Doctor Who Confidential (2005–2011): Season 4, Episode 7 - Nemesis - full transcript
Action.
NARRATOR: This week, Doctor Who
becomes a Doctor-Who-dunnit.
Well, then, solving a murder mystery
with Agatha Christie. Brilliant.
It's probably the most unusual script
I've had on this show.
Goodness!
Bashed on the head. Blunt instrument.
Action.
NARRATOR: Become an armchair detective
and get all clued up with Confidential
as we travel back behind the scenes
to Britain in the Roaring Twenties.
Never mind planet Zog, a party
in the 1920s, that's more like it.
It's a murder mystery,
but not one you've read before.
-Morphic residue.
-Morphic? Doesn't sound very 1926.
No!
NARRATOR: There's a party atmosphere
on location in South Wales
for the filming
of the Doctor's latest adventure.
With so many shady suspects on set,
it's murder for the director.
DIRECTOR: And action.
Good afternoon, my lady.
Topping day, what? Spiffing. Top-ho!
And cut. Can I just do...
The making of this
was very time-consuming
because when you got
nine or ten people in a scene,
they all have to be covered.
You've got a developing shot
and then a close-up of that person,
and then you move around
and do that person,
and maybe you want two shots,
then three shots. That all takes time.
Every time you set the camera up
to do a new shot,
it's at least 20 minutes each time.
NARRATOR: Given the fact
that it's a whodunnit,
it couldn't be anything
other than a big cast.
We kind of knew it was a traditional,
obviously, an Agatha Christie whodunnit.
We wanted to take the sort of essence
of Agatha Christie.
MAN 1: Okay. Let's go then, please.
MAN 2: Yes, please.
And it's absolutely essential
of a whodunnit,
you have to have an ensemble cast,
a big large cast full of suspects.
DIRECTOR: And action.
Good afternoon, Professor Peach.
Well, first of all,
you got Professor Peach.
I need to check
something in the library.
-Oh?
-Alone.
Who doesn't make it through
the opening titles.
I say, what are you
doing with that lead piping?
But, you know, somebody's got to be
the first one to go.
No!
Then old Lady Eddison,
the lady of the house.
Forgive me,
but who exactly might you be?
And what are you doing here?
Charming, genteel, mannered,
society lady,
but with a mysterious past.
Oh, my God!
Everyone's got a secret, which means
everyone's got a motive, of course.
That's traditional in a murder mystery.
Action.
(CHUCKLES) My husband.
Then you have Colonel Hugh.
Forgive me for not rising.
Never been the same ever since
that flu epidemic back in '18.
Devoted, sociable, clubbable man,
life and soul of the party.
Don't give my wife ideas.
Who is also harbouring
quite a major secret,
in that he's been in a wheelchair
for 20 odd years and doesn't need to be.
Confound it, Mrs Christie.
How did you discover the truth?
45, take 1. B camera only.
Then you have their son, Roger.
My word. You are a super lady.
Handsome, charming, with a great,
big secret staring you in the face
that the Doctor and Donna
pick up on straight away.
Typical.
All the decent men are on the other bus.
Then there's Davenport.
Your usual, sir?
Thank you, Davenport.
Just how I like it.
The handsome, charming butler,
who might be a little bit close
to one of the family
than he should be in 1926.
Some of these young boys
deserve a decent thrashing.
Couldn't agree more, sir.
We had to have the flapper character,
of course, in the 1920s.
-Miss Redmond.
-Spiffing to meet you at last, my lady.
So, Miss Robina Redmond is there,
the charm of the London society,
socialite, funny, wonderful, clever,
also, strangely, hiding a secret.
(DAVIES LAUGHING)
So, she looks like a suspect early on,
but actually is hiding
a completely different layer of motives.
Oh, all right, then. It's a fair cop.
She's a scrubber from the East End
who's stealing everybody's jewellery.
Go on, then, you nonce. Arrest me.
DAVIES: Then you have
Reverend Golightly, of course.
Ah, Reverend. How are you?
Who's charming and polite
and honourable and decent.
As the Christian fathers taught me,
we must forgive them their trespasses.
He's the biggest secret of them all,
in that he turns into an alien wasp
when nobody's looking.
What's to stop me killing you all?
(BUZZING)
That's probably the bit
you wouldn't necessarily find
in a traditional Agatha Christie novel.
Okay. Turn it over, please.
A camera only.
There is a mysterious footman
in disguise,
creeping his way through
the garden party,
drawing attention to himself
beautifully and subtly,
that is in fact David Tennant's father,
making a cameo appearance.
MAN: 49, take 1. A camera. Mark.
I was coming down to visit David,
and I think they must have been
short of someone,
but they very kindly invited me
to play the part of a footman.
-Sidecar, please?
-And a lime soda. Thank you.
Which has been interesting,
and I didn't have to learn any lines,
so that was good news.
-Hello, I'm the Doctor.
-How do you do?
Now, my lady, where's the special guest
you promised us?
And finally, of course, in the house,
the final guest you bring in
is Agatha Christie herself.
Here she is.
A lady who needs no introduction.
No, no, please don't.
Miss Agatha Christie
running away from her husband in 1926,
in terrible circumstances...
Thank you, Lady Eddison,
but, honestly, there is no need.
...finding herself in a situation
where the patterns of her own books
are repeating around her.
So what's going on?
NARRATOR: As two vintage vehicles
tootle onto set.,
completing the shoot looks
likely to be a bumpy ride for the cast.
David and Fenella had just a few hours
to get to grips with these classic cars
before filming the climactic
chase sequence.
It's exciting just because it's fun
to drive these things.
At the same time,
you're always aware that
the owner of the car is usually there
and is usually looking at you
very beadily
because these cars are,
by their very nature,
quite rare and
therefore quite expensive.
MALCOLM McKAY: Well,
it's a Morris Cowley, built in 1926.
The accelerator is actually
in the middle.
They didn't actually standardise
until the end of the 20s.
So, you need to...
When you jump in the car,
you know something is different,
but you need to concentrate on that
because the brake is
therefore on the right.
It's a different sort of
driving experience
and if you're not used to it,
you are aware that you don't wanna be
blowing the engine
or destroying the gearbox.
So, second is like third
and third is like fourth.
Okay, reverse is like first.
It's all going so well.
It is very different and you're meant
to do this double-D clutching thing,
and we just changed our car
for an automatic,
so it was even more stressful for me.
Okay, so that's first. Where is second?
-Reverse is straight up.
-Reverse is straight up.
Accelerator is in the middle,
reverse is straight up.
-First is back.
-Easy-peasy.
1926 cars doing a car chase is not easy.
Can you make...
When I say a quick getaway,
quite a rapid getaway,
I don't mean racing.
McKAY: I'll show you what's possible.
As a director, you want to go,
"I just want a shot."
"You start the engine
and the next thing is we cut"
"to wheels spinning and they fly off "
Well, old vintage cars
don't have wheel spins.
That'll do. That'll do.
And here we are with
a Dick Barton-type of chase
with two cars that couldn't go
more than 20 miles an hour.
So, it's a hell of a chase!
(HONKING)
It's Laurel and Hardy!
If you look at it and dissect it,
the music's doing the pace for you.
The action the Doctor's doing,
the fast action he's doing
of running to the car, getting into
the car, pressing this, doing that,
and letting the brake and go,
and the tightness
and the fast cutting you do,
gives you the pace.
The lake! She's heading for the lake.
Cut!
I think you get away with it.
All right, it's a chase at 20 miles
an hour. So, that's what it is.
Right. Now, we're all okay.
We're in neutral,
and I just press that hard.
-And that's it, is that right?
-I think so, yeah.
(ENGINE REVVING)
-Oh, yes.
-Good.
Oh, yes. Excellent.
Right, what am I doing?
We were slightly struggling
to keep up with Fenella
-just because...
-Her car is faster than yours.
I guess her car's faster than ours.
We were actually overheating.
I did it in one take, didn't I?
I did. I did in one take. One down.
way to go.
Could be I can go up into third.
I was just waiting...
Because, well, on the slope earlier,
that's when it died, in fact,
-so I was trying to keep out of third.
-I'll slow her down a little bit.
Hello.
I could get it going,
but just didn't have much speed.
It just didn't have a lot of poke to it.
And, of course,
inevitably, when you're filming,
there's a camera car somewhere as well,
and you're trying to stay
a certain distance in front of them
so that they can get the shot.
That's difficult enough in a modern car,
but when you're driving something
you don't really have all the control
over you would wish for,
it can be a little bit difficult,
especially when you start going up hills
and the engine
Just doesn't want to know.
We're driving a sewing machine
behind you.
I'm sorry, David,
am I showing you up a little bit?
No, it's not me.
It's the engineering of ...
-Are you sure of that?
-It's the engineering of past ages.
You know what they say
about lady drivers, David.
-What?
-Ooh!
-...thank you.
-What was that?
...David's car goes on
the low loader, please.
-Ant
-Ah-hat!
You're obviously not
good enough, clearly.
I'm going to be driving
and you're on the low loader.
NARRATOR: There's no more
driving for David,
as the car is secured
to the camera truck.
Yeah, good.
Action.
Time is in flux, Donna.
For all we know, this is the night
Agatha Christie loses her life,
and history gets changed.
But where is she going?
(BUZZING)
The lake! She's heading for the lake.
I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it.
And I didn't blow it up.
I didn't break it,
which is always a plus.
NARRATOR: This week, Doctor Who
becomes a Doctor-Who-dunnit.
Well, then, solving a murder mystery
with Agatha Christie. Brilliant.
It's probably the most unusual script
I've had on this show.
Goodness!
Bashed on the head. Blunt instrument.
Action.
NARRATOR: Become an armchair detective
and get all clued up with Confidential
as we travel back behind the scenes
to Britain in the Roaring Twenties.
Never mind planet Zog, a party
in the 1920s, that's more like it.
It's a murder mystery,
but not one you've read before.
-Morphic residue.
-Morphic? Doesn't sound very 1926.
No!
NARRATOR: There's a party atmosphere
on location in South Wales
for the filming
of the Doctor's latest adventure.
With so many shady suspects on set,
it's murder for the director.
DIRECTOR: And action.
Good afternoon, my lady.
Topping day, what? Spiffing. Top-ho!
And cut. Can I just do...
The making of this
was very time-consuming
because when you got
nine or ten people in a scene,
they all have to be covered.
You've got a developing shot
and then a close-up of that person,
and then you move around
and do that person,
and maybe you want two shots,
then three shots. That all takes time.
Every time you set the camera up
to do a new shot,
it's at least 20 minutes each time.
NARRATOR: Given the fact
that it's a whodunnit,
it couldn't be anything
other than a big cast.
We kind of knew it was a traditional,
obviously, an Agatha Christie whodunnit.
We wanted to take the sort of essence
of Agatha Christie.
MAN 1: Okay. Let's go then, please.
MAN 2: Yes, please.
And it's absolutely essential
of a whodunnit,
you have to have an ensemble cast,
a big large cast full of suspects.
DIRECTOR: And action.
Good afternoon, Professor Peach.
Well, first of all,
you got Professor Peach.
I need to check
something in the library.
-Oh?
-Alone.
Who doesn't make it through
the opening titles.
I say, what are you
doing with that lead piping?
But, you know, somebody's got to be
the first one to go.
No!
Then old Lady Eddison,
the lady of the house.
Forgive me,
but who exactly might you be?
And what are you doing here?
Charming, genteel, mannered,
society lady,
but with a mysterious past.
Oh, my God!
Everyone's got a secret, which means
everyone's got a motive, of course.
That's traditional in a murder mystery.
Action.
(CHUCKLES) My husband.
Then you have Colonel Hugh.
Forgive me for not rising.
Never been the same ever since
that flu epidemic back in '18.
Devoted, sociable, clubbable man,
life and soul of the party.
Don't give my wife ideas.
Who is also harbouring
quite a major secret,
in that he's been in a wheelchair
for 20 odd years and doesn't need to be.
Confound it, Mrs Christie.
How did you discover the truth?
45, take 1. B camera only.
Then you have their son, Roger.
My word. You are a super lady.
Handsome, charming, with a great,
big secret staring you in the face
that the Doctor and Donna
pick up on straight away.
Typical.
All the decent men are on the other bus.
Then there's Davenport.
Your usual, sir?
Thank you, Davenport.
Just how I like it.
The handsome, charming butler,
who might be a little bit close
to one of the family
than he should be in 1926.
Some of these young boys
deserve a decent thrashing.
Couldn't agree more, sir.
We had to have the flapper character,
of course, in the 1920s.
-Miss Redmond.
-Spiffing to meet you at last, my lady.
So, Miss Robina Redmond is there,
the charm of the London society,
socialite, funny, wonderful, clever,
also, strangely, hiding a secret.
(DAVIES LAUGHING)
So, she looks like a suspect early on,
but actually is hiding
a completely different layer of motives.
Oh, all right, then. It's a fair cop.
She's a scrubber from the East End
who's stealing everybody's jewellery.
Go on, then, you nonce. Arrest me.
DAVIES: Then you have
Reverend Golightly, of course.
Ah, Reverend. How are you?
Who's charming and polite
and honourable and decent.
As the Christian fathers taught me,
we must forgive them their trespasses.
He's the biggest secret of them all,
in that he turns into an alien wasp
when nobody's looking.
What's to stop me killing you all?
(BUZZING)
That's probably the bit
you wouldn't necessarily find
in a traditional Agatha Christie novel.
Okay. Turn it over, please.
A camera only.
There is a mysterious footman
in disguise,
creeping his way through
the garden party,
drawing attention to himself
beautifully and subtly,
that is in fact David Tennant's father,
making a cameo appearance.
MAN: 49, take 1. A camera. Mark.
I was coming down to visit David,
and I think they must have been
short of someone,
but they very kindly invited me
to play the part of a footman.
-Sidecar, please?
-And a lime soda. Thank you.
Which has been interesting,
and I didn't have to learn any lines,
so that was good news.
-Hello, I'm the Doctor.
-How do you do?
Now, my lady, where's the special guest
you promised us?
And finally, of course, in the house,
the final guest you bring in
is Agatha Christie herself.
Here she is.
A lady who needs no introduction.
No, no, please don't.
Miss Agatha Christie
running away from her husband in 1926,
in terrible circumstances...
Thank you, Lady Eddison,
but, honestly, there is no need.
...finding herself in a situation
where the patterns of her own books
are repeating around her.
So what's going on?
NARRATOR: As two vintage vehicles
tootle onto set.,
completing the shoot looks
likely to be a bumpy ride for the cast.
David and Fenella had just a few hours
to get to grips with these classic cars
before filming the climactic
chase sequence.
It's exciting just because it's fun
to drive these things.
At the same time,
you're always aware that
the owner of the car is usually there
and is usually looking at you
very beadily
because these cars are,
by their very nature,
quite rare and
therefore quite expensive.
MALCOLM McKAY: Well,
it's a Morris Cowley, built in 1926.
The accelerator is actually
in the middle.
They didn't actually standardise
until the end of the 20s.
So, you need to...
When you jump in the car,
you know something is different,
but you need to concentrate on that
because the brake is
therefore on the right.
It's a different sort of
driving experience
and if you're not used to it,
you are aware that you don't wanna be
blowing the engine
or destroying the gearbox.
So, second is like third
and third is like fourth.
Okay, reverse is like first.
It's all going so well.
It is very different and you're meant
to do this double-D clutching thing,
and we just changed our car
for an automatic,
so it was even more stressful for me.
Okay, so that's first. Where is second?
-Reverse is straight up.
-Reverse is straight up.
Accelerator is in the middle,
reverse is straight up.
-First is back.
-Easy-peasy.
1926 cars doing a car chase is not easy.
Can you make...
When I say a quick getaway,
quite a rapid getaway,
I don't mean racing.
McKAY: I'll show you what's possible.
As a director, you want to go,
"I just want a shot."
"You start the engine
and the next thing is we cut"
"to wheels spinning and they fly off "
Well, old vintage cars
don't have wheel spins.
That'll do. That'll do.
And here we are with
a Dick Barton-type of chase
with two cars that couldn't go
more than 20 miles an hour.
So, it's a hell of a chase!
(HONKING)
It's Laurel and Hardy!
If you look at it and dissect it,
the music's doing the pace for you.
The action the Doctor's doing,
the fast action he's doing
of running to the car, getting into
the car, pressing this, doing that,
and letting the brake and go,
and the tightness
and the fast cutting you do,
gives you the pace.
The lake! She's heading for the lake.
Cut!
I think you get away with it.
All right, it's a chase at 20 miles
an hour. So, that's what it is.
Right. Now, we're all okay.
We're in neutral,
and I just press that hard.
-And that's it, is that right?
-I think so, yeah.
(ENGINE REVVING)
-Oh, yes.
-Good.
Oh, yes. Excellent.
Right, what am I doing?
We were slightly struggling
to keep up with Fenella
-just because...
-Her car is faster than yours.
I guess her car's faster than ours.
We were actually overheating.
I did it in one take, didn't I?
I did. I did in one take. One down.
way to go.
Could be I can go up into third.
I was just waiting...
Because, well, on the slope earlier,
that's when it died, in fact,
-so I was trying to keep out of third.
-I'll slow her down a little bit.
Hello.
I could get it going,
but just didn't have much speed.
It just didn't have a lot of poke to it.
And, of course,
inevitably, when you're filming,
there's a camera car somewhere as well,
and you're trying to stay
a certain distance in front of them
so that they can get the shot.
That's difficult enough in a modern car,
but when you're driving something
you don't really have all the control
over you would wish for,
it can be a little bit difficult,
especially when you start going up hills
and the engine
Just doesn't want to know.
We're driving a sewing machine
behind you.
I'm sorry, David,
am I showing you up a little bit?
No, it's not me.
It's the engineering of ...
-Are you sure of that?
-It's the engineering of past ages.
You know what they say
about lady drivers, David.
-What?
-Ooh!
-...thank you.
-What was that?
...David's car goes on
the low loader, please.
-Ant
-Ah-hat!
You're obviously not
good enough, clearly.
I'm going to be driving
and you're on the low loader.
NARRATOR: There's no more
driving for David,
as the car is secured
to the camera truck.
Yeah, good.
Action.
Time is in flux, Donna.
For all we know, this is the night
Agatha Christie loses her life,
and history gets changed.
But where is she going?
(BUZZING)
The lake! She's heading for the lake.
I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it.
And I didn't blow it up.
I didn't break it,
which is always a plus.