The Writer's Tale Doctor Who Confidential

Join Doctor Who Confidential on a journey.

A journey with a writer living his fantasy.

It was just a great, big, colourful idea.

I mean, really, for the early '50s, that's the one.

You can read a page of a script and you can tell that it's Mark's.

You can watch it... You can...

There's an essential Mark Gatiss that creeps through

and it's a very enviable thing and we're lucky to have him.

It's time to put on your blue suede shoes, bright pink skirts and take a trip back to the 1950s.

Straight from the fridge, man!

MUSIC: "Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve

From a very early stage I kind of wanted the climax

to be at Alexandra Palace.

I thought, with the huge mast remaining,

it gives a kind of King Kong resonance to it which is quite nice.

ELECTRICITY FIZZES

I remember getting that script for the first time

and realising the end battle is on the mast of Alexandra Palace

and thinking, "Oh, God!"

You never know because of the constraints whether it was possible.

There was also a bit of, "Actually we can do this really well."

# It's a bittersweet symphony This life

# Trying to make ends meet You're a slave... #

Look up to where Magpie is...

INAUDIBLE

And...action.

# I took you down the only road I've ever been down... #

I can't do this! Please, please don't make me!

# The one that takes you to the places

# Where all the veins meet, yeah... #

This is the scene of my death, where I get fried,

because I suddenly - having been the intermediary,

the servant of the monster, of Maureen Lipman -

she orders me to kill Doctor Who and I say, "No",

and she fries me

with electric pulses and things like that.

You promised me peace!

Then peace...you shall have.

-ELECTRICITY FIZZES

-Arrggghhh!

-Magpie's on that bit, isn't he, by this point?

-He is, yeah.

We're shooting on the helipad in Cardiff today.

There are a few technical issues with, when we're looking down on the transmitter.

We need to contain the actors within a green screen.

It's a composite shot involving two or three elements, you know,

and that painting based on a live-action element of Alexandra Palace,

shots of the Doctor and Magpie on a part of the transmitter...

I was expecting it would be one of those days when you were harnessed up with endless safety-wires

which is always a bit boring, frankly, but because we were only

on a stretch of faux pylon which is only about 20ft tall,

we were allowed to climb up and down it relatively freely.

-It's just climbing... There's no lines in this bit, is there?

-No.

You become very precious about lines, particularly lines you love

and it's always awkward if you feel they've gone

but in the end, it's not cut for malicious reasons.

There was a lot of wonderful stuff in Mark's script

which didn't make the final cut cos there was too much of it,

some fantastic speeches I had that we just never filmed

cos it was such a rich and full episode.

Cutting stuff is just an economy and it's a briskness and confidence.

It says, "This is working."

The natural enemy of all writers is blank paper.

It's what offends us and scares us the most in the whole world.

The best way to overcome it, I've found, is just to write,

and it means you write quite a lot of nonsense at first,

but you just have to plough through.

Any other drama you type, "Scene One, Day, Street".

Or, "Scene Two, Pub", "Scene Three, Bedroom",

and with Doctor Who, you could be on a space-station or a different planet.

The brief was a '50s story, erm, quite rock'n'roll...

Is there any other way to go, Daddio?

Three, take three.

The main unit is filming Maureen Lipman, as the Wire

inside the old TV studio where she would actually have done it

if she'd really been Sylvia Peters or one of those people...

Oh, dear! Has our little plan gone horribly wrong, Doctor?

'This is the place where television began and, erm...'

So historically, you can smell the buzz in this room,

you really can feel the electricity.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

The Wire in episode 7 is based on the archetypal BBC presenter

and everything's incredibly proper.

We wanted an actress who'd have some fun with it but who'd also be able to command authority

and be properly scary.

And Maureen Lipman combined those two things perfectly.

Now. Are you sitting comfortably?

Good. Then we'll begin.

# You can take a picture of something you see... #

Feed me-e-e-e!

# In the future where will I be... #

And I'm hungry-y-y-y-y!

It's quite good to be able to just go round the corner to Ally Pally

and be ABSOLUTELY NASTY, really horrible. Horrid.

I knew as soon as she said, "I shall consume you, Doctor",

that she knows what to do in these circumstances.

Mark was on set a lot of the time which is just wonderful, to have the writer there.

"You can never go back, that's your tragedy", that's personal to Magpie?

-No, it's about...

-General, for the world.

-That they're...

-Forging ahead regardless of consequence, I think.

Mark writes these fantastic characters like Magpie...

Please... you're burning me...inside...

behind my eyes...

There's a goodness that comes out in his characters.

There's a marvellous faded elegance about Magpie.

He describes, y'know, this man who's been disappointed by life,

he's sat there in his vest in his little shop

and it's incredibly evocative and incredibly detailed.

Well...the thing is, Detective Inspector Bishop...

-How do you know my name?

-It's...

written inside your collar.

There's a particular scene between Bishop and the Doctor which is an interrogation scene

and it's essentially an inversion joke.

He starts with a light in the Doctor's face saying,

"Tell me everything you know", and by the end the Doctor's standing up and he's sitting down.

"Start from the beginning. Tell me everything you know."

It was just trying to work out what the tipping point was,

where the Doctor could rise and Bishop would sit down.

Where was she before this happened?

Seeing it realised is always curious, it's never quite the way you imagine.

Detail's everything and I think that's what's great about being able to visit the set,

it's not just about the Coronation, it's about the whole flavour of the time.

# Calling out around the world

# Are you ready for a brand-new beat

# Summer's here and the time is right

# For dancing in the street... #

Doing a period episode is one of the most difficult things we do...

# It doesn't matter what you wear

# Just as long as you are there

# So come on, every guy grab a girl

# Everywhere around the world there'll be dancing... #

On this show I've got a fantastic team that I can absolutely rely on,

so that scene is only as good as they can manage and they've dramatised it brilliantly.

As you can imagine, this whole street has had to be closed off now.

Some of the doors have been replaced, some of the windows

have had to be replaced so they look authentic, like 1953.

And we've got all these wonderful motor cars, look. Cue the car!

Look. It's just fabulous.

I thought we'd be going for the Vegas era, you know,

with the white flares and the - gr-r-r! - chest hair!

By having them think they were going to '57 we get Billie in the beautiful dress

and we were always, all of us, so keen to get something really iconic

with the two of them together. The fun of the 1950s.

Yeah, well, me and Mum,

Cliff Richard movies every Bank Holiday Monday...

Ugh, Cliff?! I knew your mother'd be a Cliff fan!

And so ends the writer's tale, leaving the Doctor and Rose once again united.

From The Idiot's Lantern onwards, it's them...

Hi-i-i-i!

..two best friends travelling and what they mean to each other.

The Doctor and Rose love each other. It's that simple.

That's what I like about you.

Anyway, I'm the Doctor and this is Rose...

Ah! Hell of a right hook!

# So when I see you next We'll make the most of it

# Tell the sun to start moving again

# The taste of your kiss I still got on my lips

# And I will take you there with me... #

They have battle after battle after battle to stay together...

Help me!

It's like the universe is becoming rougher around them, the challenge to them is becoming tougher.

They left her in the street. They took her face and just chucked her out and left her in the street.

The Doctor is beset by grief and that kind of drives him forward to...

That's his big motivating factor, to save the planet and to save Rose.

There is no power on this earth that can stop me!

Come on!

And there's just something twinkling away at the back saying,

are they actually having too much fun?

There's an increasing feeling, a threat, that someone somewhere's

gonna have to pay the price for this.

Good night, children!

Subtitles by Heather Middleton Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail [email protected]