Doctor Who - Documentary s08e05 Episode Script

NARRATOR: In the autumn of 1970, the cast and crew of Doctor Who arrived here at Stangmoor Prison, also known as Dover Castle, to film an adventure that none of them would forget.
With action on a huge scale and a tight filming schedule, this was a shoot that would challenge the production team and prove a real battle for its director, Tim Combe.
(SCREAMING) Right, now, Brigadier, would you kindly tell me what all this fuss is about? PIK-SEN LIM: I was married to Don Houghton, who wrote "Mind Of Evil".
And I think he and Terrance Dicks had worked together on, um, Crossroads.
That's right.
And so, when Terrance was called in to script, be a script editor for Doctor Who, naturally Don was one of the writers he thought of.
He came up with a good, strong central story idea, which was the brain, you know, the brainwashing machine, the machine that would wipe all evil from you.
Which I think probably came from the fact that brainwashing was kind of in the air around then.
It wasn't so very long since the Viet Cong War, the Vietnam War had finished.
And that's what brought it to the fore, because people were undoubtedly brainwashed.
Science has abolished the hangman's noose and substituted this infallible method.
Don came up with this idea and we talked it through, you see, and okay, it's going to be used to replace capital punishment.
So obviously, it's going to be set in a prison.
- Get away from me! - GOVERNOR: The time has come for that sentence to be carried out.
Go on! Get out! All of you! The idea in the beginning of "Mind of Evil" is you think somebody's going to be hung.
But he isn't, you see, he's going to be Keller-Machined, which is possibly worse.
(SCREAMS) I knew there was something evil about that machine.
You see, if you think about it, Keller Machine, substitute for hanging prisoners.
You're already into (LAUGHS) fairly dark, you know, territory.
One of the things that struck me was that it's very heavy stuff for children.
Because people were being powed and zapped and killed all over the place.
But the fact that people were dying from their phobias is really very frightening.
I just felt that the whole, um, whole feeling of the script had a quality which not only had action, but it also had sort of other meanings in it, which had attracted me to it.
NARRATOR: Barry Letts brought in 33-year-old director Timothy Combe to helm "The Mind Of Evil".
I thought then, and I think now, that Tim's a very good director indeed.
He's He's very good with actors and makes the storyline very clear.
And very good with a camera, not just in terms of finding good angles, which he did, but in the juxtaposition, in other words, the pre-editing of the shots.
The previous year I'd worked on "Doctor Who and the Silurians".
And so to return to "The Mind of Evil" was just like returning home.
He energises up all the time.
He got We were all very fond of him.
The, er, chief wants you out of here quick as possible.
Don't worry.
Less time I spend in there, the better.
When he was filming you, well, he'd be behind the camera and he was mouthing your words.
Which is very interesting.
I had to try not to look at him.
Otherwise, I'd be, "Well, what's he nattering about?" I thought of him as I think the only director in the whole of my working life who kept his word.
Because I went to be interviewed for something at Telly Centre and he just said bluntly, "You're not right for it," and then took me out to lunch, which was very nice.
And then he said, "But if I ever do get anything that would suit you, "I shall ring you up.
" And of course I didn't believe it because they all say that.
Duly he rang me up and said, "I've just got this, um, soldier "you might like to play.
" And that was it.
All right, Corporal Bell.
Yes, Captain Chin Lee, what can I do for you? At the time, I was a very ambitious little up-and-coming actress.
At that time, and before, other ethnic groups were nearly always played by British actors.
An outrage has been committed against the Chinese people's delegation.
As you are in charge of security arrangements, we hold you directly responsible.
It was much, much better to get authentic people, as we did on that occasion in "Mind of Evil".
I said to Barry, "God," I said, "I'm having real trouble, "you know, casting this character.
" And he said, "Well, "Don's wife is Chinese.
" (LAUGHING) I said, "Oh, right.
That's handy.
" I still had to be auditioned by the director, Timothy Combe.
Auditioned rather hard, in fact.
You will obey me! I will obey you, Master.
She was very good, very good casting.
She was very sort of no-nonsense Chinese, you know.
"Don't mess around with me," you know.
She was quite a good enemy.
Any further trouble and our delegation will withdraw from this conference.
More trouble.
Mmm, pity.
She's quite a dolly.
NARRATOR: A key requirement for "The Mind of Evil" was its central location, Stangmoor Prison.
I assumed that we'd be able to find a location, a prison, which would let us shoot there, shoot in their grounds, and indeed do some shooting inside the prison, that they would clear a wing for us for a little while, you know.
But to our horror, we found that they all refused utterly.
And I suppose it was sensible because, um, you know, it wouldn't have been very very good from the point of view of security and so on.
Right, come on.
LETTS: So we were stuck.
I started thinking rather than going for a prison, I'd go for a castle which could look like a prison.
And in the south of England, I thought, "Dover Castle's certainly one that I should go and look at.
" So I drove down here one day on my own and had a look around.
And you just walk around Dover Castle.
I mean, it's got loads of mouth-watering shots, in my opinion.
And of course it was perfect for doing all the stunts, you know, falling off the ramparts.
So it was really, really good.
NARRATOR: Cast and crew travelled down to Kent, with filming at Dover Castle commencing on Monday, 26th October, 1970, where all of the complicated present exterior scenes were due to be shot over the course of two packed days.
All right, good luck to you.
There was an awful lot to fit in in a very short time, with very little money.
We were filming in October.
The light went down about 4:00 in the afternoon.
I had a super cameraman, Max Samett.
We ran from one setup to the next.
In fact, the unit gave us the nickname of Batman and Robin.
"Where's Batman?" "Oh, over there.
" "Where's Robin?" "Oh, he's over there setting up," you know.
It was a very happy unit we had.
But under constant pressure.
Everybody got a picture? Right, then let's go.
And certainly when it came to doing the stunts and the main fight sequence, there wasn't enough time.
NARRATOR: On Tuesday the 27th, the crew faced their biggest filming day, the storming of Stangmoor Prison.
I'd gone round with the chap in charge of the stunts and picked out what I wanted to do and he'd worked it all out beforehand.
But on the actual day, it wasn't a very nice day, I remember.
It was even raining at one time.
But we pressed on, even with the rain coming on.
We just knew we had to get it done.
And, um, we got the master shots done, no problem, with very few takes.
And then when it came to the doing all the different sort of stunts, we only had one camera and we just did it as quickly as we possibly could.
It was a It was a hell of a day.
LETTS: When I saw the rushes of the stuff that had been shot for the battle at the end, I was most impressed.
There were some lovely shots there, but I said to him, "Well, you're not going back there.
" And he said, "Well, no.
" And I said, "But where are the close-ups? "Where are the close shots of people firing rifles "and shooting each other and so on?" And he said, "Well, we didn't have time.
" Now, whether he didn't have time or whether he hadn't even thought of it, I don't know.
So anyway, we decided between us that even though we were, at that point, very much over-spent and couldn't really afford it, we'd have to go back.
NARRATOR: The reshoots were hurriedly arranged for Saturday, 31 st of October, Halloween.
When we did the reshoot, we couldn't afford to have any extras come down.
Equity would have been up in arms if they'd known that I was playing a prisoner, I was playing a soldier, my PA was playing a soldier.
Anybody that would be willing to don a jacket on the day, it was all hands on deck.
And, um, we did it.
We did the cut-ins, as a result, and the sequence looks good for it.
That's what I should've had.
I should've had another half day And then we would've been fine right from the start, but that was not to be.
NARRATOR: Dover filming continued with the production unit shifting to a nearby country road, where a very special guest star was required, the Thunderbolt missile.
One of the things that we found was that the Services were very happy to cooperate with us.
The army had been very cooperative before I joined.
And so it seemed a sensible thing to do, to see, to cast around and see if we could find a real missile.
And we did.
With the RAF.
COMBE: The RAF were wonderful.
They'd come all the way from Shoeburyness in Essex, and they'd travelled across the country with this missile.
When I first saw it, I was so excited.
I mean, I had said to John Griffiths, my PA, I said, you know, "Will you be all right "getting this missile organised?" "Yes, don't you worry, Tim.
" I said, "What's it look like?" "Oh, I've got a picture here.
" And he showed me a picture.
Now, that is Thunderbolt.
It's a gas missile, nuclear powered and British, of course.
Of course.
I said, "Oh, that looks quite impressive.
" And when it arrived, wow, you know, it was big! It was mouth-watering.
I would've liked to have shot every scene with the missile in the background, but of course one couldn't.
I tried to maximise the fact that we'd got a real missile on location, which I don't think any other Doctor Whos ever had.
The story also required a sort of big explosion at the end.
And Manston Aerodrome was not far away from here.
And I can remember talking to Terrance and saying, "Well, we've got the Doctor there and the missile's about to be exploded, "how are we going to get the Doctor out?" It was then that I thought that the only way that you can do it is actually to have a helicopter.
I would've said, "Talk to Barry," you know.
I mean, okay, if you want a helicopter, you can have a helicopter, you know.
But I don't have to pay for it, you see, Barry does.
In our first season, Michael Ferguson had, when we did "Ambassadors of Death", had said a similar thing, though it wasn't at the end.
And wouldn't the hijacking, again, been much better if a helicopter was involved? And this helicopter threw us into an overspend.
Now, we were already overspent and I thought, "Oh, dear.
"Here we go again.
This is the same thing as Mike Ferguson.
"We are going to overspend.
" But I thought, "Never mind.
I'm badly overspent anyway.
" Another 1,000, 2,000 I can't remember how much it cost, but anyway, whatever it did cost is not going to make all that difference.
So we decided we'd have the helicopter and it was worth it.
Five, four, three, two, one.
NARRATOR: With the crew returning to London, November the 2nd and 3rd saw the filming of scenes set outside the embassy building and UNITHQ.
This called for an appearance by Roger Delgado as the Master.
COMBE: If my memory serves me right, the limo was certainly written into the script, that he had a limo and he got into it and he drove off and everything.
But I do remember thinking to myself, that's fine, but Roger and his looks, you know, are such that I thought a cigar would just finish it off nicely.
And I don't think Roger liked smoking, in fact, I know he didn't like smoking.
He didn't smoke and he didn't like cigars.
So I had to do a bit of persuading but I think it worked and made It enhanced his character.
And in fact, he said to me afterwards, "It was a good idea, that cigar.
" NARRATOR: With location filming at an end, the next stop for the team was Television Centre, where they were due to complete the story's studio scenes.
It was very obvious pretty soon that I was going to overspend on "Mind of Evil".
And one of the big reasons was because of the sets.
And I thought that Ray London, the designer, would come up with a sort of composite set which we could move around and use a bit here and a bit there.
What he did was to build, in effect, the interior of a prison gallery.
The prison set that he designed for me was superb.
It gave me a huge number of options for shooting.
Quite often when you see these prison sets, you hear them walking about.
And it sounds like wood, you know, and it's not wood, there's no wood, there's metal, so we made it very, very solid.
And in the dubbing, we added echo and we also tried to take out any wooden floor sounds.
(PRISONERS CLAMOURING) And I think it really worked in that sense.
I was enormously impressed but enormously overspent at the same time.
Well, where on earth do you think you're going? We are going to see the new Chinese delegate, Mr Fu Peng.
NARRATOR: As well as the Stangmoor interiors, scenes inside the embassy were also recorded, requiring some very specialist linguistics.
Oh, Mr Fu Peng? I'm Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart of UNIT command.
I'm in charge of all security arrangements.
(SPEAKING HOKKIEN) Well, when Don was actually writing the scenes, with the Chinese dialogue, he would write it in English, to be translated on set.
And so, I had to help him with the Chinese translation and the only Chinese translation I knew was my own dialect, which was Hokkien.
And naturally, we had to teach Jon Hokkien, which wasn't easy.
It is rare to meet a Westerner who knows my language.
Well, thank you.
Actually, I fear my Hokkien is somewhat rusty.
We have in the Chinese language four inflections.
Every sound has four inflections.
And each inflection would mean a different word.
So it's very, very difficult for the Western ear to pick up.
And poor Jon had a terrible time.
So in the end we had to simplify everything so that he was just speaking the basics.
(SPEAKING HOKKIEN) I should be delighted to dine with you soon.
When I watched the playback, to be honest, I didn't really understand much of what he was saying.
(SPEAKING CANTONESE) You must trust me.
Some Something happened.
Of course, what a lot of people are not aware of, I was actually in the early stages of pregnancy when I was rehearsing and recording "Mind of Evil".
I remember you told me and said, "Keep it under your hat," because we were trying to work out how to get the costume department to expand your skirt without telling them why.
Oh.
May I ask what all this is about, Captain? I vaguely remember the The crew on the floor saying to each other, I think they got warning from Don, you know, "No physical activity for this character, please.
" I just remember doing such a bad stage fall.
Really, really slowly flop onto the ground.
One of the things I learnt as a producer was, from "Mind of Evil", was see everything in good time, like costumes and so on, in case they don't work, and there'll be time to change them.
And one of the things that I didn't see in good time was the dragon that was supposed to frighten the American ambassador to death.
We had no CGI in those days, so they had to superimpose the evil dragon, or the cute dragon, whichever way you care to think about it, over me.
LETTS: He looked ridiculous, I mean, he was literally pink quilt, you know.
He looked like a bit of an enormous pyjama case.
Terrance christened him Puff the Magic Dragon, after the song of the time.
So I said to Tim, "Look, let's just use the head," because the head was very good.
I think when I finally watched the video, I thought the dragon was quite sweet.
Not supposed to be this evil monster, you know, which I changed into at all, to be honest.
NARRATOR: As production of "The Mind of Evil" drew to a close, tensions were high.
I was aware that time was getting dodgy.
And I also thought that Tim was getting a hard time.
I think people slightly were thinking it was his fault.
It might've been because he put so much into it, but what I wasn't aware of is the quality of what he'd done.
And in later years, watching it again, I realise how good it was, and that possibly that effort was utterly worth it.
I'm not sure he got the support he should've got.
NARRATOR: "Mind of Evil" was to be Tim Combe's final Doctor Who story as director.
COMBE: I was very sad that I didn't go on to do more Doctor Whos.
I felt that perhaps there'd been some misunderstandings.
If I go back on it now, I probably would have approached things slightly differently.
I would have perhaps tried to talk it through with Barry and explain where things had gone wrong for me.
But I didn't do that.
I felt I'd done the Doctor Whos and I thought I'd be going on to do more Doctor Whos.
But unfortunately, that was the last Doctor Who I did.
And I didn't have a sonic screwdriver to fix things up and do some more Doctor Whos.
Um, so it was a very sad occasion.
In fact, I find it difficult talking about this right now.
Because I felt a little bit hard done by, shall we say, and, um And I was upset that I didn't do more Doctor Whos.
I really was, and I am still.
Past it now but But I'd worked with Bill Hartnell, Pat Troughton and Jon.
Jon was the best.
(MAN READING) Dear Tim, I just wanted to say that I thought you handled your series of episodes of Doctor Who in an excellent manner.
I received much praise on the quality of its direction and production, which I heartily agree with.
With all good wishes for the future.
Yours ever, Jon Pertwee.