Doctor Who - Documentary s05e04 Episode Script

MAN: It was quite a different way of doing things then.
Very early days, really, still the sort of magic years of television.
And we were still finding out how to do things.
I was in the The Grove Family, it was Britain's first ever soap.
And in that I met my future husband Peter Bryant, who, as you know, later on was the producer of Doctor Who and who produced "The Tomb of the Cybermen".
Peter Bryant was a lovely man.
Of course, he was a personal friend as well.
When he was in radio, he commissioned The Slide, which was a science fiction serial I'd written.
And when he went to television, he was a story editor for a while, with Innes Lloyd as producer.
And then Innes left and Peter was asked to take over.
He then phoned me and said, "Would you like to come and be an assistant script editor?" And I said, "Well, yes, I'll have a go.
" And I did.
And I was around for "The Evil of the Daleks" and also "The Ice Warriors" with Peter Barkworth.
And then came "The Tomb of the Cybermen", in which I became full script editor.
Gerry Davis, of course, I knew very well because he and Kit Pedler wrote "The Tomb of the Cybermen".
I had enormous respect for both of them.
"The Moonbase" was my first story that they had written, and of course, they were both very tall.
Quite frightening people, actually.
I thought, "Oh, gosh.
"I've got to be good in this or I could be written out very quickly.
" So that was my first impression.
When I was told that they were doing it, I thought, "How can these two people work together? "They're so totally different.
" Kit was the scientist and Gerry was the dramatist.
But they merged beautifully.
Both of them had an interest in archaeology, Egyptian archaeology.
So there was a great influence in "Tomb of the Cybermen" of the world of the Pharaohs.
KLIEG: Behold, gentlemen! The tombs of the Cybermen.
Frozen forever.
Sitting in with them, I learned a great deal.
A great deal.
Not only about writing but about construction.
Gerry was a master at constructing a story and Kit fed in the scientific knowledge, of which he was a master.
Morris was an extraordinary guy, really, because to my knowledge, he didn't direct any of the great epics.
I mean, you know, the Plays of the Month or Play of the Day.
But he had a very good working knowledge.
I mean, he was very inventive.
Highly professional.
Very exacting.
Not a great one for a laugh, Morris.
He took things very seriously.
But he was a very nice man, very, very good director and he got results.
I worked with him a lot.
In some ways he was partly responsible for me getting into Z Cars, along with Michael Ferguson and a couple of other people.
He'd come on to the set, in the rehearsal room, set up his music stand, put his script on it and you had to move from A to B to C to D or whatever.
It was fairly regimented.
Morris was rather a strict man, really.
- Wasn't he? - Yeah, yeah.
The principles about him, etcetera, etcetera.
There's no shades of grey to Morris whatsoever.
It's always black and white.
Walk into the rehearsal room, meeting the new director and there was Morris in the middle of the rehearsal room with a music stand and a script on it.
A script.
- And a baton.
Baton, right? - Mmm-hmm.
And so he called us together.
"Right, I'm so and so Morris.
"Right, come on, now, we'll start.
" And banged his baton like that on the music stand.
He carried this music stand around with him and I thought he was going to burst into song at any moment.
And so, that was quite amusing.
I know that some people didn't care for it very much.
It was offputting.
But it didn't me.
I just thought it was very funny.
And he had marks on the floor in the rehearsal room, J1, V1, you know? "Go back.
No.
J1, you're off your mark," for example.
I'm just trying to rehearse, read the script and everything.
And then another time, "Frazer, move to the left.
A bit more, a bit more.
" I said, "Shall I make this J one-and-a-half?" "No, don't be so stupid.
Don't be so stupid.
Just move over there.
" Okay, all right.
That's it.
But I got on with him very well.
I mean, the fact that he employed me several times meant that we must have got on all right together.
I think he was a very good director.
You've only got to look at the sequence in the gravel pits to know that he was very good at his job.
He was killed the moment you made your appearance.
Ah! And you think we did it? Where those doors were, the cameras weren't right.
So Morris, you know, instead of saying move the cameras there or there, he broke the whole studio for an hour and made them move the set.
An hour to move the set.
All those heavy doors and the grass and the gravel.
- Wouldn't move his cameras.
- No.
- "Two inches to the left.
" - Yeah.
"What? Pardon?" So they broke the studio for an hour.
He always seemed to me to be wearing plimsolls.
And he bounced around rather like a spider, a very fast-moving spider, in and out of the set.
And one time I saw him trip over.
And I never heard him swear.
I'm sure he did.
But I never heard him swear.
But he suddenly fell over this thing and I saw him mouth some rather rude words.
(CHUCKLES) But it was Some people said he was quite temperamental to work with.
Fortunately, I didn't come across that.
I saw him go very red-faced in the studio and he'd shout at somebody but he very rarely shouted at actors.
But I do remember him shouting at a cameraman a couple of times.
(LAUGHS) Which was great fun for me.
I enjoyed that.
The casting was really quite perfect, I thought.
Everybody.
I mean, for instance, if you think of George Pastell.
Now, he was the wonderful arch-villain of all time, really.
I'd see him in Hammer films and he was always a foreign nasty.
But he had a presence.
Shirley Cooklin was Yeah, she was married to the producer, Peter Bryant.
Again, whom I'd known at Broadcasting House in radio drama.
Yes, she was a live wire.
(LAUGHS) Gerry Davis, who was the script editor and an absolutely lovely man, as I'm sure anybody who's ever known Gerry would tell you, apart from being a very good script editor and a very good writer.
And Gerry said, "Shirley, I'm going to write a part especially for you.
" Because in those days, if you didn't have blue eyes and blonde hair, you weren't reckoned to be an ingenue.
And I was only a young thing and I was always being told I could only play sexy French maids.
So he wrote this rather exotic role for me because, as I was dark and looked rather more Italian or Spanish or whatever Actually, I'm neither.
I'm Russian-Jewish by descent.
He thought that he would write me this sort of vaguely Arab princess which would suit my looks and be an interesting baddie.
And that's how I came to get the part.
It was a character that I must say was my least favourite.
Not from her point of view but from the I didn't quite believe in it.
At times, I didn't quite know where that character was going.
So we had a lot of discussions about that in pre-scripting.
But she was very, very good for it.
The whole control panel is active suddenly.
Don't know which button to press first.
Well, I wouldn't touch it if I were you! I think I'll try this one.
Bernard Holley, although he was only in one episode, he was jolly good because he conveyed that kind of bewilderment that was necessary for somebody who didn't know what the hell was going on.
HOLLEY: Mr Barry offered me these two episodes in Doctor Who.
Not just one, two episodes.
One as you know, as a corpse and the other one as Peter Haydon before he died.
And I noticed, actually, that there were six million viewers for the first episode and 6.
4 million for the second episode, when I was a corpse.
So, more people saw me when I was dead than when I was alive.
(LAUGHS) Eh, Toberman? But you will be careful and discreet.
- Understand? - I understand.
I remember Roy being very quiet, not too talkative - but just the tall, silent type.
- Silent type, yes.
I just thought he was absolutely lovely.
He looked so marvellous.
He was so tall.
And such a beautiful, beautiful-looking man.
I don't remember having long conversations with him but I believe he went on to do films and all sorts of other things.
But I thought he was quite inspired casting because he looked so dramatic and so wonderful.
There's a scene when he appears in a sort of wonderful male kaftan-like garment.
He looked like a prince.
Absolutely splendid.
And he was a wonderful-looking actor.
He had a great body on him, didn't he? - I wouldn't know.
- (LAUGHS) Sorry.
PEMBERTON: They're very sinister.
They're terribly sinister shapes.
I mean, when they first appear from the sarcophagus, it's a really chilling moment.
And I was in the studio when that happened and I know that they were playing about with various ideas and everything.
It was this huge setup with the Cybermen up in their little cubby holes.
And I believe we used cling film by the yard, across, so they could break out and come through.
Then they came down the ladders each side.
I thought at first, surely they couldn't have built this huge set in Ealing.
So, is it small kids dressed as Cybermen so they can shorten it? - But, no, it was real - No, it was real.
And it was one of those things that people remember from "The Tomb of the Cybermen", when they're coming to life, bursting out of their little sarcophagi.
It was all frozen up to start with.
So we sprayed the whole thing with, well I suppose it looked like ice, but it wasn't.
In fact, it was a sort of simulate ice.
And then they faded through from one shot to another so that it slowly cleared as it melted.
Well, supposedly.
And the Cybermen then broke out and came down.
HINES: The money at their disposal was fourpence ha'penny.
WATLING: Nothing.
It was absolutely nothing.
How they did that at Ealing, getting all the Cybermen coming out, without them falling out? Because with the Cybermen, you've got those Unless you're looking down and looking for the stepladder, you have to come out menacing and go those funny stepladders down.
- How they didn't lose one of them out - No idea.
PEMBERTON: That motif has become the motif of the Cybermen.
On t-shirts and cups and God knows what and caps.
And I think that's right because there's something quite chilling about the look of them, the way they moved.
I think it's one of the most frightening monsters, really, because it was human, wasn't it? Human-like.
The body.
- But no facial expression.
- No expression at all.
They were like, kind of Frankensteins walking towards you with arms outstretched.
And I think that's an eternal image that people will never forget.
What I can remember clearly is coming out of my tomb.
What is it? He's their leader, their Controller, Jamie.
I think I was perhaps slightly taller than the others, because the Cyber Controller is.
I suppose that perhaps they wanted an extra 2 or 3 inches taller than the others.
(SCREAMING) Let me go! I set you free! It was our plan! You belong to us.
You shall be like us.
I don't think I ever thought I would be speaking, because there wasn't the technology for it then, to have microphones underneath the costumes.
So no, I don't think I was disappointed.
I think I knew that right from the beginning that somebody else would be speaking.
This humanoid is powerful.
We will use him.
Prepare him.
KILGARRIFF: Peter Hawkins, whom I later got to know, you know, very well, was a wonderful voice artist, probably the best of his time.
He was at rehearsals, you know, so And he stood just off-camera looking at us, holding a mic.
I will listen.
I don't remember we actually had to do any heavy sort of synching, personal sort of synching together.
As I say, I just opened it, he said the line and then I shut it.
So as long as I knew when to open and shut it, didn't have to do any synchronising, like lips moving.
Being a very tall man, I've spent quite a lot of my career inside various costumes.
So you sort of get used to it.
I developed a kind of Buddhist thing of being able to shut off.
The head was screwed on, so you couldn't get that off easily.
And the gloves were also integral.
So once you were in it, you were in it.
I was disappointed when I saw it again recently that one feature of the costume which caused no end of aggro was that the Cyber Controller had a brain that pulsed.
And, of course, this was worked on by batteries and so, they were forever going.
So we'd have to stop everything and unscrew the head to change the batteries and screw it in and start again.
Terrible.
And so naturally, I was very keen to see it and I couldn't see it at all! I kept looking at his brain, no flash at all, no pulsing at all.
So that was all a waste of time.
PEMBERTON: Those terrible cybermats.
Anybody who's seen them I had one in my office for a while.
I told it to shut up and keep its place.
But it was always whizzing around and But it was a clever idea of Kit's.
The cybermats, which were quite a little problem in their own.
They looked a bit like a either a wood louse or an armadillo.
I feel they were sort of the mixture of two.
We made these things up, radio-controlled them.
We took them into the studio in rehearsal and had them running about all over the place.
And they were remote-controlled, of course.
So when we weren't shooting or setting up a shot, the prop boys with the remotes used to make them chase me.
I mean, they used to come up to me and go round my feet.
- Yeah.
- Trying to get up my leg.
I'm going, "Get off! Get off!" And that's what So I didn't really like them.
We liked them because they were chasing Deborah.
(LAUGHS) (SCREAMS) DAY: When they got to the actual recording, we found that with the cameras running and the sound booms, the interference was so great that they went all over the place, skated.
And only occasionally could we get them to go exactly where we wanted.
And many of the shots, we ended up simply attaching a piece of very fine nylon and pulling, literally pulling them through shot.
Because there was so much interference from the electronic equipment in the studio.
What's the matter with you? You gone mad? We were in a gravel pit.
I think it was at Gerrards Cross or somewhere.
And it was a boiling hot day.
And I always remember because we got there and we were having coffee and sitting around and Frazer Hines was, as you probably know, he was well-known to be a great one for chatting up the ladies and Frazer, who knew me perfectly well as Peter Bryant's wife, as I was always there on Friday evening for recordings, didn't recognise me in all the wigs and hairpieces and the makeup.
And he sidled up to me.
So I thought I'd have a bit of a laugh.
He thought I was a new girl on the block and he started chatting me up.
I was being very friendly, as I was to all the ladies that, you know I beg to differ! I was there, Frazer.
I remember.
- Well, you tell them, then.
- No! (LAUGHS) So, I played along with this for quite a while.
After he'd well and truly dug himself a hole, I said, "Frazer, it's me, Shirley.
" And he said, "What? What, Shirley, Peter's wife "who comes on Friday evening?" "Yeah.
" (LAUGHS) Sorry.
We had to make it a pretty big one.
All right.
Let's get on with it.
We used Brocks Fireworks, or Schermuly very often, who supplied the army, in fact, with explosives at the time.
But generally we used Brocks Fireworks.
And we used huge 8-inch ground maroons, which we would bury or put sacks of cement on top of them.
And when they went off, it was a very visual explosion.
Huge explosion.
Lots of, you know, smoke and fire.
And that was it.
So it was safe.
But only safe if they didn't get too close.
I remember mostly we had to run up this great sort of thing to get there.
You know, tearing up in the heat and everything.
Yeah, it was I enjoyed the day's filming.
Those first scenes in the gravel pits I had very little to do.
I was just like somebody looking in on the scenes rather than somebody being part of it.
COOKLIN: One thing you get on location is you get marvellous food.
Location food is second to none.
You get the bacon butties to begin with.
Then you get the lunch, you know.
Lovely.
Lots of cups of tea.
No drink, of course, because you're working.
HOLLEY: Nice day and I didn't have much to learn so there was no strain on the brain.
(LAUGHS) Which all actors like.
It was just a nice day.
A nice day out.
PEMBERTON: It was a cramped little studio at that Lime Grove.
We could hardly Not that we wanted to swing a cat, but you couldn't if you had one.
And I remember every time I went into that studio and they were lining up and doing a dress rehearsal or something, a camera rehearsal, that you had to, you could only get into the studio by edging yourself in sideways in-between these great big flats.
- Very hot as well.
- That's right.
Because there was no aircon in those days.
- Awful.
- Even when you weren't filming.
You can't just go, "Right, put the aircon on now to" It just got hotter and hotter and hotter.
PEMBERTON: It was interesting because it was the usual thing we'd do at rehearsal during the day and somebody would scream at me that something was wrong and Or they wanted to change something.
Pat very rarely changed lines but just occasionally he did.
And so I'd be there for that reason.
And then when it came to the actual recording, you know, during the day we were all sipping coffee and eating and God knows what and it was a nerve-wracking experience.
And then when it came to the actual recording, it was done.
And afterwards we'd all abandon the set and after they'd taken their makeup off, we'd go into the bar.
And that bar was a legend at Lime Grove.
I'd still be very careful if I were you.
Very careful indeed! Come on, let's go and join them.
We did that little gag that we didn't rehearse.
Because Morris Barry would not have allowed it if we'd rehearsed it.
We were supposed to take Victoria's hand to go into this huge tomb and we just worked it out between us, we took each other's hand, you know, and then went Then we took Victoria's.
Because we just knew, they couldn't do retakes unless the camera fell into shot.
So we just knew that if we'd rehearsed it, he wouldn't have allowed it.
So we just did it on And it's a sweet little thing.
It's just like Didn't warn me at all.
I thought, "What is going on now?" You never warned me about adlibs or anything like that.
You just sort of take it, thinking It was a nice surprise on your face, going - You'd go, "Whoo!" - Yeah.
(SCREAMING) Oh, that was horrid.
'Cause I'm a bit claustrophobic anyway.
When they said "Right, the next shot is Deborah, you get into that.
" I said, "Pardon?" Mercy, the Cybermen must have been giants.
He said, "Yes, this is the scene.
" I said, "Oh, no.
Whatever.
" You know, we've rehearsed it.
And I thought, "Oh no, it's for real now.
I've got to do it.
" I got in and I just wanted to get out.
FRAZER HINES: There's no trap door.
There's no escape door out the back.
WATLING: No, it was solid.
I was in total darkness like that and it was all around me.
And somebody had to actually The scene went on and they heard me banging, trying to get out.
And I couldn't stay in there for all of the scene.
So, somebody else took over banging inside.
'Cause I was going to go.
It was horrendous.
Are you all right? - It's all right.
Get your breath.
- (SOBBING) I do remember one little bit with the smoke.
I remember we had to stop the recording, which was very rare in those days.
They didn't like you stopping recording at all because it cost money.
- Oh, Jamie, don't touch that control! - I already have.
- What's the matter, Doctor? - Which one was it? JAMIE: Which one what? (FIRING) We had to cut the recording.
They put tubes inside me and the Cyberman came on and killed me.
It was during that production that I realised that I really did want to be a television actor because I was paid for being a corpse.
I had no dialogue and I was paid so I thought, "This is the life for me.
" (LAUGHS) In the last episode of Doctor Who, "Tomb of the Cybermen", as you know, Kaftan is shot, and so I had to die on set.
That gun will not harm me.
The props man sidled up to me beforehand and said, "Excuse me Miss Cooklin, I have to ask you be rather personal.
" And he had to put this tube right stuck up my jumper, right into my bra because at the appropriate moment, when I was shot, it had to belch forth clouds of studio smoke.
What we had were smoke guns.
And they were We used special oil through a heated coil and it produced smoke.
So we put a tube up the back of the costume and pumped smoke through it.
After that, obviously, I was lying on the floor in a heap.
And it was very hot.
We had a heatwave and I hadn't slept at all the night before.
I'm ashamed to say I fell fast asleep.
And apparently, I'm told, I don't know if it's true, that I was snoring.
And I woke up to see this sea of faces, Morris Barry and everybody around me.
Very red-faced.
(LAUGHS) (SCREAMING) (CYBERMAT BEEPING) I actually held a gun.
And I thought, "This is good.
" So it was like, "Oh.
" I don't know, Emma Peel or whatever.
I always wanted to do something like that but I was never cast as that.
It was always the little girl next door, really, - wasn't it? - You were a good shot 'cause you went (IMITATES GUN FIRING) - Shot that Cybermat straightaway.
- (LAUGHING) CYBERMAN: You will report to the surface.
KILGARRIFF: Roy Stewart and I having to have a fight.
I was given a body double.
Very light, of course.
I have to say, when I saw it again recently, it wasn't terribly convincing, I didn't think.
We used dummies very often and they were just foam dummies with an armature through them so you could fix them in any position.
We used them over the years in all sorts of places.
So, a dummy would be used and we'd dress it in the Cyberman costume.
And so they could pick it up, it was lightweight, and just hurl it.
(GRUNTS) (WOMAN EXCLAIMING) KILGARRIFF: Yes, that was I did remember that.
But I don't think we were so critical in those days.
We must survive.
We must survive.
When he was electrocuted in the end hit the doors and crashed back, this is wonderful, this is exactly what I mean when I say people forget that there's somebody actually inside that.
I crashed to the floor.
Lots of bumps and bruises.
And all the lights went out.
And I'm on the floor there and everybody went.
Just left me there.
(LAUGHS) I couldn't get up on my own.
I had to shout for help for somebody to get me up and get me out of it, so I could have a cup of tea like all the sparks and everybody else.
I'm afraid that became impossible the moment that name was mentioned.
- What name? - Cybermen.
You don't have to answer that if you don't want to.
PEMBERTON: "Tomb of the Cybermen" was, in fact, a milestone, I think not only in the world of Doctor Who, but in television history.
It was put together by two masters of the medium and I was very proud to be associated with it.