The mighty empire of Rome was entering the final years of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero. Five emperors who oversaw a time of
great expansion for the Empire. In AD 64 the Roman Empire was larger than any
empire had been previously. It stretched from Libya in the south to Britain in
the north, from Spain in the west all the way down to Armenia in the east. So it's a
very expansive empire. It was mind-blowing when you think the extents of it all,
because it was so vast and we look at it now and we think how vast it is, but
think how vast it must have been then when you think how long it took to get
from point A to point B and just how far away from home these people were when
they were civilizing us all. The Roman Empire was so innovative they made roads
they made central heating, they created baths, they created a whole wonderful
lifestyle. They were really very much before their time.
So many positive things, however of course there were so many negative
things too. I mean you know it didn't take anything to go and kill somebody.
Rome itself had developed into a city the like of which the world had never
seen before. The city of Rome in the first century AD is well over a million
people and this makes it one of the largest cities in the Western world. No
city in the Western world reached a million people until London in the 1840s.
So what we have is the biggest city that the Mediterranean world had seen. The
ruler of the Empire was the last of the Julio-Claudians, Nero, adopted son of
Claudius. When he became Emperor in AD 54 he was only 17 years old, very
inexperienced. The moment you start reading about him you realize that he
wasn't far from a normal person when he began or at least that's the way that he
he appeared and he was very good-looking and he would seem to be the great new
hope. He was surrounded by a lot of domineering influential people, most
significantly his mother who had been married to the previous Emperor Claudius.
One of the kind of classic motifs of Nero that comes across very clearly in
the Doctor Who episodes is that Rome under Nero becomes characterized by
decadence and luxury and the decline of morals. The idea is that Nero embraced
certainly Greek culture and brought elements of Greek culture, Greek drama
and Greek material culture into Rome which many contemporaries such as a
philosopher Seneca see as undermining Roman morality.
We're still learning the lessons of Rome and when you think of the ability that is so well
illustrated by someone like Nero to dare I say lose it in the course of
government from being a perfectly reasonable character to an incredibly
unreasonable rather evil character it's not a million miles away from some of
the leaders one could point out in today's political arena so I think we're
still learning.
At the BBC exactly 1,900 years after the time of Nero it was decided to take a
certain time traveler and his friends into a world of slave traders, gladiators
and a crazed liar-playing tyrant.
The idea of taking Doctor Who to Roman times had been discussed by producer
Verity Lambert and her team as early as April 1964. Writer Dennis Spooner who had
just written a story about the French Revolution was commissioned to write a
four-part Roman serial in August. I remember Dennis as a lovely person he
was a really funny man enjoyed his work had a lovely approach to life in the
threshold house where we lived on Shepherds Bush Green as part of the BBC
and he'd walk up and down the passage and drop into our office and make amusing
remarks and go away again and one just loved his work when it came in. Dennis
who was a newcomer really to us he created something that was comic that
was slight it was just more than usually humorous and some of the dialogue I
think in the scenes between all of us was so much more easy so much more
natural. You never told us you were going away. Oh well I don't know that I was
under any obligation to report my movements to you Chesterfield. Chester
Tons. Oh Barbara's calling you. It was nice to play it was nice to act.
Dearest you were on your way to see. I'd always watched Doctor Who I'd I loved it
I thought it was superb and this particular Doctor Who was very different
in as much as it it used comedy a great deal almost like a Fado farce.
Berity had said to Dennis I think she'd recognized in Dennis as he was always
making jokes and gags and things he was a funny man so she said to him bring it
into the script Dennis you know let's let's have a bit of fun with it.
Now young woman surely you wouldn't refuse me Claudius Nero a teeny weeny kiss.
The production team at that time they were riding the crest of a wave it was
almost as though they could do no wrong. There was always a certain amount of
comedy in Doctor Who even before that maybe it becomes a bit more explicit with
with the Romans their entire scenes which are purely there for comedy value.
Oh dear darling. Hello. Enjoying yourself dearest? It was great fun to do but I know it's not
something they did a great deal of. I actually think looking back at it now
it's a bit like Shrek is now not as rude because we couldn't be as rude as in
those days as they can now but still had that sort of slightly over-the-top comic
touch. I wanted to have a word with you Maximus but it can wait Maximus it can
wait. I know there are always complaints when if a show does a comedy
episode but it's you know you need that you need a bit you need some light
relief now and again and you need you need to have a laugh otherwise the show
is gonna be miserable. No ice I'm afraid. There's some in the fridge. There's lots of comedy when
you know Barbara in the villa and so forth particularly with that fridge
which is actually quite funny but that arises from character and you can imagine
these two characters sort of saying that that's totally within character. The bit
where they kept on in the third episode where Neera kept chasing
Barbara and in one door and out the other like a farce and in fact keeping missing
the characters. Oh dear you've missed them. It's quite interesting because I
think as a young person you would say oh you've missed them oh no and you'd have
to be quite involved in it. I think the mood of the piece forbade you to you
know really sort of make it very serious. You'll have a chance of fighting for your freedom.
A chance? How? By putting on a good show in the arena and hoping Neera is in a
benevolent mood. At the end of one of the episodes I said we'll be thrown to
the Coliseum into the Coliseum to fight and I think Ian says fight fight
who? And then there's a... and cuts immediately to sort of MGM lion going
rrrrrrr. That could be quite funny when you are doing it in the studio so perhaps that
was not taken as seriously as it might be. The comedic elements of the script were
particularly welcomed by William Hartnell. William Hartnell was very aware that he
wanted Doctor Who to be for the young people for the children particularly and
I once got a very nice letter from William Hartnell where he said that part of the reason he
left was he didn't like some of the direction that the program was going in
and so this program The Romans although it had its sort of very strong scenes
there was also the humor bits to contrast with that. He began in farce Bill
he told me and he loved it. It was a strange because in a sense his career
never allowed him to develop that side of him you know he was always from
Brighton Rock onwards you know he was a rather sinister character.
The answer is of course is not to be caught playing it.
If he dried on set of course in those days you couldn't stop the tape immediately but he had a technique when he dried and he used to go what what what and so whoever was on with him you know tended to cover that's what actors do you know with getting him back on the right track again.
But of course with me playing a deaf mute it was only what what you know I couldn't do anything.
So he was stymied in that way except that he didn't have very I think when I came to attack him he said oh what's this what's going on.
You know and all that went on.
At the center of the comedy particularly in the third episode was the Emperor Nero played by Derek Francis.
One thing that the Doctor Who depiction of Nero does which perhaps you don't see in previous depictions of Nero is the introducing element of farcical humor into the way Nero acts and behaves.
Derek Francis is the larger in life decadent loud character who a little bit like Benny Hill is chasing the female characters around.
I've been waiting for you.
He was of course very well known as a character actor.
It was a good catch to get Derek.
He was always on television he did films and so on but he was extremely kind and very patient.
He was well known for comedy timing and I think in the Romans you can see the comedy that he grew up with.
I have a surprise for you.
Guess what it is.
Well now let me think.
You want me to play in the arena.
You guessed.
The one thing that I like about Derek Francis' portrayal is the kind of juxtaposition of this farcical humor with a darker side because what we see is Nero is involved in this court which deals with slaves, which deals with gladiators, which deals with intrigues and poisonings.
The comedy death really is when he passes the poison goblet across.
She's a Nero, don't drink.
I'm not.
I have every reason to believe that drink is poison.
There's poison glasses and they're switching them around and then I was laughing away and then he calls a slave over and makes him drink it and he dies.
And I thought that's not funny, that's really not funny at all and it was just at that point you kind of think if they weren't playing this for comedy this would be really, really horrific.
Give me your sword.
He didn't fight hard enough.
Derek Francis' version of Nero owes much to previous screen interpretations of the Emperor.
That of Charles Lawton in 1932 and most famously Peter Ustinov in the 1951 movie Quo Vadis.
I suppose the first time anybody really got a kind of mainstream glimpse of Nero in modern popular culture was Mervyn Leroy's Quo Vadis in 1951 where you have famously Peter Ustinov playing the overweight, decadent, slightly mad, slightly camp Emperor.
Nero as this kind of decadent Emperor surrounded by all these material luxuries and goods is symptomatic of kind of 1950s consumerism in American culture and that was the one thing that struck me.
In the 1970s the Nero of the BBC TV series I, Claudius was brought vividly to life by Christopher Biggins.
I, Claudius was made in the days when the halcyon days of the BBC when the BBC had the most incredible costume department, the most incredible wig department, the most incredible props.
So all those things which sadly no longer exist. I mean I was dressed as Nero in raw silk.
Raw silk undergarments, fantastic flowing robes.
Every day fresh flowers were woven into my own hair.
I mean it was extraordinary. I mean I really did feel like an Emperor.
Christopher Biggins, very young Christopher Biggins captures very nicely the influence and the manipulation that his mother Agrippina wields over him.
Very memorable scene where Nero sets light to a piece of paper and it goes up in flames and Nero sort of stares longingly at the flames and goes what a beautiful thing a flame is. Of course foreshadowing the great fire of Rome that we get depicted in the Doctor Who series.
Come Octavia, let's go and find your brother. Perhaps we can pacify him.
You really had to be rich and very, very famous and very high up to succeed.
And of course the richer and the more high up and the more influential you were, the more difficult it was because you were murdered.
I mean you know we got rid of Claudius and someone got rid of me and someone got rid of John Hurt.
I mean there were backstabbing all the way round you know so you had to be on your toes.
But oh God it must have been wonderful.
And in the 1980s, in a departure from the previous depictions, Nero appeared on TV screens in the dashing form of Anthony Andrews.
In the 1980s we also have of course Anthony Andrews playing a decadent but relatively attractive characterization of Nero in the series A.D. Anno Domini.
This role for me particularly was a great honor because if you look at A.D. as a mini-series which was quite an epic Italian-American adventure
where all the sets had been built in, the whole forum was built in all of its glorious detail in Tunisia.
He's an extraordinary package in every way and the attraction was in the amount of distance one had to cover in the arc from the beginning to the grisly end.
So it was a gorgeous opportunity, made irresistible of course by some very attractive casting opposite me.
Brilliant! You are a genius, a genius! I will make you rich, rich!
Although Doctor Who's initial brief had been for the historical stories to in some way educate the younger viewers, the factual accuracy had become somewhat questionable.
Where the program originally started, the idea was to have the future and the planets and the past.
To go into history and do the educational kind of things and teach children about Marco Polo or the Crusades and these type of things.
They wanted it to be fairly historically accurate but not too historically accurate that it spoilt the story.
And I think that as a lot of people would say, the story comes first.
So to what extent did the Romans adhere to documented history?
Doctor Who's depiction of Rome was accurate in many ways. The people behind the scenes had certainly done their research.
The props and the setting were accurate. The various themes of slavery, gladiatorial combat, decadence, depravity.
They were very prominent in the series in a way that's very credible.
Silence!
One inaccuracy was the banquet scene where in fact you have all the characters in the Imperial court sitting around tables as we do eating their dinner.
Whereas we know in Roman banquets that what they did was they reclined on big sofas and they never ate while they were sitting up.
That was simply because we could not get all the people we needed in that scene in the studio space if they were lying out on chaises.
It was explicable purely by that. I wasn't terribly happy about it from a historical point of view.
But that's what had to happen.
Designer Raymond Cusick had the task of recreating the greatest city of ancient times on a design budget of just £450 per episode.
Doctor Who and the Romans was the first historical story I did. The only one I did.
Rome was mostly done with a few flats and a lot of drapes and solid props for furniture.
Luckily the BBC had at that time a vast collection of stock scenery.
So it meant that your actual building of new scenery was kept to a minimum.
Luckily, because I couldn't afford to build too much.
It was very like a stage play.
But of course again in these days television was seen as theatre in your living room.
Armchair theatre. That's what it was about.
We were used to the conventions of that being like a stage play.
The sets were often a lot better than some of the sets that would be used in a theatre.
I'm sure he kept running up and down the same corridor.
I think that's something I remember.
And suddenly appearing from around corners and different corners to make it look like a different corridor.
He managed to make the corridors double ended so that I was able to shoot first one way and have someone coming in from the left.
And then the other way and have them coming from the other direction.
Made some of our chases around corridors much longer than they might have been.
You never really kind of think it's just two sets, it's three sets and a bit of a corridor, like 20 feet of a corridor.
It never really occurs to you because you just get caught up in the story.
The same bush kept coming into shot when we were out of the city, on the way to the city.
I mean once or twice it was meant to be the same bush when the chap was found dead in the bushes.
But sometimes it wasn't meant to be.
That's better my dear, now they really are fighting for their lives.
In an effort to bring some authenticity to the program's action sequences,
Christopher Barry brought on board two experienced fight arrangers.
Peter Diamond's already impressive CV included from Russia with Love and Carry on Cleo.
And he would go on to perform stunts in Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark among many others.
I first met Peter Diamond in my Ealing studio days in a film called The Love Lottery with David Niven.
And he had a few lines as well and I'd seen, worked with him since then on other things.
And I thought that for the amount he had to do in this, he'd get away with it and I think he did.
Well, here we are Ian, Rome, now what?
Peter was very good, I mean he really could in a few minutes do the fights for you.
And we didn't have to spend hours, you know, rehearsing and everything.
Just what was easy, what was good and what could be done in the time.
Because fights, as one knows from today, you know, exist entirely on cuts.
And cuts were very expensive in those days.
And so we had about three cuts per fight.
So you didn't see the result of the blow or the delivery of the blow.
You just saw a general sort of feeling.
It was very difficult for the cameras to make the fights look more brutal.
Barry Jackson brought his skills as a tumbler and fight arranger to the part of Ascaris.
I was an actor, but actors have to supplement their income, you know, when you're starting.
So I started to think I've got two hats really.
Jack Barry, who was the fight arranger or the tumbler, and Barry Jackson.
If I win, I'll make it quick for you.
Peter Diamond, I think he'd originally taught me when I was at drama school in 1954.
And he probably had suggested me for this part since it required somebody to be gentle with the doctor.
I remember going for him with a gladius, the little sword,
and waiting for about four minutes while he turned around with his lyre.
So I'm endlessly going, ah, ah, ah, ah, hurry up, you know, before he turns around.
They broke something over my head at one point.
We used to use sugar glass for that, or sometimes wax if it was a bottle.
But it seemed to go fine.
I mean, I just threw myself around, made it look as if...
I don't think it's a terribly good fight.
Barry I got to know quite well, and he told me that his surname was really Barry,
and that we were probably therefore somewhere distantly related.
That sort of gave us a bit of a bond.
It was sad giving him a part, and unfortunately he didn't speak, you know,
he made noises because he'd had his tongue cut out, poor chap.
You fool! I went to where the body should have been, and there he was alive.
During that period as Jack Barry, I had a gladiatorial act.
Very hairy stuff, you know, sharpened spears and swords
and people in the audience trying to avoid sparks and things like that.
But it's quite interesting in a sense that it was a Roman character I played.
We were in the middle of this fight, crowds of people outside,
and he has a belt for me to kill him at the end, hitting him really hard,
and it's reinforced with steel at the end, but it slipped just as I hit him.
And this was the first show, we had another show to do.
I cut him through to this hip bone with this gladiator, you know, with a sword.
And he was amazing, because somehow we strapped him up
and we did a later performance in the afternoon.
Extraordinary, yeah.
So these were mad, mad days, really.
Pardon me, madam, I must go.
Nero's wife was played by Kay Patrick.
I knew something about Poppea, but only, I'm ashamed to say, through Quo Vadis,
who had a very glamorous woman playing her with two cheetahs,
which I thought was wonderful, and I hoped I might have two cheetahs as well
if I got the part, but I didn't.
Dearest, which one do you think I should wear?
Oh, that one.
Oh, really? I would have preferred the other, but if you insist.
The story of the real Poppea Sabina is one of ambition, ruthlessness and horror.
Poppea Sabina was Nero's second wife.
She was about seven years older than him
and she represents yet another domineering female figure in Nero's life.
Of course, Nero was already married at the point when he met Poppea.
He was married to the daughter of the previous emperor,
and the daughter was called Octavia,
and Octavia was executed in 62 AD, perhaps at the instigation of Poppea.
I wasn't there for the comedy, I was there for the nastiness.
So I think the fact that she could quite easily arrange for somebody to be poisoned
the way she caught Nero's eye was captured well in the script.
There's no answer to failure.
But I would have sworn it would be true.
I'm tired of your feeble excuses. Guards, guards! Take her!
Poppea was a very important influence on Nero,
but what happened in the end to Poppea is very interesting
because Poppea, when she was pregnant with Nero's child in 65 AD,
a year after our episodes,
Nero kicks her to death while she's pregnant
and that's the end of Poppea.
I'm not able to give you your freedom. You'll still be a slave.
The character of Tabeus was played by Michael Peake,
and in a striking scene is revealed to be an early Christian.
Michael Peake. I heard about him from one of our production assistants.
I looked him up and thought, oh, what a wonderful face.
Just right for a sort of double dealer.
And so I was very happy to cast him. I think he was excellent.
I had to slap Tabeus.
I can remember being very worried that I might hurt him
and he said, just go for it, so I did.
And I think he lived to tell the tale.
Good luck, my child. Good luck.
We know from several sources that Christianity,
even 30-odd years after the crucifixion of Christ,
had already made its presence felt in Rome.
We think they were mainly women and slaves,
figures in Roman society that perhaps didn't have a good life for various reasons
and the promise of an afterlife was something that appealed to them,
that wasn't part of any kind of current-state Roman religion.
There you see, young woman, that's the whole story.
I saw you with that poor woman slave
and it was then that I realised by the way you were looking after her
that I should have to help you.
It added another dimension to it because, interesting,
why was Tabeus so nice to Barbara?
Obviously because he had become a Christian and so on
and because he could recognise Barbara as a kind woman, as a caring person
and therefore he was prepared to do something for her.
Now don't worry, I'll think of something, I promise you. Everything will be all right.
It's possible that a member of the imperial court
could have been converted to Christianity,
although I think perhaps fairly unlikely at this stage.
Certainly later on, 100, 200 years later, the imperial court
would certainly have been infiltrated by people with Christian sympathies,
if not people who'd identified themselves as being Christians.
How many cistercia have I bid for this fine female example?
In many ways slavery is thought to have been the economic bedrock of the Roman Empire.
Without slavery, the Roman Empire could not have sustained itself.
The slaves were thought to be responsible for the production
of most of the agriculture and most of the craftsmanship in the Roman Empire.
If you think about servants then, think about machines today,
and that literally was...
I mean, Nero would have somebody wake him up.
Then he'd have someone else help him out of the bed.
Then he'd have someone else take his nightclothes off.
Then he'd have someone else wash him.
But it's also fundamental socially because slavery is very widespread.
It's the imperial court, the emperor, and the aristocrats that have slaves.
It's thought that everybody with a little bit of money would be able to afford a slave
to do their mundane day-to-day tasks.
So slavery is a very important social element of Roman society
as well as being a crucial economic factor.
It's nice that they don't pull away from that and brush it under the carpet.
It's right up front.
There were slaves in those times, and it wasn't particularly nice.
Someone like Nero would have had hundreds and hundreds of servants
like we have hundreds and hundreds of machines to make our lives go.
And so I love that.
It was fun. I loved servants.
If I was rich, I'd have everybody.
Everybody would be a servant. I love it.
The climax of our story features the infamous Great Fire of Rome.
The fire burned fiercely for five days.
Large parts of Rome were built from wood,
and four of the 14 districts were completely destroyed.
The Great Fire of Rome in AD 64 is one of the most infamous events in Nero's life.
We don't know why it happened.
The kind of later interpretation is that Nero started it on purpose
in order to clear a vast area of Rome on which to build a new palace.
I said it wouldn't pass my plans, eh?
Wouldn't let me build my new Rome.
In all likelihood, the fire probably started accidentally.
There were fires all the time in Rome.
Rome was built partly out of a lot of wooden huts and wooden constructions,
and fires were not unusual,
and we know there were very, very bad winds at this period in 64 AD
that would have spread the fire far and wide.
I was a bit disappointed in the Fire of Rome.
I mean, the Fire of Rome was not a great hit, was it?
I mean, it was just a sort of light going on and off
behind a sort of cut-out of a city somewhere.
This was a last-minute request.
Not only was it last-minute,
there was nothing left in the kitty to pay for it.
So it was a question of talking to the special-effects people,
Shawcraft models, to see what they could do, you know, for a few pounds.
I thought it looked awful.
I nearly walked out of the studio in disgust.
I expect Neil and Barbara will be wondering when we are going to get back.
Doctor! Look!
You can't possibly accuse me of...of...of...for that!
All right, you have it your way, I'll have it mine.
Now, look here, young lady, let's settle this,
insinuating that all this is my fault.
Hmm? Hmm.
My fault.
Although the viewing figures for the Romans were very good,
the audience appreciation was somewhat mixed.
This programme gets more and more bizarre.
In fact, it's so ridiculous, it's a bloody disaster.
The performances were nothing to write home about.
Hamming is the only word for it.
Not my cup of tea, but the kids seem to like it.
Maybe it was because of this reaction
that it took over 40 years for the Doctor to return to the Roman Empire.
Ancient Rome!
When I first got the job and they told me it was Pompeii
and all that other kind of business, I just thought,
let me just double-check. I'm sure they all know,
but I just want to double-check that I'm not going to say anything
that contradicts something, so I went and looked back
and there's a whole kind of timeline of everywhere he's been.
And I looked and it was like, oh, he was actually in Rome.
And then I looked up and I read the whole synopsis of the story
and I thought, I've got to mention that,
I've got to put a little reference in.
It's nice, actually, they're set quite close together.
The Romans, it's set in 1864 in the fires of Pompeii,
of course, the eruption of Vesuvius, 1879.
There's a nice little nod to the Romans at the start of the fires of Pompeii.
Have you been here before, then? No.
If you've never heard of the Romans, it works as a joke.
If you have heard of the Romans and you know the story,
then it works on that level as well.
Before you ask, that fire had nothing to do with me.
Well, a little bit, but I haven't got the chance to look around properly.
Colosseum.
Is that your lion? Why, have you lost her?
I thought that Dennis Spooner really brought a fresh look to the show
and he created something which was light and amusing
and yet was still dramatic, was still an exciting story.
What is going to happen? Is Ian going to get out?
Or, you know, I thought his combination was very, very successful.
.