Doctor Who - Documentary s01e16 Episode Script

The Doctor's put us down right in the middle of the French Revolution.
In France now there are only two sides.
You are either with us or against us.
It will be the guillotine for all of us! The Reign of Terror.
You know, I'm certain we're sometime in the past.
Yes.
Well, we were 100 miles out.
- Perhaps we're 100 years out as well.
- Oh, rubbish, rubbish.
When the script of "Reign of Terror" first came through the door, my first reaction was, "Oh, goodie.
"It's a historical one and not a mad sci-fi one.
" Because I always liked the historical ones much better.
It was a good idea to change into these clothes.
We won't look so conspicuous when we go back to the ship.
We might not get back to the ship if Grandfather hears we're in the Reign of Terror.
Why not? It's his favourite period in the history of Earth.
Setting one of our stories in the Reign of Terror was a very good idea.
Because people are familiar with it.
Or at least they were 50 years ago.
And they would know about it.
Children would know about it.
This is England, isn't it? England? No, France.
France? The director was Henric Hirsch.
And Henric was a very well-educated Hungarian and a very interesting guy.
He'd escaped during the 1956 revolution.
His English was good.
But it was I would say a little bit limited.
FORD: He seemed quite sweet.
A bit shy.
A little bit nervous.
But I'm afraid as time went on, he didn't seem so sweet.
- (BARBARA GASPING) - Don't move.
Please put that on the table.
COMBE: Henric was quite green as a director.
His background, I didn't know much about, but I did find out that he had worked prior to Doctor Who on a Joyce play, for the plays department.
And I think Verity Lambert, the producer, had seen that and thought, "Yes, I'll have him as a director on it.
" Tim Combe was the production assistant on "Reign of Terror".
He was a lovely lad.
He probably still is a lovely lad.
I haven't seen him for years.
COMBE: It was my first job as a PA.
I was learning the job, so to speak.
I thought, "I've got a right one here.
I've got a new director, "I'm just starting out.
" I had an AFM who was from Light Entertainment and a Production Secretary who I think was just starting out as well.
So we were all new to the business.
When Henric arrived, he didn't know an awful lot about actors.
He had worked with one or two on the Joyce play, which came over to work for him in Doctor Who.
But for the most part, actually, I did a lot of the casting for him.
Not all Frenchmen can allow innocent people to be led to the guillotine, Barbara.
Jules has saved many lives.
One person had been at drama school with me.
I'd been at Webber Douglas and left Webber Douglas a year and a half before.
And other actors that I'd seen in rep.
I don't even know your name.
And that is another of my rules.
Christian names only.
The less my friends and I know, the less we can admit to when questioned.
I thought the guest cast were excellent.
I mean, Jimmy Cairncross was wonderful as this mysterious figure.
And suddenly being revealed.
I am James Stirling.
Stirling? You? Is it so surprising? You must have already decided that to be of any use I would have to hold some position of authority.
The rehearsals for "Reign" were very notable for many things, one being that we were in a very draughty rehearsal room, I think it leaked.
So we had to have buckets all over the place to catch the raindrops.
Because it was raining while we were rehearsing.
So not only did we have to keep to our marks, we had to avoid the buckets.
This was a bit disconcerting for us but absolutely infuriating for Henric, who also was not getting on terribly well with Bill at the time.
COMBE: Well, Bill Hartnell didn't like being directed very much by Henric.
He found it difficult, Henric being a foreigner, to accept that he knew how to direct an experienced actor like him.
FORD: He didn't like people who he felt were uncertain of what they were doing.
And it made him feel uneasy and uncertain of what he was doing.
So he thought the thing wasn't being done as well as it could be done.
So there were a few flashpoints.
COMBE: He never really accepted Henric as being a good director and tended to tell Henric what he was going to do.
And it started to have an effect on Henric.
It became quite stressful.
FORD: "Reign of Terror" was, in fact, quite unique at the time because it was the first time they ever used a location shot.
Not that we ever went.
We just stayed in nasty, hot studios.
But there you go.
The locations were fairly simple to find, except that one was of the Doctor walking down a French lane.
We needed to find something looking French.
And Henric struck on the idea of finding an avenue of poplar trees, so that he could walk down.
Well, it isn't easy finding an avenue of poplar trees in England, I can tell you.
I searched high and low.
And so, in the end I did.
It was up near Denham.
I don't know whether it's still there but it was also, it was a rough track.
It was just It was perfect.
They didn't want to release Bill from rehearsals.
So they got an actor called Brian Proudfoot to come and be him walking along a French country lane.
And this meant, of course, he had to get Bill's walk.
And this meant, of course, that he had to observe Bill.
And he came into rehearsals, watched Bill, how he walked and his mannerisms and everything.
FORD: Bill thought it was an absolute pain because he just wanted to get on with doing what we were doing.
And Brian was very diligently shadowing him wherever he went.
And Bill was swatting him like a fly.
"Go! Out of the way! Go away! "Take him away from me!" Anyway, in the end he realised that he was trying to do his job.
And he was, of course, as he always was, for me, anyway, very helpful.
COMBE: We filmed Brian being the Doctor in all his gear, walking down various lanes and in fields and things like that.
You would not know unless you were told that it was Brian and not Bill doing it.
There was a lot of outdoor scenes done in the studio in Lime Grove.
But these, actually on location, brought it alive.
FORD: When Bill was marching towards Paris, he had to stop every so often to have a rest.
And on one of these stops he was supposed to part the bushes, and, seeing through the bushes, he was going to see Paris in the distance.
And to achieve this, they made the most adorable little model of Paris.
It was just wonderful.
And in the end, I don't think they used it.
But I was so enthusiastic about it, they gave it to me.
And I'd still have it to this day 'cause I really cherished it.
I loved it.
But I had a very enthusiastic cleaning lady at the time.
And I kept this model on top of a wardrobe.
And I thought that would be the safest place for it.
It was gathering dust, but it was safe.
But she decided that she was going to clean the top of the wardrobe and without seeing if there was anything on top, she got her long duster and (WHOOSHES) And that was the end of my beautiful little set.
And it was so sweet.
It had little opening and closing doors and windows.
And oh, it was lovely.
The sign of Le Chien Gris.
Le Chien Gris.
RUSSELL: We were filming a story that was mainly set in France.
And I was going to France on holiday for two weeks in the middle of it.
So I didn't know quite how I was going to manage that.
So they filmed him in the prison on a set in Ealing Studios.
And this meant that they could intersperse little bits of it where they needed to, to cover the fact that he wasn't actually there.
It also meant that they lost one or two opportunities of doing shots of him where you would anticipate that there would be a shot of him.
As when Jackie and I came into the prison, and, of course, we were screaming, "Ian! Ian!" - Ian! Ian! - Go away.
And normally, one would expect him to come, "Here I am!" up to the little grill.
And, of course, he wasn't there.
Because he wasn't there.
I told you to stay back by the wall.
There's nothing to interest you.
I was quite surprised, actually, when I re-played the DVDs and saw that I was in all the episodes.
I thought, "Well, that was pretty good.
" There we are.
Home.
I think the first four episodes were filmed at Lime Grove and the last two up at Television Centre.
RUSSELL: Lime Grove was this warren of studios.
Some were enormous.
But most of them were very small.
And the ones for drama were very small, indeed.
And because cameras were so much bigger in those days, we had to make the best of it.
The one we worked in was Studio G, which was long and narrow, to get sets in was not easy.
FORD: Very cramped.
Very hot.
And there were, in fact, sprinklers which were to come on if the heat reached a certain temperature.
And as the heat was always reaching more than a certain temperature, the blooming sprinklers were coming on the whole time.
And they did actually come on in the middle of filming.
So we had to stop that, all get dry, clean up the set and start again.
And as we had very little time anyway, this wasn't a very good thing.
And we were Bill especially was absolutely furious.
The most amazing thing with "The Reign of Terror" was the sets and what they managed to do at Lime Grove, even though we had a very confined space.
RUSSELL: The sets, when we were in Paris, were a bit of a mystery to me, because it seemed that we were always in very narrow streets.
And my own memory of going to Paris is always of great big avenues and boulevards and trees and things like that.
But all that was not there.
But I suppose it was the size of the studio that dictated what they could do.
The attention to detail was incredible.
I mean, lovely, lovely exteriors and amazing interiors.
Whether it set a new standard, I don't know, but it should have done.
I first became conscious that Henric was having a struggle I would say probably round about Episode 2.
He was used to having rehearsal time in the theatre.
And having actors performing in a logical sequence of events in a perfectly normal play.
And we were doing none of these things and I think he just didn't understand what the hell was going on.
His way of directing actors was limited.
Oh, what's the use? We'll never get out of this dreadful place.
Oh, you mustn't lose heart, Susan.
I'm not going to fool myself.
He never really seemed to give me any direction as to how he wanted a scene played.
He let me get on with it.
But then he came up and criticised what I was doing.
For instance, there was a scene where I was in prison.
I was ill.
I was about to be decapitated by the guillotine.
And furthermore, there were rats and we were above a sewer.
So I think I was entitled to be a little bit sad about the whole thing.
- (GASPS) - What is it? - Rats! - Rats? They must have smelled the food.
Barbara, there's rats down there.
He came up to me and he said (THICK HUNGARIAN ACCENT) "Would you not be so maudlin?" And I said, "Sorry, Henric.
Didn't quite get that.
" "So maudlin.
You're so maudlin.
" And somebody came up and translated and said, "He's saying he doesn't want you to be so maudlin.
" "So maudlin?" I said, "Henric! "I'm all these things, I'm about to be killed.
I'm terrified.
I'm ill.
"I think I'm entitled to be maudlin.
" There you go.
That was he.
He had the basics of how to do camera scripts and do a camera plan.
But there were lots of problems.
Cables getting tangled up and things like that.
Too dark to see anything, Doctor.
FORD: It was problematical.
I mean, luckily we were supposed to be under a lot of strain.
Because we were.
And never too sure whether poor old Henric was going to lose the plot.
And there always seemed to be quite a lot of noise coming from the control box, I seem to remember.
People shouting at each other.
That wasn't so.
It was a very happy crew usually on Doctor Who.
COMBE: We came to Episode 3, which was where the stress factor really hit Henric quite hard.
I loved the recording of Episode 3, because I'm crazy about horses.
So I was thrilled that there was going to be a horse on set.
And I spent most of my time with the horse, which means I probably missed an awful lot of the craziness that was going on that day.
Whoa! Whoa.
COMBE: You don't really realise how large a horse is, and a cart.
In a small studio, limited space, you could hardly get it walking at all down the thing.
- It is them? - Yes.
It looks as if they've had some trouble with the horse.
COMBE: You had to bring the horse in separately, then bring the cart in.
It was very stressful.
It was stressful for me on the floor, as a PA, running the floor but for Henric as well, I think it really built up there.
I think the horse has thrown a shoe.
The moment they start to unhitch it, we'll make a run for it.
The horse was absolutely beautifully behaved.
Except I think he did do a poo.
That was only to be expected, with all the crashes and bangs and all the sense of tension.
He probably picked up our feelings of stress.
I don't feel very well.
Look, I'll help you, but you must make an effort.
Round about sort of tea time, there was a pause in the production and there was a silence up in the gallery.
And I said, "What's going on up there?" And Ann, the Production Secretary, said, "Tim, I think you'd better come up.
" So I said, "Come on.
We'll all take tea.
Take an early tea, everybody.
" So we broke for tea.
I went upstairs.
And Henric had collapsed on the floor outside the gallery.
There seemed to be people running around in all directions.
And every time I was trying to ask, "What's going on?" It was "No, no, no, no.
" And nobody would talk to me because they were all desperate to try and get things sorted out.
Obviously, the medical people had been called.
A doctor had been called from the Centre, Television Centre.
Henric had recovered, but he was lying, scratching his head, not knowing where the hell he was.
He had just passed out.
I heard afterwards, I wasn't aware at the time, but it seems that the director, Henric, had collapsed.
And so how are we going to continue? I told Ann, "Get on to the producer, Verity Lambert.
" So Verity came over straight away.
She said, "Well, I can't run a studio.
I've never run a studio in my life.
"Obviously, Henric can't run it.
So we need to get someone in.
"What about you, Tim?" I said, "Somebody who's been in the BBC for 18 months?" Actually, I probably could have managed.
Because I did know the shots.
I did know what was involved.
But I knew my AFM had a lot of work involved, with horses and props and everything else.
And prompting, as well.
So, I said, "No, I don't think I could do it.
" It seemed to me that there were lots of people telling us what to do.
I don't remember one particular person just taking over.
It seemed that we were getting used to Tim, I think, telling us what to do.
And then Verity was telling us what to do.
And then somebody else came and told us what to do.
Verity didn't do it.
I didn't do it.
So I think John Gorrie did it.
The other possibility that they could've called in was the Associate Producer, I think he was called the Associate Producer, was Mervyn Pinfield.
And Mervyn had directed.
In fact, I'd worked with him when he was a director.
And so he knew how to run the studio.
So there is a possibility that Mervyn Pinfield, who's no longer on this Earth, I think, he's on another planet, could have directed it.
In my mind, that day was all a jumble, but we got through it somehow.
That was a very stressful day.
When I came back from holiday, of course, Carole and Jackie told me what had happened to Henric and how he'd been taken ill and someone else had had to come in and direct the scenes for him.
That was I was sorry.
I tried to find out if he was still alive and ticking and was he well, you know, I thought it rather awful.
We started rehearsals of the next episode, and before we started I met up with Henric and had a man-to-man talk.
And I said, "You're finding it a hell of a strain, this, aren't you? "Let's be honest.
"Can I help you in any way? Can I do the camera plan, for a start? "I can do camera plan standing on my head.
" He said, "Oh, Tim.
That would be great if you could.
" So I said, "Right.
I'll do that.
" I said, "What about anything else? Can I help you with camera scripts? "You tell me what the shot is "and I'll take it down and we can work together like that.
" So we decided that this would be the best way forward.
I would take more responsibility, take some of the responsibility that Henric has for directing.
I would take some of that responsibility on.
As far as Bill was concerned, he did calm right down.
I think he realised that Henric was under a lot of stress and maybe he had something to contribute to it.
And we talked about it then, brought it up.
And he said, "What was that all about with Henric?" And I said, "Well, he collapsed in the studio.
" - "I heard that he did.
" - I said, "Well, he did.
" "Gosh", he said.
"Is he going to carry on? Are we going to get somebody else in?" "No," I said, "we're not.
"Verity's decided to stick with it.
"And we're going to carry on with Henric.
"And Henric will be all right.
But, you know, just ease off on him.
"Just be understanding.
" So he did.
He was very good.
The rest of the cast were splendid.
And from then on, actually, things got much better.
Everybody lived in fear yesterday of that man and today Let's go, Susan.
Let's go.
At this point in the story it gets very happy, because we say, "Bye-bye, Lime Grove.
Hello, TV Centre.
" And it made everybody very happy, very grateful, and probably we gave better performances because of it.
You had all the facilities.
You had a bigger studio, so you could make the sets a little bit bigger.
You had more room to manoeuvre your cameras.
And it was so much easier.
- You're through.
- Yes, I know.
FORD: We could breathe! It was light and airy.
Really high, high ceilings and plenty of space to do everything.
And you could see them in the control box beaming, which was so nice, because I think they had very little room in Lime Grove and they were bumping into each other all the time.
And I don't think they had all the monitors they wanted in Lime Grove, so they couldn't get the shots that they wanted.
So we had more of everything.
I think Henric was mighty relieved to have finished it.
And I think probably Verity was mighty relieved that one was over.
The first series.
This was the last story in the first series ever of Doctor Who.
I must say, as much as I enjoyed doing "Reign of Terror" because it was a period piece, it was a huge relief to get to the end of it.
(LAUGHS) It seemed to last forever.
It seemed to last much, much longer than the six episodes.
I think Henric, certainly by the end, had got more confident.
So he was happier, and he I think he was hoping he'd go on and work more at the BBC.
But as far as I know, that was the last one.
I believe he went and directed some Emmerdales or something like that.
But for the most part, that was the last I ever saw of Henric.
But he was a far, far happier man.
The stress had gone.
Lime Grove had gone.
And Bill was good.
And it was, on the whole, not a bad series of episodes.
(WOMAN READING) Where do you all come from? - Here they are! - He's got Susan! RUSSELL: Watching it now, I felt it had a kind of quality which I liked.
Everyone was extremely serious.
They were doing the job well.
The other actors were good.
And So, it was, to me, a good example of the work that we did.
FORD: I mean, full marks to Henric.
There were some moments of real quality.
I mean, I thought particularly the rendition of the guillotine.
And he really gave a sense of horror, the horror of it, of what was about to happen.
Something really very, very nasty.
I hope they have a pleasant journey.
So do I.
But to where, Jules? Funny, I get the impression they don't know where they're heading for.
Come to that, do any of us? Working on "The Reign of Terror" certainly helped me in my career, no doubt about it.
By doing these additional responsibilities, I found myself quite capable of doing them.
I enjoyed doing them.
I liked the challenge.
I wanted to do more of it.
And it helped me become a director, really.
Au revoir, Monsieur Capi.