About a Boy Doctor Who Confidential

It's a fun episode, different from the others

cos it's about tension and building suspense.

SCREAMING

Crazy, eerie dolls creeping along, moving malevolently.

The demonic dolls are playing a spooky game of house.

And we get down and dirty in a vat of slime.

I'm the Doctor getting to have a bit of a double act with someone's dad.

-We can't open the cupboard!

-No, no, we mustn't.

But it all hinges on the emotions of a little boy.

Doctor Who is scary, but this is the scariest of all time.

MUSIC: "Summertime" by DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince

-Ooooh!

-Yo!

-That's Youth TV Confidential.

-Let's do it.

-I like it.

-Yo, this is Arthur.

This is... Don't know if I can do this. Gosh, it's Karen.

All right, anyway, here we are at Durham Park.

-What are we doing here, Arthur?

-Which isn't in Durham.

-No. Durham.

-We are filming a dolls' house.

-Yes.

We're filming an episode about a dolls' house.

Amazing place.

It was very nice because it was sunny

and we got to sit outside in the garden.

That was rather glorious.

I travelled around South Wales,

photographing all the Georgian houses,

but this one was quite fine

with a lovely staircase and the archetypal

black and white checked floor which we didn't see anywhere else.

It felt very dark and magical, so that's why we came here.

'Rory and I get separated from the Doctor

'and we have to run around and figure out where we are.

'We don't know it's a dolls' house.'

Then these freaky looking dolls chase us around,

and they are freaky.

They've got these big heads.

RORY AND AMY SCREAM

AMY PANTS

It's a dummy. It's just a dummy.

'I've always been frightened of dolls,'

particularly China-faced, Victorian ones with their hair missing

and those holes where the hair's punched in.

Those terrible glass eyes.

"Have you ever seen a shark's eyes, like a doll's eyes? Black, lifeless."

All that.

MUSIC: "Doll Parts" by Hole

HE SCREAMS

No, no, no, no, no.

Come on!

Amy, come on!

Rory!

-There's a doll of me.

-Which looks a bit like you.

-It's got the same shaped face.

-No, it doesn't.

-It does.

Apparently, I've got a moon head. Do I have a moon head?

-If you shine a light on Karen's face, she looks like the moon.

-Shut up.

Stop it. I've got a really nice-shaped face.

-Yeah, moons are all right.

-Are they?

-They're all right.

Not craters though, yeah?

It was always a balance between

making them credibly look like dolls,

but also making them scary.

That was a trial and error approach with the clay.

They'd make new clay models and send through photos.

Small things changed quite quickly,

but we noticed we wanted the features to feel slightly wrong.

The ones I've always found the most sinister,

are things that are slightly artless.

Not so finely detailed.

If you've got something which is meant to be a peg doll,

and someone has painted the face like that, and obviously

when they get big in the process of that, something gets even cruder.

There's just something brilliant about...

They feel like they've been carved with a knife

and there's something a bit cracked about them.

The hair's like wool. It's just a primal fear, I think.

I think they'll be a real hit, actually.

Well done, Mark. It's brilliantly designed,

they have great colour and life to them.

The way they move,

and the way they slowly turn their heads is really creepy and eerie.

At a bit like the clockwork robots can, sort of...you know,

they have that slow, malevolent sort of feel to them.

Bergerac? God help us! 30 years old, that.

There's meant to be boxing on.

The delightful Mr Purcell gets a sinking feeling,

when he gets sucked into his carpet.

Never anything on, is there?

His only friend in the world is his dog. He is actually rather

soft about, I think. But I love the way it has been shot.

It worked out so well. He is sort of crying for help and Bernard

-just looks at him.

-Aaaaaargh!

Help me, Bernard! Help me...

This sinking scene was a tough one,

involving a vat of good old Doctor Who style green gunge.

Lovely. This is the...

descending rig that sends our character through the floor.

We've got this platform here - this hydraulic platform,

and it basically descends down a variable control.

It sends our character down,

looks like he's disappearing into the floor.

The things I do for this show!

There was endless discussions about how thick the goo needs to be.

We were also worried about our actor going under it.

Too thick and you don't want to shove your head under thick goo.

That was the trickiest bit, getting the viscosity right. Interesting filming day!

OK. Settle.

Action.

I liked the idea of having this very technically complicated effect shot,

for him to sink into his grotty carpet.

I quite like that sort of juxtaposition.

It feels rather good to me.

# Confidential, it's a secret

# Don't tell anyone

# You've got to kee-eeep it! #

-Oh, also - just so we...

-Oh my God!

It's funny, flicking through one of our...

-"Karen Gillan's timeless trends..." Wow!

-Karen, look.

"Fiery Karen shows us how to do retro chic with a modern twist...

"Whether it's a sleek jumpsuit and natty scarf...."

-Shut up!

-"..a tiger print bag."

-Put it away! You know nothing about fashion.

"Doctor Who's lady friend nails it."

-What?!

-That's right - "nails it".

-Oh, yeah!

The rising star at the heart of the episode is the young actor playing troubled child George.

Who are you, George?

Jamie is brilliant!

I met him for the first time the other day and he is such a little personality.

He's tiny, he's so little, but he's hilarious.

He was like, "Hello, are you Karen?" And I was like, "Yeah, hi, nice to meet you,"

and he started telling me all this stuff.

The thing. You have to do the thing, Mum.

'Jamie, who plays George - I think he's lovely.'

He's got a lovely little catch in his voice.

He is very believably Emma and Danny's son, I think.

I love that bit when the Doctor appears in the doorway and he says...

-I'm the Doctor.

-A doctor! Have you come to take me away?

And he actually sounds quite like an old lady. I love it! "Come to take me away?"

He's very sweet.

-Something's broken.

-He's the most excitable,

lively child I've ever met in my life.

He's very cool, confident. Apparently he likes sweet things, which he's been eating all lunchtime,

which means we'll have a wonderful afternoon. He does not stop talking,

I have no idea how he does it. He just seems to... He is the best conversationalist.

You could just say nothing to him and he would carry on, he's brilliant.

A fine addition to the Doctor Who cast.

SHOUTS EXCITEDLY

What is going on now?

Um, I am just sitting here enjoying myself.

I think I'm going back in to do more acting.

-Right, how is that going?

-Good.

-Good.

Good... Right, I'm on my way!

Run it continuously and I will talk through it.

Jamie, again, sort of unnerving to find young children

that are quite astute and savvy and he is definitely that.

Great energy and great enthusiasm, and was a real hit among the set.

I think he has turned in a really good performance.

-What's it been like working with Matt Smith then?

-Very nice. He's a very funny chap.

Rehearsal...I think we should give this a go.

Are you ready, Jamie? Does Jamie have an eye line upstairs?

Yeah, so pretend that's the Doctor, yeah?

The thing that makes it snap as they're all on the staircase inside the dolls' house

and the dolls are all converging on George, the Doctor realises that the nub of his problem is

he thinks he's going to be rejected - the one thing he can't stand.

-Action!

-Something's holding him back. That's it! That's what the trigger was.

He thought someone was going to come and take him away.

-We talked about it.

-Yes, and he heard you, Alex. His sole function is to fit in.

-You were rejecting him.

-We just couldn't cope, we needed help!

But George didn't know that. He thought you were rejecting him. He still thinks it.

He's not...

human.

# In your heart, you know it to be true

# You know what you got to do... #

EVIL LAUGHTER

Whatever you are, whatever you do,

you're my son and I'll never, ever, send you away.

Dad...

And then Alex knocks them aside, like the good dad he is, and says,

"You're my little boy, I won't let you go", it makes me cry.

Cut, that was good. Well done, Jamie. That's good.

Did someone mention something about planets and history and stuff?

We shot a scene in the TARDIS with a bit of the nursery rhyme which has sinister implications for the Doctor.

-Or universes, ooh...

-I wanted a prefiguring of the doctor's death,

so I suggested to Mark he write a nursery rhyme.

So he wrote this rather wonderful Tick Tock Goes The Clock.

EERIE SINGING

All I know is the Doctor is going to die.

# ..Goes the clock, even for the Doctor... #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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