Doctor Who Confidential (2005–2011): Season 2, Episode 7 - The Writer's Tale - full transcript
GATISS: 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 is the one.
You can read a page of the 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.
GATISS: 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!
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.
I remember getting that script for
the first time and turning that page
when you realise the end battle is going
to be on the mast of Alexandra Palace,
and thinking, "Oh, God!"
You never know because of the constraints of
filming whether it's going to be possible.
There was also a bit of,
"Actually, we can do this
and we can do this really well "
Look up to where Magpie is.
(ALL CHATTERING)
MAN: Action.
I can't do this!
Please! Please, don't make me.
This is the scene of my
death where I get fried
because I...
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, I'm not going to do it,"
and she fries me
with electric pulses and things like that.
You promised me peace.
Then peace you shall have.
(MAGPIE SCREAMING)
-Magpie's on that bit, isn't he?
-He is, yeah.
We're shooting on the
helipad in Cardiff today.
There are a few technical issues
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,
a matte 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, kind of, safety wires.
Which is always a bit boring, frankly.
But because we were only on a stretch of
full pylon, which is only about 20 feet tall,
we were allowed to climb up and down it
relatively freely.
-Just climbing, 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
for malicious reasons.
There was a lot of
wonderful stuff in Mark's script
which didn't make the final cut
Just 'cause there was too much of it.
There were some fantastic speeches
that I had that we just never got to film
because it was such
a rich and full episode.
Cutting stuff is just an economy.
It's a briskness. It's a confidence,
actually. 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 find,
is just to write.
And it means you write
quite a lot of nonsense at first,
but you just have to kind
of plough through that.
In any other drama, you
type scene 1, day, street.
Or scene 2, pub. Scene 3, bedroom.
And with Doctor Who,
you're sitting there going,
"You can be on a space station
or a different planet."
The brief was a '50s
story, uh, quite rock 'n' roll.
Is there any other way to go, daddy-o?
Three, take 3.
GATISS: 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 so, historically,
you can smell the buzz in this room.
You really can feel the electricity.
(LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY)
The role of 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.
Feed me!
And I'm hungry!
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.
Is that personal to Magpie?
-No, it's about...
-It's general for the world.
They're forging ahead
regardless of consequence, I think.
Mark writes these fantastic characters.
Characters like Magpie.
Please. You're burning me. Inside.
Behind my eyes.
There's a goodness that comes out,
um, in his characters.
There's a marvellous
faded elegance about Magpie.
LYN: He describes, you know, this man
who's been disappointed by life.
He sat there in his vest,
kind of 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."
By the end, the Doctor is standing up and
he's sitting down and the Doctor's saying...
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.
Quickly, where was she
before this happened?
Seeing it realised is always a curious
moment. It's never quite the way you imagine.
The 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.
Doing a period episode like this is probably
one of the most difficult things that we do.
On this show, I've got a fantastic team
that, you know, 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
and they look like 1953.
We've got all these
wonderful motorcars, look.
Cue the car, look. This looks fabulous.
I thought we'd be going for the Vegas era.
You know, the white
flares and the 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 on this
to get something really iconic with the
two of them to get the fun of the 1950s.
Yeah, well, me and Mum, Cliff Richard
movies every Bank Holiday Monday.
Cliff! I knew your mother
would be a Cliff fan.
GATISS: And so ends the writer's tale,
leaving the Doctor and
Rose once again united.
From The Idiot's Lantern onwards,
it is the Doctor and Rose.
-Hi!
-Hi!
These two best friends travelling together
and what they mean to each other.
The Doctor and Rose love each other.
I think it's that simple.
That's what I like about you.
Anyway, I'm the Doctor and this is Rose.
Hell of a right hook.
They have battle after battle
after battle to stay together.
Magpie, help me.
It's like the universe
is becoming rougher around them.
The challenge to the two of them is
becoming tougher and tougher and 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...
You know, 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
is going to have to pay the price for this.
Good night, children.
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 is the one.
You can read a page of the 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.
GATISS: 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!
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.
I remember getting that script for
the first time and turning that page
when you realise the end battle is going
to be on the mast of Alexandra Palace,
and thinking, "Oh, God!"
You never know because of the constraints of
filming whether it's going to be possible.
There was also a bit of,
"Actually, we can do this
and we can do this really well "
Look up to where Magpie is.
(ALL CHATTERING)
MAN: Action.
I can't do this!
Please! Please, don't make me.
This is the scene of my
death where I get fried
because I...
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, I'm not going to do it,"
and she fries me
with electric pulses and things like that.
You promised me peace.
Then peace you shall have.
(MAGPIE SCREAMING)
-Magpie's on that bit, isn't he?
-He is, yeah.
We're shooting on the
helipad in Cardiff today.
There are a few technical issues
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,
a matte 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, kind of, safety wires.
Which is always a bit boring, frankly.
But because we were only on a stretch of
full pylon, which is only about 20 feet tall,
we were allowed to climb up and down it
relatively freely.
-Just climbing, 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
for malicious reasons.
There was a lot of
wonderful stuff in Mark's script
which didn't make the final cut
Just 'cause there was too much of it.
There were some fantastic speeches
that I had that we just never got to film
because it was such
a rich and full episode.
Cutting stuff is just an economy.
It's a briskness. It's a confidence,
actually. 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 find,
is just to write.
And it means you write
quite a lot of nonsense at first,
but you just have to kind
of plough through that.
In any other drama, you
type scene 1, day, street.
Or scene 2, pub. Scene 3, bedroom.
And with Doctor Who,
you're sitting there going,
"You can be on a space station
or a different planet."
The brief was a '50s
story, uh, quite rock 'n' roll.
Is there any other way to go, daddy-o?
Three, take 3.
GATISS: 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 so, historically,
you can smell the buzz in this room.
You really can feel the electricity.
(LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY)
The role of 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.
Feed me!
And I'm hungry!
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.
Is that personal to Magpie?
-No, it's about...
-It's general for the world.
They're forging ahead
regardless of consequence, I think.
Mark writes these fantastic characters.
Characters like Magpie.
Please. You're burning me. Inside.
Behind my eyes.
There's a goodness that comes out,
um, in his characters.
There's a marvellous
faded elegance about Magpie.
LYN: He describes, you know, this man
who's been disappointed by life.
He sat there in his vest,
kind of 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."
By the end, the Doctor is standing up and
he's sitting down and the Doctor's saying...
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.
Quickly, where was she
before this happened?
Seeing it realised is always a curious
moment. It's never quite the way you imagine.
The 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.
Doing a period episode like this is probably
one of the most difficult things that we do.
On this show, I've got a fantastic team
that, you know, 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
and they look like 1953.
We've got all these
wonderful motorcars, look.
Cue the car, look. This looks fabulous.
I thought we'd be going for the Vegas era.
You know, the white
flares and the 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 on this
to get something really iconic with the
two of them to get the fun of the 1950s.
Yeah, well, me and Mum, Cliff Richard
movies every Bank Holiday Monday.
Cliff! I knew your mother
would be a Cliff fan.
GATISS: And so ends the writer's tale,
leaving the Doctor and
Rose once again united.
From The Idiot's Lantern onwards,
it is the Doctor and Rose.
-Hi!
-Hi!
These two best friends travelling together
and what they mean to each other.
The Doctor and Rose love each other.
I think it's that simple.
That's what I like about you.
Anyway, I'm the Doctor and this is Rose.
Hell of a right hook.
They have battle after battle
after battle to stay together.
Magpie, help me.
It's like the universe
is becoming rougher around them.
The challenge to the two of them is
becoming tougher and tougher and 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...
You know, 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
is going to have to pay the price for this.
Good night, children.