WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:23.680 In December 1964, Doctor Who was into its second year. 00:23.680 --> 00:27.420 And although the viewers had a short break in early autumn, the regular cast had been 00:27.420 --> 00:31.040 recording Doctor Who every week for over 12 months. 00:31.040 --> 00:33.560 It's all most out, isn't it? Most out. 00:33.560 --> 00:38.080 Perhaps surprisingly, however, it wasn't the workload that led to the first departure 00:38.080 --> 00:43.020 of a regular cast member, but the rather more theatrical concerns of character development 00:43.020 --> 00:44.020 and typecasting. 00:44.020 --> 00:50.760 It was a surprise. She complained a lot to us, you know, that all she had to do was scream, 00:50.760 --> 00:59.680 and that was what was wrong, and she really wanted something juicy to act, and she felt 00:59.680 --> 01:05.140 she wasn't getting it, and I think she talked to Verity about it, and she certainly talked 01:05.140 --> 01:09.820 to us about it. And so in a sense it wasn't a surprise. 01:09.820 --> 01:14.000 She had been one of the original companions, and I suppose in these days, these were your 01:14.000 --> 01:18.520 sort of four friends that went through time and space, and you were kind of sad that one 01:18.520 --> 01:19.520 of them had left. 01:19.520 --> 01:21.920 I'd better clear up my cupboard. Isn't it dreadful, Muddle? 01:21.920 --> 01:26.120 Yes, you little monkey. You know, since you've been away from that school, you seem to have 01:26.120 --> 01:28.400 got yourself thoroughly disorganised. 01:28.400 --> 01:34.880 Carol was the sort of perfect casting for Doctor Who's granddaughter. I mean, she was 01:34.880 --> 01:43.440 amazing. She did have this unearthly strangeness about her, and I don't think anyone ever attempted 01:43.440 --> 01:45.440 to follow that. I mean, you couldn't. 01:45.440 --> 01:49.560 When Susan left, particularly with that very sad music that they have at the end of A Delicate 01:49.560 --> 01:53.040 Vision of Earth, and the key and the stars and everything else, you felt, oh, that's 01:53.040 --> 01:57.480 really very sad. I wonder what's going to happen next. 01:57.480 --> 02:03.480 Carol Ann Ford's decision to leave upset the star of the show. William Hartnell even wrote 02:03.480 --> 02:06.000 to her, asking her to reconsider her decision. 02:06.000 --> 02:08.880 Goodbye, Susan. Goodbye, my dear. 02:08.880 --> 02:15.560 He couldn't understand that, you know. When you're in success, you know, stay in success, 02:15.560 --> 02:18.840 you know, don't leave. He couldn't understand that. 02:18.840 --> 02:25.120 I think he was upset at having to get to work with a new young companion. I don't remember 02:25.120 --> 02:29.680 any particular incident there, but I think there was just a general feeling that he felt 02:29.680 --> 02:36.380 that he'd got to get to know someone else, just when he'd broken in nicely with her. 02:36.380 --> 02:40.920 Having decided that the new girl should also be a teenager, Verity Lambert and her team 02:40.920 --> 02:46.040 began creating her character. They decided that she should be an earth orphan from the 02:46.040 --> 02:52.240 future, stranded on a far distant planet. They considered various names for her, including 02:52.240 --> 03:00.160 both the exotic and the frankly odd. Among these were Lucky, with two Ks, and Tanny. 03:00.160 --> 03:03.160 Susan back then in the 60s, there was quite a few girls called Susan, so it was quite 03:03.160 --> 03:10.000 a normal, sort of ordinary name. But things like Tanny, I never knew a girl called Tanny, 03:10.000 --> 03:13.260 or some of the other names that there were quite a few, I think, that they were going 03:13.260 --> 03:18.080 to give to this new companion. What was interesting, it wasn't Victoria, it wasn't a shortening 03:18.080 --> 03:21.960 of Victoria, because I think in the rescue it specifies she's actually called Vicki, 03:21.960 --> 03:25.580 V-I-C-K-I. The production team considered an array of 03:25.580 --> 03:30.960 actresses before narrowing the field to a final two. One of these was a promising young 03:30.960 --> 03:36.480 performer, Maureen O'Brien. Fresh out of drama school, Maureen had just started her first 03:36.480 --> 03:41.240 job at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool. A wonderful guy who taught me at Central, 03:41.240 --> 03:46.240 at the Central School of Speech and Drama, Harry Moore, sent me a telegram saying, chance 03:46.240 --> 03:52.160 of work on telly, phone me. So I phoned him, and this is a measure of my innocence at the 03:52.160 --> 04:00.800 time. I said, but Harry, I've already got a job. He said, don't be silly, darling, 04:00.800 --> 04:04.240 and he said, they're replacing the girl in Doctor Who and they're looking for someone 04:04.240 --> 04:09.240 else. I went to see Verity, who was terribly sweet 04:09.240 --> 04:16.680 to me, and she said, come back and do a screen test. And I got the part. And suddenly I had 04:16.680 --> 04:23.840 to leave the Everyman, and I also suddenly found myself besieged by journalists. It was 04:23.840 --> 04:29.080 a complete shock. Vicki's first story was entrusted to outgoing 04:29.080 --> 04:35.640 story editor David Whittaker. The rescue was envisaged very much as a vehicle for the new 04:35.640 --> 04:38.480 companion. I think the thing about the rescue that was 04:38.480 --> 04:44.360 fascinating was it was so short, and certainly focused much more on the companions than it 04:44.360 --> 04:47.680 did on anything else. It was very much a character-driven story. 04:47.680 --> 04:54.560 It seemed a little bit put together in a bit of a rush, which I think it was. But I mean, 04:54.560 --> 04:59.520 David, in fact, did do the main thing, and the main thing was to introduce this new girl 04:59.520 --> 05:04.520 and see how attractive she was and how easy she was and how the Doctor liked her and we 05:04.520 --> 05:10.360 liked her. That was covered. When I began the first episode, my kind of 05:10.360 --> 05:17.720 being found like Miranda in The Tempest on this deserted planet with my Caliban, I did 05:17.720 --> 05:20.480 find that rewarding because that was a bit of acting. 05:20.480 --> 05:30.480 She was happy, she was sad, she was angry. All the emotions were sort of carefully explored. 05:30.480 --> 05:36.120 I think it was a very good audition, as it were, for her. 05:36.120 --> 05:44.000 Sidney Newman, who was the kind of big boss, whom I liked very much, he was a very straightforward, 05:44.000 --> 05:48.360 not to say rude, man. But I appreciated that because I come from Liverpool and that's how 05:48.360 --> 05:53.840 I talk to people, so it seemed okay to me. And he came down onto the floor and he said, 05:53.840 --> 05:59.680 we're thinking of having you cut your hair and dye it dark. And I said, why don't you 05:59.680 --> 06:07.640 just get Caroline Ford back? I said, I'm going to cut my hair and dye it when I leave Doctor 06:07.640 --> 06:13.600 Who, not while I'm in it. She was kind of introduced as the new companion, 06:13.600 --> 06:18.400 so you kind of knew that she was before she actually became, but that was, I think, just 06:18.400 --> 06:19.880 a day or so before the actual show. 06:19.880 --> 06:25.160 Then as the rescue ships land and it's arrived, we'll be taken back. Isn't it marvellous? 06:25.160 --> 06:31.480 I was happy to welcome her. I knew of her. I'd seen her work and thought she was a very 06:31.480 --> 06:38.040 good little actress. She's also very charming, very intelligent and pleasant to have on the 06:38.040 --> 06:39.040 set. 06:39.040 --> 06:47.480 I found Jackie and Russell and Bill and Verity and the directors, all of them, very welcoming 06:47.480 --> 06:52.920 and lovely and very kind to me because I was an innocent abroad. Jackie and Bill especially 06:52.920 --> 06:54.520 looked after me very, very well. 06:54.520 --> 06:59.600 We all liked her very much and she was a very intelligent girl and a good, a very good actress, 06:59.600 --> 07:06.000 I think. And she managed to get a lot into the rescue. 07:06.000 --> 07:10.000 And I can remember Carol Ann Ford turning up on the first, my first day of rehearsal 07:10.000 --> 07:16.200 to say, I had a wonderful time and good luck and I thought that was very sweet. 07:16.200 --> 07:20.320 Assigned to direct The Rescue was Christopher Barry, who had directed the first appearance 07:20.320 --> 07:22.320 of the Daleks the year before. 07:22.320 --> 07:27.840 The director, Christopher Barry, was one of the sort of stalwart directors of Doctor Who 07:27.840 --> 07:33.080 really and he was very nice to work with, very thorough, very good. 07:33.080 --> 07:41.640 I liked Chris. I mean, he was, he was very easy to get on with as a director, very. And 07:41.640 --> 07:45.600 he got a move on, you know, he didn't waste time. 07:45.600 --> 07:49.840 In a new approach for the series, The Rescue was to use the same production team as the 07:49.840 --> 07:56.080 four-part story that followed, The Romans. For recording purposes, the two stories were 07:56.080 --> 08:00.240 treated as a single six-episode block. 08:00.240 --> 08:05.120 Blocks of six seemed to be a favourable length of time, either for storytelling or to run 08:05.120 --> 08:12.920 budgets to or something. But yes, and it was obviously worthwhile doing the filming for 08:12.920 --> 08:14.640 both stories together. 08:14.640 --> 08:19.720 The filming at Ealing Studios was primarily concerned with the model sequences. These 08:19.720 --> 08:25.080 models were built by an outside contractor to the specifications of the programme's designer, 08:25.080 --> 08:26.080 Raymond Cusick. 08:26.080 --> 08:34.680 Shawcraft models were excellent model makers. They couldn't design, which I discovered quite 08:34.680 --> 08:39.480 early on. Usually with a good visual effects designer, you can scribble something on the 08:39.480 --> 08:46.160 back of an envelope and say, make that. And they go away, construct, design it and construct 08:46.160 --> 08:51.040 it. But with Shawcraft models, you had to spell it out to them. 08:51.040 --> 08:59.400 I prepared a drawing of the spacecraft as it would be in flight sort of thing. And then 08:59.400 --> 09:07.720 I did another drawing of the craft all crushed up and in bits. So they were from the two. 09:07.720 --> 09:11.280 I think if I'd have given them the second drawing, they couldn't have visualised it 09:11.280 --> 09:13.520 really, how it should look. 09:13.520 --> 09:18.680 Raymond Cusick and fellow designer Barry Newbury handled the lion's share of the design responsibilities 09:18.680 --> 09:21.960 on Doctor Who during its first two seasons. 09:21.960 --> 09:27.560 When Barry and I were doing the Doctor Who, we were doing alternating on the stories. 09:27.560 --> 09:33.960 There was a design continuity. And I noticed when I, after I left the programme and other 09:33.960 --> 09:41.720 designers were brought in on a turnaround, you know, that continuity went out the window. 09:41.720 --> 09:47.640 He was so inventive and nothing fazed him. He got on with things and he did wonderfully. 09:47.640 --> 09:53.480 I mean, going back to the Daleks, which is where we worked together first, it was wonderful 09:53.480 --> 09:54.800 creating them. 09:54.800 --> 10:03.000 With his limited budget, you know, he found things to do that were very imaginative, I 10:03.000 --> 10:04.960 think. 10:04.960 --> 10:10.480 You start off with a basic sum. How much money have you got? What can you afford? What can't 10:10.480 --> 10:20.880 you afford? Luckily, I discovered in some materials, basically reeded hardboard, which 10:20.880 --> 10:29.800 I use for the shell of the ship, sprayed silver, of course. So it was quite cheap to use and 10:29.800 --> 10:31.800 it was quite effective. 10:31.800 --> 10:36.720 Look, Vicky, I know how badly you want to get off this planet. We both want to get away, 10:36.720 --> 10:38.680 but it's no good building up our hopes. 10:38.680 --> 10:45.160 Working for the rescue was a fairly straightforward task, with only one other major speaking part. 10:45.160 --> 10:50.960 Originally considered for Bennett, and therefore Kekwilian, was Bernard Archard. In the end, 10:50.960 --> 10:54.320 the part went to Australian actor Ray Barrett. 10:54.320 --> 11:00.840 It was fun to work in it and I had a wall. I really enjoyed it. You just let yourself 11:00.840 --> 11:07.160 go. I mean, you've got tremendous license, haven't you, to play this character, Bennett, 11:07.160 --> 11:15.440 and then who changes into a monster, Kekwilian. And I remember vividly how uncomfortable that 11:15.440 --> 11:18.200 uniform was, you know, the monster. 11:18.200 --> 11:22.440 Ray Barrett started, of course, in Australia. He started, I believe, when he was very young. 11:22.440 --> 11:26.320 He did shows on the radio. He started working, I think, in a radio station. He came over 11:26.320 --> 11:32.040 to Britain in the end of the 1950s and he started Emergency War 10. 11:32.040 --> 11:40.320 Ray Barrett was an actor whom I had seen on a show once and it was impressed by. I liked 11:40.320 --> 11:48.040 his sort of rugged face and he had a sort of haunted look, I thought, about him, which 11:48.040 --> 11:50.160 would suit this character rather well. 11:50.160 --> 11:55.640 Anyway, I'd noted him down in my little notebook of actors and actresses whose performances 11:55.640 --> 12:01.560 I wanted to remember and I dug him out of the book when the time came. And I thought 12:01.560 --> 12:06.160 he did very well. I thought he served the part beautifully. 12:06.160 --> 12:13.440 I just played him as a normal, straight human being. I mean, I think that was important, 12:13.440 --> 12:22.480 not to give it away, do you know what I mean? So therefore, the contrast, playing this monster, 12:22.480 --> 12:25.880 was, had more impact, really. 12:25.880 --> 12:31.480 You have been outside. Stand up! 12:31.480 --> 12:36.920 Daphne Dare, the costume designer, designed Coquillion. She was an excellent designer. 12:36.920 --> 12:42.600 It was suitably repellent. From a little children's point of view, I think they were terrified 12:42.600 --> 12:43.600 when they first saw it. 12:43.600 --> 12:48.360 There was always the feeling, I think, even back then, is what's really underneath them. 12:48.360 --> 12:55.280 So whether you actually took the actual costume as being the character, whether it was what 12:55.280 --> 12:58.360 he was wearing and there was a creature underneath. 12:58.360 --> 13:03.280 There's a theme throughout Doctor Who, I think, that there's more than meets the eye. That's 13:03.280 --> 13:07.480 one of the themes right through the whole series, from the TARDIS being a police telephone 13:07.480 --> 13:13.280 box but really a spaceship, the Doctor looking human but actually not really being. There's 13:13.280 --> 13:17.480 something beyond the obvious. I think one of the philosophies, ideas of Doctor Who in 13:17.480 --> 13:23.200 the olden days was, look beyond, there is more to life than meets the eye. 13:23.200 --> 13:29.440 This used to be the people's hall of judgement. Fitting in the present circumstances, don't 13:29.440 --> 13:37.960 you think? Mr. Bennet, may I remind you that masks and robes such as you are wearing are 13:37.960 --> 13:45.360 only used on absolutely ceremonial occasions? Are you finished? 13:45.360 --> 13:51.320 I must mention Bill Hartnell, William Hartnell. He was a lovely character. He could upset 13:51.320 --> 14:04.160 a few people, you know. But I got on famously with him and had a ball. I gave him as good 14:04.160 --> 14:08.680 as he gave me, you see. And I think he respected that. 14:08.680 --> 14:14.560 For me, Bill Hartnell is the Doctor Who. I don't think any of the others have ever had 14:14.560 --> 14:19.680 this terrifying quality. He was mysterious. He was strange. And he 14:19.680 --> 14:26.160 was from another planet. Bill in real life did have a kind of suppressed 14:26.160 --> 14:32.240 rage, which was partly, I think, to do with his... he had a lot of bitterness about his 14:32.240 --> 14:40.000 life as an actor because he felt he had something really very big inside him to give. And he'd 14:40.000 --> 14:45.240 spent his life playing little sergeant majors, horrible little, snarling sergeant majors. 14:45.240 --> 14:51.640 So Doctor Who for him was a lifeline. And he grasped the end of that lifeline and he 14:51.640 --> 14:58.480 climbed up it and he knew that for him this was going to be the wonderful part of his 14:58.480 --> 15:02.120 life. And he really loved it. He did. He really enjoyed 15:02.120 --> 15:09.240 it, yes. Oh, goodness, when Jackie and I left, it was a real scene. I mean, it was awful. 15:09.240 --> 15:13.760 What's the matter? What is it? What is it? Oh, good gracious me. 15:13.760 --> 15:19.560 I quickly sussed out that he was a very irascible man and that he lost his temper at least three 15:19.560 --> 15:25.920 times a day with various things. There would always be little things, little nonsense things. 15:25.920 --> 15:32.560 I sussed this out and my role quickly became that of the person who laughed him out of 15:32.560 --> 15:40.400 his rages. I could laugh him out of anything. And that's what I did. And I spent as much 15:40.400 --> 15:45.960 energy doing that as I did acting. It just became my role in the family. 15:45.960 --> 15:54.560 My dear, why don't you come with us? In that old box? 15:54.560 --> 15:59.600 We can travel anywhere and everywhere in that old box, as you call it. 15:59.600 --> 16:05.280 I took him over to St. John's Wood. He lived in Sussex or somewhere. I don't know, one 16:05.280 --> 16:11.720 of the counties, southern counties. And for some reason he couldn't get back that night 16:11.720 --> 16:16.400 from filming or something or other. So I said, well, come with me. I'll take you over to 16:16.400 --> 16:21.880 St. John's Wood where I lived, made avail of St. John's Wood. And I found him a hotel 16:21.880 --> 16:28.920 and took him to my local pub and everything. And everybody was, you know, knocked out to 16:28.920 --> 16:34.360 see Doctor Who drinking a pint in their local, you know. 16:34.360 --> 16:39.600 The story was recorded at the BBC's Riverside Studios over two Fridays in early December 16:39.600 --> 16:46.040 1964. It was largely problem free, although there was an accident involving one of the 16:46.040 --> 16:47.360 visual effects. 16:47.360 --> 16:53.080 Jacqueline Hill was hurt in doing the rescue. But that was when she fired off this, what 16:53.080 --> 16:55.880 I call the very pistol. 16:55.880 --> 17:01.960 The trouble with special effects explosions is you can't exactly control them. And sometimes 17:01.960 --> 17:06.160 they're a bit bigger than you expect. And I don't know, in fact, how much we'd rehearsed 17:06.160 --> 17:11.680 that at this distance in time. I can't remember whether we'd rehearsed it or whether it was 17:11.680 --> 17:15.040 entirely new to her when it suddenly happened. 17:15.040 --> 17:20.160 Firing too soon on the first take, the explosion went off in Jacqueline Hill's face. Although 17:20.160 --> 17:25.160 it caused no lasting damage, she was highly startled by the incident. 17:25.160 --> 17:32.160 Jackie was so calm and usually you would notice if she was upset, certainly. 17:33.000 --> 17:37.540 To create the impression that the cliffs were overlooking the crashed spaceship, the production 17:37.540 --> 17:41.000 team used one of the few video effects available to them. 17:41.000 --> 17:42.120 Barbara, look! 17:42.120 --> 17:46.960 Inlay, that was done with a machine in the control room. And it was quite simple to use, 17:46.960 --> 17:51.800 really. And that was really our basic bit of trickery we could use. We used it quite 17:51.800 --> 17:53.680 a lot. 17:53.680 --> 18:00.040 It was done by putting a flat up and masking the person behind the flat and then putting 18:00.040 --> 18:06.440 something beyond them and shooting so you embrace both images. Now, that wasn't just 18:06.440 --> 18:13.440 done literally like that. It was done electronically because the background was a model. So one 18:15.000 --> 18:21.760 camera or it may have been telecine, I don't remember. If it wobbles, it was telecine. 18:21.760 --> 18:24.480 But if it's steady, then it was another camera. 18:24.480 --> 18:29.160 Come in. Come in, won't you? I've been waiting to talk to you. 18:29.160 --> 18:34.680 The story's climax featured the Dido Temple. The team used design and lighting to create 18:34.680 --> 18:37.260 a dark, foreboding atmosphere. 18:37.260 --> 18:44.260 This was done quite cheaply, mainly using black drapes with smoke and so on. And the 18:44.260 --> 18:51.260 lighting director was Howard King, who went on to become quite good at lighting. In fact, 18:54.740 --> 18:59.220 he was, in the end, ended up lighting first class dramas. 18:59.220 --> 19:06.220 All lighting engineers, as they were, were obviously keen to improve their reputation 19:06.220 --> 19:13.220 and keep the good standard of the production up. And those who were really good and moody 19:14.740 --> 19:21.740 and knew what they were doing got asked for all the time on the prestige drama productions. 19:22.300 --> 19:28.380 And producers would fight over which crew they wanted in order to get the right engineer 19:28.380 --> 19:29.220 to light it. 19:29.220 --> 19:36.140 Howard King, he was a great believer in reflected light. You would have a large set and you 19:36.140 --> 19:43.140 would have a large white screen in front of the set, allowing access for cameras, but 19:43.540 --> 19:50.540 he'd throw all his light on the screens to bounce back into the set to give us a particular 19:51.060 --> 19:55.980 soft lighting effect. He was very experimental. 19:55.980 --> 19:59.240 I am your only protection. 19:59.240 --> 20:03.860 In order to protect the surprise revelation concerning Coquillion's identity, the cast 20:03.860 --> 20:07.860 listings for part one included an interesting pseudonym. 20:07.860 --> 20:12.620 I was sort of about 11 or something when it was on. And you were kind of aware of actors 20:12.620 --> 20:17.020 a bit because I used to read the Radio Times. So that's why you read about Coquillion played 20:17.020 --> 20:21.060 by this Sidney Wilson, which of course you thought, oh, that's an actor. 20:21.060 --> 20:27.420 Sidney Newman, Donald Wilson, the names from the two heads of department, head of drama 20:27.420 --> 20:32.580 and head of serials, in order to keep it anonymous because it was obviously important that you 20:32.580 --> 20:39.580 shouldn't give away in the program notes, so to speak, that it was the same guy. 20:44.580 --> 20:47.900 The show was a great success in terms of viewing figures. 20:47.900 --> 20:54.900 It was great to know that, to find out that that particular story I was in was a top rating 20:54.900 --> 21:01.900 at the time. And that gave me quite a thrill. 21:04.900 --> 21:10.620 With an audience of 13 million, a figure Doctor Who would not equal until the Tom Baker years, 21:10.620 --> 21:14.380 the rescue even beat the ratings for the preceding Dalek story. 21:14.380 --> 21:21.380 Outrated the Daleks. That's something, isn't it? I shall have that on my tombstone. 21:21.380 --> 21:28.380 Right at the Daleks.