Robot of Sherwood Doctor Who Extra

# Welcome to behind the scenes On Doctor Who

# I hope you enjoy the show. #

Welcome behind the scenes

of a swashbuckling episode of Doctor Who.

This episode has it all -

not one...

but two heroes.

En garde!

A gang of outrageous men...

THEY CHEER

..and, of course, an evil villain.

So I hope you're ready,

as we're about to shoot through how they revamped this classic tale.

Yes, this timeless British folklore

was a perfect target for a Doctor Who regeneration.

You really are Robin Hood and his Merry Men.

THEY CHEER

And it was left to Mark Gatiss to scribe this cunning caper.

We caught up with Mark during a set visit

to find out how this unique combination came about.

Well, Steven asked me to do the Doctor meets Robin Hood with robots,

and I've always been a huge fan of Robin Hood stories

so it was a joy to do.

The weird thing is, the script calls for the weather

to be almost too sunny.

As I was writing the words

I thought, "This is a hostage to fortune."

Cardiff - it's going to pour down.

And, amazingly, this week it's been brilliant.

Like I said, very sunny.

Climate change?

It's a real romp but with a serious intent.

It's really about the Doctor wrestling with the idea

that he's a hero

by really meeting the greatest hero in English folklore.

Stop!

The laughing. Are you all simple?

The Doctor may not have liked the banter

from this motley crew of outlaws,

but Peter sure did love having them on set.

It's great to have all the Merry Men here

and to have Tom Riley as Robin, who's doing a fantastic job.

There is no contest!

THEY LAUGH

Tom's delivering all those lines

with a buoyancy and liveliness.

To be standing around

with a hat with a feather in it and tights on,

it's hard to pull all that off.

It's about time we met this legendary hero

and found out how he felt

about appearing in an episode of Doctor Who.

I've basically been a fan of Doctor Who for my entire life,

and so being able to be part of it

and to come on to the production and see how it's made

and spend some time with the new Doctor,

it's a dream come true.

And it was Mark Gatiss who put Tom forward for the part,

but Tom failed to contain his excitement when he got the call.

You want to play it cool. You know, you want to be a bit like,

"Yeah, you know, maybe I'll just read the script, Mark,

"and I'll get back to you." And instead, I sort of said, "Yes!"

And he said, "Do you want to read it?"

"Yes, of course! I mean, yes, I want to read it."

It's a show you want to be part of,

and Mark's episodes are great, he's a fantastic writer,

so I'm really lucky.

Tom may have said yes straightaway

but he was still nervous about playing such an iconic role.

It's always a privilege

and a little bit terrifying

to play someone that the world already has a set fixed idea of,

and so it's been really fun playing with expectations,

playing with the idea of who Robin Hood is.

It's been a challenge, but it's been such fun.

I haven't had this much fun in years!

ALL: Yeah!

And it wasn't just Tom having a great time,

Jenna quite enjoyed this episode, too.

It felt like stepping into a story book.

I think the scene where we had all of the Merry Men in their cavern,

you felt like you could just turn a page

and that's what it would look like.

Well, it's realistic, I'll give you that.

And also Peter and Tom on set

are just absolutely hilarious together.

I was literally going home exhausted from laughing so much.

I was getting a bit too hysterical

so I had to go sit away from them

so that they couldn't make me laugh any more.

Right! That isn't even funny.

An episode featuring Robin Hood wouldn't be complete

without the classic villain the Sheriff of Nottingham,

played by Ben Miller.

I had a fantastic scene with Jenna

where I was kind of trying to seduce her

to become my queen,

I have designs on the English throne.

Doesn't every king need a consort?

But what did Ben think

of playing this evil man?

He's a really, really fun character to play.

Hopefully he's menacing. I think he's quite menacing.

He's certainly not someone I'd like to get mixed up with!

Oh, he was brilliant.

He really struck a clever, clever balance

of the smarmy Sheriff,

but underneath you could see him kind of calculating,

and also definite anger-management issues...

that would suddenly come out on a random line.

The world!

He's just a very clever villain, I think he was brilliant.

Oi! What you doing here?

This episode was quite a romp,

and Ben was quite taken with our Doctor Who twist

of the Robin Hood tale.

Not only do I love Doctor Who,

but I've always loved the legend of Robin Hood.

Would you now?

It's a wonderful thing about Doctor Who,

is you can visit a Western

or suddenly visit an episode of Robin Hood.

It's one of the fantastic freedoms

that you have is these tremendous one-offs.

No!

Robin Hood isn't the first legendary figure,

who's crossed the Doctor's path.

Not by a long shot.

Very early on in the Doctor's travels he met Marco Polo

and, in the same adventure,

he encountered the legendary Kublai Khan

and promptly gambled away the TARDIS

when he lost a game of backgammon with him.

The Doctor's old pal Winston Churchill

also tried to get his hands on the TARDIS.

And talking of time machines,

the author of The Time Machine, HG Wells,

helped the Doctor defeat this nasty piece of work, the Borad.

But what is it with the Doctor and writers?

The Ninth Doctor teamed up with Charles Dickens,

and together they stopped the mischievous Gelth.

The Tenth Doctor had more literary liaisons,

battling the Carrionites with Shakespeare

and solving the mystery

of the Vespiform with Agatha Christie.

Of course, the Doctor has caught the eye

of plenty of queens from Earth's history.

The Eleventh Doctor even came face to face

with the legendary Egyptian ruler, Queen Nefertiti,

who took quite a shine to him.

In fact, she wasn't the first historical figure

who had designs on becoming the time traveller's wife.

He had a small fling, a "flingette with Reinette",

also know as Madame de Pompadour.

And there was a right royal romance with Queen Elizabeth I

that ended in marriage.

To be fair to the Doctor,

he couldn't be sure his apparent bride wasn't a Zygon.

Either way, after the ceremony, he was "Zygon" in 60 seconds,

and so when Elizabeth did finally catch up with him

she was happy for her bowmen to have him in their sights.

And speaking of bowmen,

this classic tale wouldn't have been complete

without one particular famous scene.

Today we're filming the grand tournament,

the famous Robin Hood moment

where Robin splits the arrow.

It's a famous bit of Robin Hood lore,

so I had to put it in the script.

Of course it would have been criminal

not to include this tournament,

and with archery being a Robin Hood trademark,

Tom soon had to learn how to use a bow and arrow.

I used to do archery when I was a kid, like, in the Scouts,

and I was OK at it and I'd kind of forgotten that I ever did it

and suddenly I can pick up a bow and arrow and it all feels very natural.

It's quite fun. I keep saying "fun".

That's the thing about Doctor Who - it's fun!

Whether they could shot a bow and arrow or not,

all our cast members were trained

and under the supervision of an archery expert.

I am the real Robin Hood.

I'm actually in the Guinness Book of Records

for shooting the most amount of arrows in one minute.

19 hits.

Well, you're definitely the man for the job,

but who has impressed Dean most?

They've all done really well actually.

I showed Tom the other day, and he shot some arrows

and he actually hit the gold three times out of eight arrows,

so, yeah, he's a natural.

Sorry!

I just keep getting bull's-eyes by accident.

Although the actors were expertly trained,

the Doctor Who special effects team

had to help them split the arrows in two.

Danny Hargreaves and his team oversaw this effect

as it required specialist knowledge.

But how was it done?

What we're doing on this funky rig that you can see here,

we've got six arrows lined up in order.

We pull the arrow up

onto the bow, fire it,

hits the spot using the cable,

and then the idea is that, the second one,

we do exactly the same thing and it will split the arrow.

Now we've only tested it very briefly and it was very successful.

We're quietly confident it's going to work.

Well, Danny, now it's time for the big moment.

Three, two, one!

CHEERING

Nice! Time to shoot the rest.

With the arrows fired successfully,

it's another job well done for the effects team.

They all split and they all hit the mark, so I'm happy.

It wasn't only the fantastic special archery

that caught our eye in this episode.

We also had some wonderful period costumes.

There was like a Clara's modern version

of wanting to be Maid Marian,

I think, so that was very fun.

Clara may have liked her costume,

but the Doctor didn't even get a look in.

I quite like the fact that I don't have a period costume in this,

because it means I cut more of a swathe through them all,

otherwise I'd just disappear.

Although the costumes looked the part,

they weren't the most comfortable for the cast.

Yes, the costume is a little tight.

It's tight in all the wrong places.

I currently can't feel my ankles, but these are pretty tight trousers.

I'm full-on skinny-jeans Robin Hood.

So, don't you like your costume?

It's lovely, it's just hot, you know,

it's hot to sword-fight in,

it's hot to jump about on beams and roof-to-roof under studio lights in

with the leather pressed against your skin.

And just like their costumes, things got really heated

when these two archenemies had their epic duel.

I have a sword fight with Robin Hood

and there's a lot of sort of jumping up on beams and ropes

and a lot of kind of derring-do in our swordplay.

That's all been great fun to rehearse

and I've never done a sword fight before,

so that's really good fun.

I'm all right at sword-fighting.

I've done a lot of sword-fighting for stage.

It's quite different, sword-fighting for stage than TV.

On stage you're actively trying not hit each other,

but with TV you have to make it look like it can connect.

First of all, just concentrate on getting the moves right,

but then, as you progress,

you actually want to really try and hit the other person

where you are supposed to be hitting them.

Are you still talking?!

Argh!

Well, it appears the Sheriff was the better swordsman after all.

Bow down before your new King.

But someone is a bit of a sore loser

The Sheriff didn't beat me.

I mean, what are you talking about, am I'm gutted the Sheriff beat me?

The Sheriff didn't beat me.

When does the Sheriff of Nottingham ever beat Robin Hood in the end?

The Sheriff may have been beaten in the end,

but it wasn't as easy

when Tom went toe-to-toe with the Doctor.

Me and Peter had a fantastic fight -

the Doctor with a spoon versus Robin with a sword.

This is my spoon!

En garde!

The Doctor's sword skills are impressive, to say the least.

Even the Doctor had a fencing match with Robin,

but how did Peter get on with such a technical scene?

I'm just useless at all that stuff,

any kind of, you know, physical activity, dancing or anything.

It's one of those things you have to just keep practising,

you have to absorb it into your muscle memory.

And there's dialogue with it as well.

Errol Flynn!

It all looks easy. That's the trick of all this stuff,

is to try and make it look effortless

but, believe me, it's not.

After a hard day's filming,

Peter got a nice surprise on set.

I didn't tell anybody,

because you reach a certain age when you just don't want to

make a fuss or anything,

but the runners had put all balloons and happy-birthday banners

up in my trailer

and bought me wonderful gifts

and there was a cake on set.

Everybody was just so kind.

It was lovely, it was absolutely great.

With another episode complete,

there's only one more thing left to say.

Thanks for watching!

THEY LAUGH