In December 1964, Doctor Who was into its second year.
And although the viewers had a short break in early autumn, the regular cast had been
recording Doctor Who every week for over 12 months.
It's all most out, isn't it? Most out.
Perhaps surprisingly, however, it wasn't the workload that led to the first departure
of a regular cast member, but the rather more theatrical concerns of character development
and typecasting.
It was a surprise. She complained a lot to us, you know, that all she had to do was scream,
and that was what was wrong, and she really wanted something juicy to act, and she felt
she wasn't getting it, and I think she talked to Verity about it, and she certainly talked
to us about it. And so in a sense it wasn't a surprise.
She had been one of the original companions, and I suppose in these days, these were your
sort of four friends that went through time and space, and you were kind of sad that one
of them had left.
I'd better clear up my cupboard. Isn't it dreadful, Muddle?
Yes, you little monkey. You know, since you've been away from that school, you seem to have
got yourself thoroughly disorganised.
Carol was the sort of perfect casting for Doctor Who's granddaughter. I mean, she was
amazing. She did have this unearthly strangeness about her, and I don't think anyone ever attempted
to follow that. I mean, you couldn't.
When Susan left, particularly with that very sad music that they have at the end of A Delicate
Vision of Earth, and the key and the stars and everything else, you felt, oh, that's
really very sad. I wonder what's going to happen next.
Carol Ann Ford's decision to leave upset the star of the show. William Hartnell even wrote
to her, asking her to reconsider her decision.
Goodbye, Susan. Goodbye, my dear.
He couldn't understand that, you know. When you're in success, you know, stay in success,
you know, don't leave. He couldn't understand that.
I think he was upset at having to get to work with a new young companion. I don't remember
any particular incident there, but I think there was just a general feeling that he felt
that he'd got to get to know someone else, just when he'd broken in nicely with her.
Having decided that the new girl should also be a teenager, Verity Lambert and her team
began creating her character. They decided that she should be an earth orphan from the
future, stranded on a far distant planet. They considered various names for her, including
both the exotic and the frankly odd. Among these were Lucky, with two Ks, and Tanny.
Susan back then in the 60s, there was quite a few girls called Susan, so it was quite
a normal, sort of ordinary name. But things like Tanny, I never knew a girl called Tanny,
or some of the other names that there were quite a few, I think, that they were going
to give to this new companion. What was interesting, it wasn't Victoria, it wasn't a shortening
of Victoria, because I think in the rescue it specifies she's actually called Vicki,
V-I-C-K-I. The production team considered an array of
actresses before narrowing the field to a final two. One of these was a promising young
performer, Maureen O'Brien. Fresh out of drama school, Maureen had just started her first
job at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool. A wonderful guy who taught me at Central,
at the Central School of Speech and Drama, Harry Moore, sent me a telegram saying, chance
of work on telly, phone me. So I phoned him, and this is a measure of my innocence at the
time. I said, but Harry, I've already got a job. He said, don't be silly, darling,
and he said, they're replacing the girl in Doctor Who and they're looking for someone
else. I went to see Verity, who was terribly sweet
to me, and she said, come back and do a screen test. And I got the part. And suddenly I had
to leave the Everyman, and I also suddenly found myself besieged by journalists. It was
a complete shock. Vicki's first story was entrusted to outgoing
story editor David Whittaker. The rescue was envisaged very much as a vehicle for the new
companion. I think the thing about the rescue that was
fascinating was it was so short, and certainly focused much more on the companions than it
did on anything else. It was very much a character-driven story.
It seemed a little bit put together in a bit of a rush, which I think it was. But I mean,
David, in fact, did do the main thing, and the main thing was to introduce this new girl
and see how attractive she was and how easy she was and how the Doctor liked her and we
liked her. That was covered. When I began the first episode, my kind of
being found like Miranda in The Tempest on this deserted planet with my Caliban, I did
find that rewarding because that was a bit of acting.
She was happy, she was sad, she was angry. All the emotions were sort of carefully explored.
I think it was a very good audition, as it were, for her.
Sidney Newman, who was the kind of big boss, whom I liked very much, he was a very straightforward,
not to say rude, man. But I appreciated that because I come from Liverpool and that's how
I talk to people, so it seemed okay to me. And he came down onto the floor and he said,
we're thinking of having you cut your hair and dye it dark. And I said, why don't you
just get Caroline Ford back? I said, I'm going to cut my hair and dye it when I leave Doctor
Who, not while I'm in it. She was kind of introduced as the new companion,
so you kind of knew that she was before she actually became, but that was, I think, just
a day or so before the actual show.
Then as the rescue ships land and it's arrived, we'll be taken back. Isn't it marvellous?
I was happy to welcome her. I knew of her. I'd seen her work and thought she was a very
good little actress. She's also very charming, very intelligent and pleasant to have on the
set.
I found Jackie and Russell and Bill and Verity and the directors, all of them, very welcoming
and lovely and very kind to me because I was an innocent abroad. Jackie and Bill especially
looked after me very, very well.
We all liked her very much and she was a very intelligent girl and a good, a very good actress,
I think. And she managed to get a lot into the rescue.
And I can remember Carol Ann Ford turning up on the first, my first day of rehearsal
to say, I had a wonderful time and good luck and I thought that was very sweet.
Assigned to direct The Rescue was Christopher Barry, who had directed the first appearance
of the Daleks the year before.
The director, Christopher Barry, was one of the sort of stalwart directors of Doctor Who
really and he was very nice to work with, very thorough, very good.
I liked Chris. I mean, he was, he was very easy to get on with as a director, very. And
he got a move on, you know, he didn't waste time.
In a new approach for the series, The Rescue was to use the same production team as the
four-part story that followed, The Romans. For recording purposes, the two stories were
treated as a single six-episode block.
Blocks of six seemed to be a favourable length of time, either for storytelling or to run
budgets to or something. But yes, and it was obviously worthwhile doing the filming for
both stories together.
The filming at Ealing Studios was primarily concerned with the model sequences. These
models were built by an outside contractor to the specifications of the programme's designer,
Raymond Cusick.
Shawcraft models were excellent model makers. They couldn't design, which I discovered quite
early on. Usually with a good visual effects designer, you can scribble something on the
back of an envelope and say, make that. And they go away, construct, design it and construct
it. But with Shawcraft models, you had to spell it out to them.
I prepared a drawing of the spacecraft as it would be in flight sort of thing. And then
I did another drawing of the craft all crushed up and in bits. So they were from the two.
I think if I'd have given them the second drawing, they couldn't have visualised it
really, how it should look.
Raymond Cusick and fellow designer Barry Newbury handled the lion's share of the design responsibilities
on Doctor Who during its first two seasons.
When Barry and I were doing the Doctor Who, we were doing alternating on the stories.
There was a design continuity. And I noticed when I, after I left the programme and other
designers were brought in on a turnaround, you know, that continuity went out the window.
He was so inventive and nothing fazed him. He got on with things and he did wonderfully.
I mean, going back to the Daleks, which is where we worked together first, it was wonderful
creating them.
With his limited budget, you know, he found things to do that were very imaginative, I
think.
You start off with a basic sum. How much money have you got? What can you afford? What can't
you afford? Luckily, I discovered in some materials, basically reeded hardboard, which
I use for the shell of the ship, sprayed silver, of course. So it was quite cheap to use and
it was quite effective.
Look, Vicky, I know how badly you want to get off this planet. We both want to get away,
but it's no good building up our hopes.
Working for the rescue was a fairly straightforward task, with only one other major speaking part.
Originally considered for Bennett, and therefore Kekwilian, was Bernard Archard. In the end,
the part went to Australian actor Ray Barrett.
It was fun to work in it and I had a wall. I really enjoyed it. You just let yourself
go. I mean, you've got tremendous license, haven't you, to play this character, Bennett,
and then who changes into a monster, Kekwilian. And I remember vividly how uncomfortable that
uniform was, you know, the monster.
Ray Barrett started, of course, in Australia. He started, I believe, when he was very young.
He did shows on the radio. He started working, I think, in a radio station. He came over
to Britain in the end of the 1950s and he started Emergency War 10.
Ray Barrett was an actor whom I had seen on a show once and it was impressed by. I liked
his sort of rugged face and he had a sort of haunted look, I thought, about him, which
would suit this character rather well.
Anyway, I'd noted him down in my little notebook of actors and actresses whose performances
I wanted to remember and I dug him out of the book when the time came. And I thought
he did very well. I thought he served the part beautifully.
I just played him as a normal, straight human being. I mean, I think that was important,
not to give it away, do you know what I mean? So therefore, the contrast, playing this monster,
was, had more impact, really.
You have been outside. Stand up!
Daphne Dare, the costume designer, designed Coquillion. She was an excellent designer.
It was suitably repellent. From a little children's point of view, I think they were terrified
when they first saw it.
There was always the feeling, I think, even back then, is what's really underneath them.
So whether you actually took the actual costume as being the character, whether it was what
he was wearing and there was a creature underneath.
There's a theme throughout Doctor Who, I think, that there's more than meets the eye. That's
one of the themes right through the whole series, from the TARDIS being a police telephone
box but really a spaceship, the Doctor looking human but actually not really being. There's
something beyond the obvious. I think one of the philosophies, ideas of Doctor Who in
the olden days was, look beyond, there is more to life than meets the eye.
This used to be the people's hall of judgement. Fitting in the present circumstances, don't
you think? Mr. Bennet, may I remind you that masks and robes such as you are wearing are
only used on absolutely ceremonial occasions? Are you finished?
I must mention Bill Hartnell, William Hartnell. He was a lovely character. He could upset
a few people, you know. But I got on famously with him and had a ball. I gave him as good
as he gave me, you see. And I think he respected that.
For me, Bill Hartnell is the Doctor Who. I don't think any of the others have ever had
this terrifying quality. He was mysterious. He was strange. And he
was from another planet. Bill in real life did have a kind of suppressed
rage, which was partly, I think, to do with his... he had a lot of bitterness about his
life as an actor because he felt he had something really very big inside him to give. And he'd
spent his life playing little sergeant majors, horrible little, snarling sergeant majors.
So Doctor Who for him was a lifeline. And he grasped the end of that lifeline and he
climbed up it and he knew that for him this was going to be the wonderful part of his
life. And he really loved it. He did. He really enjoyed
it, yes. Oh, goodness, when Jackie and I left, it was a real scene. I mean, it was awful.
What's the matter? What is it? What is it? Oh, good gracious me.
I quickly sussed out that he was a very irascible man and that he lost his temper at least three
times a day with various things. There would always be little things, little nonsense things.
I sussed this out and my role quickly became that of the person who laughed him out of
his rages. I could laugh him out of anything. And that's what I did. And I spent as much
energy doing that as I did acting. It just became my role in the family.
My dear, why don't you come with us? In that old box?
We can travel anywhere and everywhere in that old box, as you call it.
I took him over to St. John's Wood. He lived in Sussex or somewhere. I don't know, one
of the counties, southern counties. And for some reason he couldn't get back that night
from filming or something or other. So I said, well, come with me. I'll take you over to
St. John's Wood where I lived, made avail of St. John's Wood. And I found him a hotel
and took him to my local pub and everything. And everybody was, you know, knocked out to
see Doctor Who drinking a pint in their local, you know.
The story was recorded at the BBC's Riverside Studios over two Fridays in early December
1964. It was largely problem free, although there was an accident involving one of the
visual effects.
Jacqueline Hill was hurt in doing the rescue. But that was when she fired off this, what
I call the very pistol.
The trouble with special effects explosions is you can't exactly control them. And sometimes
they're a bit bigger than you expect. And I don't know, in fact, how much we'd rehearsed
that at this distance in time. I can't remember whether we'd rehearsed it or whether it was
entirely new to her when it suddenly happened.
Firing too soon on the first take, the explosion went off in Jacqueline Hill's face. Although
it caused no lasting damage, she was highly startled by the incident.
Jackie was so calm and usually you would notice if she was upset, certainly.
To create the impression that the cliffs were overlooking the crashed spaceship, the production
team used one of the few video effects available to them.
Barbara, look!
Inlay, that was done with a machine in the control room. And it was quite simple to use,
really. And that was really our basic bit of trickery we could use. We used it quite
a lot.
It was done by putting a flat up and masking the person behind the flat and then putting
something beyond them and shooting so you embrace both images. Now, that wasn't just
done literally like that. It was done electronically because the background was a model. So one
camera or it may have been telecine, I don't remember. If it wobbles, it was telecine.
But if it's steady, then it was another camera.
Come in. Come in, won't you? I've been waiting to talk to you.
The story's climax featured the Dido Temple. The team used design and lighting to create
a dark, foreboding atmosphere.
This was done quite cheaply, mainly using black drapes with smoke and so on. And the
lighting director was Howard King, who went on to become quite good at lighting. In fact,
he was, in the end, ended up lighting first class dramas.
All lighting engineers, as they were, were obviously keen to improve their reputation
and keep the good standard of the production up. And those who were really good and moody
and knew what they were doing got asked for all the time on the prestige drama productions.
And producers would fight over which crew they wanted in order to get the right engineer
to light it.
Howard King, he was a great believer in reflected light. You would have a large set and you
would have a large white screen in front of the set, allowing access for cameras, but
he'd throw all his light on the screens to bounce back into the set to give us a particular
soft lighting effect. He was very experimental.
I am your only protection.
In order to protect the surprise revelation concerning Coquillion's identity, the cast
listings for part one included an interesting pseudonym.
I was sort of about 11 or something when it was on. And you were kind of aware of actors
a bit because I used to read the Radio Times. So that's why you read about Coquillion played
by this Sidney Wilson, which of course you thought, oh, that's an actor.
Sidney Newman, Donald Wilson, the names from the two heads of department, head of drama
and head of serials, in order to keep it anonymous because it was obviously important that you
shouldn't give away in the program notes, so to speak, that it was the same guy.
The show was a great success in terms of viewing figures.
It was great to know that, to find out that that particular story I was in was a top rating
at the time. And that gave me quite a thrill.
With an audience of 13 million, a figure Doctor Who would not equal until the Tom Baker years,
the rescue even beat the ratings for the preceding Dalek story.
Outrated the Daleks. That's something, isn't it? I shall have that on my tombstone.
Right at the Daleks.