I think Azhar was the first mask I ever wore.
11:52And you're not quite sure,
11:54because you can't see,
11:57you don't know what the mask is looking like
12:00when you do a particular thing.
12:02It doesn't move.
12:03Your face doesn't move,
12:04the facial muscles,
12:04so it doesn't make faces.
12:07And you tend to go way over the top,
12:10thinking, well, I must compensate for this.
12:12I must shout,
12:13and I must be bigger and louder and louder.
12:15All these things exist
12:17because I will them to exist.
12:21If I had to play it again,
12:23it might be interesting to make it
12:25a little more quiet
12:26and a little more caressing
12:28and a little more cat-like
12:30and come along,
12:31what do you think you're doing?
12:32I'm the most important person here.
12:34I'm far more important than you are.
12:36So there's no real point in making it fuss, is there?
12:40Come, the mask!
12:43We had a producer's run-through.
12:46Barry Letts came round to the dressing room
12:49and said,
12:50Stephen, there's just one point,
12:52very good,
12:52he said,
12:53but there's just one point I'd make.
12:54When you take off the mask
12:56and you're seen to have no face at all,
13:01I used to make a huge, great howling, yowling thing.
13:08He'd brought some children
13:10to see this producer's run
13:11and he said,
13:12I think that's a bit much,
13:13he said,
13:14I wonder if you could take it down a bit.
13:15and that rather threw me
13:19because I thought,
13:19no, that's the sort of,
13:20that is the moment of Omega's performance.
13:23It's all building to that
13:24and everybody's waiting,
13:26you take off and there's nothing there.
13:28What does he do?
13:29He doesn't do nothing.
13:31He's, you know,
13:31and so,
13:32anyway,
13:33I took it down a bit
13:34and I think it still worked,
13:37but it wasn't what I originally was doing.
13:40When I took the mask off
13:42and there was nothing,
13:44I wore this yellow hood
13:46against a blue background
13:47that the yellow would be taken out
13:49and so it would look as though
13:50there was nothing there
13:51and nothing happened
13:52and nothing happened
13:53and the boy said,
13:54Stephen, what's the matter?
13:55I said,
13:56what do you mean,
13:56what's the matter?
13:57They said,
13:57well,
13:57we've been waving at you to go
13:59and giving you a cue
14:00for the last five minutes.
14:01I said,
14:01well,
14:01I can't see anything.
14:02I've got this stocking over my head
14:04so somebody had to crouch down beside me
14:07and bang me on the foot
14:08to give me a cue.
14:16So rehearsals could start
14:17but even just two Doctors
14:19meant two Doctor-sized egos.
14:22After three seasons,
14:24John Pertwee was now well-established in the role
14:26and much loved by cast and crew.
14:29John Pertwee was a wonderful piece of casting
14:33for Doctor Who
14:34It was also his first serious role.
14:38He took this to heart
14:41and he was,
14:42you know,
14:42the leader of our team
14:43in the sense of his character.
14:45It was very,
14:46very important to him
14:47that this worked.
14:48Pertwee started out
14:49as a comedy and cabaret performer
14:51and his Doctor's love of stunts
14:52and gadgetry
14:53came from Pertwee himself.
14:55He was a swashbuckling hero.
14:57I mean, the man went deep-sea diving.
15:00There was nothing he hadn't done.
15:02Racing cars.
15:04He was extraordinary.
15:05and he was so tall
15:09and so...
15:09His inner core
15:11was so strong
15:13and yet he had this incredible
15:15kind of ethereal quality
15:17that gave you the belief
15:20that he could be 2,000 years old.
15:22When he walked onto a set,
15:25it was just...
15:26You knew he was there
15:27before you even saw him.
15:29But how was he going to get on
15:30with the mercurial,
15:31mischievous Patrick Troughton?
15:33Not at all well
15:34was how they worked together.
15:36John was very fussy about the script
15:38and he would niggle and say,
15:40what does this mean?
15:41I can't say this, whatever.
15:42But once he'd been through it,
15:44it was like kind of set in stone.
15:46Once you got him happy
15:47and he was what they called
15:49in the trade letter perfect.
15:50He would know line by line.
15:52Patrick, on the other hand,
15:53intended to deliver
15:54a rough approximation of the line.
15:57It always made sense.
15:59But, you know,
16:00if the line was,
16:01come in, my dear chap, sit down,
16:03he might say that.
16:05He might say,
16:05oh, hello, there you are.
16:07Why don't you have a seat?
16:08And it always made perfect sense,
16:10but it wasn't what was typed
16:11on the script, you see.
16:13John would say,
16:13have you finished, you know?
16:18Is that what you're going to say
16:19in rehearsal?
16:21And Patrick would say,
16:22don't you bother
16:23about what I'm going to say,
16:25just think about
16:25what you've got to say.
16:27And John would say,
16:27well, what am I,
16:28how am I supposed to know
16:29what I'm going to say
16:30until I've heard
16:31what you're going to say?
16:32And so there'd be a sort of
16:34slightly irritated interchange.
16:39They, in the end,
16:40became very, very good friends.
16:42Those two were splendid.
16:43The sort of mercurial Pat Troughton
16:46leaping about,
16:47never far from a joke,
16:49humour in his eyes all the time.
16:51Pertwee, also very funny,
16:54but more of a workaholic
16:56and more of a control freak,
17:00I suppose, in a way.
17:01Everything had to be just so for him.
17:03I am he, and he is me.
17:05And we are all together,
17:06go, go, Kichu?
17:07What?
17:08It's a song by the Beatles.
17:09Oh, how does it go?
17:09Oh, please be quiet.
17:10And I remember once
17:12when we first tried the mask on
17:14in a rehearsal.
17:16I brought the mask on
17:17and it's very difficult
17:18to see through.
17:19You only have tiny sort of
17:20pinpoints to look through.
17:22And I couldn't really see
17:24where I was
17:24and I kept sort of
17:25missing my mark.
17:27And if I missed my mark,
17:28Pertwee would come up behind me
17:29and very gently move me
17:30and say,
17:31I'm sorry, Stephen,
17:32because I won't be able
17:33to see the camera
17:34if you're there.
17:35and Troughton said,
17:37what are you doing?
17:38Why are you doing that?
17:39He said, well,
17:39I can't.
17:40I can't see the camera.
17:41It's no good.
17:42It can't see me if I...
17:43And Pat Troughton said,
17:45what do you mean?
17:46They don't want to see us.
17:47It's the monsters
17:48they want to see.
17:50And Pertwee was a little
17:51put out by that
17:53and said, well, no,
17:54I think, yes,
17:55I think we are quite important,
17:57he said.
17:58You've got no right
17:59to be here.
18:00You're talking about
18:00the first law of time.
18:01Perhaps I could explain.
18:03Perhaps you could.
18:03We persuaded John
18:04to be a bit more flexible
18:05and, in fact,
18:06to stick a little closer
18:07to the script,
18:08you know, by and large.
18:10And, again, you know,
18:11and the nice thing was,
18:12of course,
18:13is that in their scenes
18:15there was tension
18:15and rivalry between them
18:17and in the actual acting
18:19there was tension
18:20and rivalry between them,
18:21you know.
18:22My dear fellow,
18:23you are being a bit dim,
18:24aren't you?
18:25Your effectiveness
18:26is now doubled.
18:27Halved, more like.
18:28There's this lovely difference
18:30between this kind of
18:30very down-to-earth,
18:31trampy sort of guy
18:32and this rather
18:32fae sort of chap,
18:34because, well,
18:35I think the first doctor
18:36said, well,
18:37who were my replacements?
18:38A hairdresser and a clown.
18:40But I'd think
18:41they cut hairdresser
18:42and put something else.
18:43Oh, so you're
18:44my replacements.
18:46A dandy and a clown.
18:48Well, I'm very pleased
18:48to have the credit for that,
18:50you know,
18:50because it's a great line,
18:51a dandy and a clown.
18:53With rehearsals done
18:54and everything prepared,
18:55the shoot days loomed.
18:57But given the demands
18:58of the script,
18:59there was going to have
18:59to be a fair bit
19:00of location filming
19:01as opposed to
19:02studio videotaping.
19:04It was the filming thing
19:05which was always the problem.
19:07And they'd say,
19:07we've only got,
19:08what,
19:09five minutes or seven minutes
19:12film in each episode.
19:13Now, you could save them up
19:14and have a big one,
19:16or you could have
19:16a half one and a half one,
19:18you know,
19:18but it was all,
19:19that jump from telecine
19:21to studio
19:22was always a bit of a,
19:23you know.
19:23So,
19:25the team needed
19:25to find locations
19:26for a wildlife park,
19:29Unit HQ,
19:30oh,
19:30and an alternative universe
19:32created by an insane time lord,
19:34all near each other
19:35and close enough to London.
19:37That's impossible.
19:39Well,
19:39apparently not.
19:41Luck was on the team's side
19:42because all three locations
19:43were found at Denham
19:44in Buckinghamshire,
19:46only an hour's drive
19:47from TV Centre.
19:49Unit HQ was Denham House,
19:50now a home for the elderly.
19:53The wildlife sanctuary
20:13was actually Springwell Lake,
20:15and it hasn't changed much
20:16in nearly 40 years.
20:18And just over the bridge
20:20is Denham Quarry,
20:21which became Omega's Domain,
20:23although he's let the grass
20:25grow a little since 1972.
20:31The locations all had to look
20:33like another planet.
20:35So we lived and died
20:36in quarries and clay pits.
20:39But they are perfect
20:40to get that feeling
20:41of nothingness.
20:42but boy in January,
20:45can I tell you
20:46how bleak
20:47and cold.
20:50I mean,
20:50there were times
20:51when I was blue
20:52with the cold.
20:54And John and all the men
20:55got to wear long johns
20:56and, you know,
20:57they got the vests
20:59and the, you know,
21:00all the thermals.
21:02There's only so much
21:03you can wear
21:03under a miniskirt.
21:05and I remember
21:06I even wore blue stockings
21:08for that one
21:08because my legs
21:09used to turn blue
21:11with cold.
21:11So I thought,
21:12well, I know how
21:13I'll deal with that.
21:13I'll just wear blue tights
21:15as well.
21:15And then it was back
21:16to TV centre
21:17and into studio
21:18and time
21:19was always tight.
21:21We used to always go
21:22on the last day
21:24if we went.
21:25We didn't go to all
21:26of them, obviously,
21:26but it was always quite fun
21:27to go on the last day
21:28of shooting
21:29for the last hour
21:31or so,
21:31last couple of hours
21:32before the lights went out
21:34and it was a wrap,
21:35you know,
21:36and we'd go for
21:36a little drink afterwards.
21:37We went to see
21:38the end of Three Doctors
21:39the last few hours
21:40and the unions
21:42were incredibly strict
21:44and if you went
21:45a minute over seven
21:46or a second over seven
21:47the lights went out
21:48and knowing this
21:50the director
21:50was saying,
21:52I think we're going
21:53to get in time.
21:53Come on, come on.
21:54I can see you
21:54get more and more nervous
21:56and then we finally
21:57got to the last shot
21:58and they said,
21:59OK, John,
21:59just start the TARDIS.
22:02It's not reacting
22:06and he sort of goes
22:08he said,
22:10oh, can I go again?
22:11I said, what's the matter?
22:12He said,
22:12I've done the sequence wrong.
22:14He said,
22:14it doesn't fly.
22:15There's only one thing for it.
22:16I'll have to send an SOS.
22:19I hate having to call them
22:20but there we are.
22:23The Three Doctors
22:24was actually broadcast
22:25from the 30th of December 1972
22:27to the 20th of January 1973,
22:30the very start
22:31of the anniversary year.
22:33The Three Doctors
22:35went down a treat
22:35with fans
22:36and the casual viewer alike.
22:38It's a fitting testament
22:39to producer Barry Lentz,
22:41the man who guided Doctor Who
22:42through one of its
22:43most successful periods.
22:45I crossed the void
22:47beyond the mind
22:48The empty space
22:51that circles time
22:52I see where others
22:55stumble blind
22:56To seek a truth
22:58they'll never find
22:59Eternal wisdom
23:01is my time
23:02I am
23:05the doctor
23:06I am
23:07the doctor
23:07In search
23:09I am
23:09the doctor
23:10I am
23:11the doctor
23:12the lady
23:13who
23:14thought
23:14grew a lot
Recommended
46:47
0:23
5:23
18:14
47:13
42:00
33:05
1:26:32
1:29:58
51:47
45:39
47:51
48:03
50:29
46:34
44:54
51:26
1:38:06
24:43
51:48
Be the first to comment