Doctor Who 14x4

Directed by Rodney Bennett

Antony Carrick as Captain Rossini • Gareth Armstrong as Giuliano • Tim Pigott-Smith as Marco • Norman Jones as Hieronymous • Robert James as High Priest

As the leading scholars of the era assemble in the palace for the masque, Mandragora prepares to attack, intent on sending the world into a new dark age.

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1. This episode was first shown on 25 September, 1976.

2. It was seen by 10.6 million people, the serial's highest audience.

3. During pre-production, they considered several ways of doing the "faceless Hieronymous" effect.

4. This is much simpler: The robe dressing a blank surface, and a light.

5. The Count's body is a dummy.

6. There are no Brethren at the foot of the altar on the right: They are standing in a horseshoe shape.

7. This helped with the cameras' sight-lines, but leaves a gap in the helix of power.

8. Here it is effortlessly closed by subtle choreography:

9. One brother did a bigger twirl and the one in front slowed down to meet him.

10. Now full of Mandragora energy, the Brethren no longer have human bodies.

11. and that's why the Brethren all wear gloves!

12. It was a tough job equipping the dungeon with suitable implements of torture.

13. The cast found it difficult to take the branding irons seriously.

14. One of them had a letter "S" on the end, which gave them the giggles.

15. Could it be that Scarlatti the torturer liked to monogram his victims?

16. If you're looking around for the rack they ordered, don't bother: There wasn't one available,

17. but the metal-studded torturing wheel in the background here was the next worst thing.

18. Tom Baker was himself a monk before he became an actor.

19. After leaving school, he spent six years as a novice of the Order of Ploërmel in Jersey.

20. Before filming, Rodney Bennett and the technical crew had an experimental studio session on 28 April.

21. It took place in the tiny Studio 4A at Television Centre, and its purpose was to test electronic effects.

22. The make-up brief specified a pale complexion for Giuliano,

23. and a "stubbly blue chin" for Rossini.

24. On 11 and 12 May, while the actors were resting after the filming, the rehearsal room at Acton was made ready.

25. This entailed sticking lengths of coloured tape on the floor to "mark up" where the sets would be in the studio.

26. The first block dealt with the palace scenes (except for those set here in the dungeon).

27. Rodney Bennett rehearsed with the actors for nine days, 13 to 22 May

28. The rehearsal period began with a full read-through of the entire script,

29. Then they went into Studio 3 at Television Centre for the first two-day recording session on 24-5 May.

30. The second recording session ran for three days, 6-8 June, again in Studio 3.

31. The astronomer Galileo Galilei developed the telescope in 1609 - more than a hundred years later.

32. The floor of this composite set took sixteen hours to paint.

33. The patterned tiling on the lower wall was a quicker job: The scene painters used stencils.

34. And that begs a question:

35. Who exactly are the precious heads at the masque?

36. During pre-production, a historically fanciful guest list of 23 names was compiled.

37. Lorenzo di Credi (1459-1537), Andrea del Sarto (1468-1531), Michelangelo (1475-1564),

38. There were two architects, Donato Bramante (1445-1514) And Antonio da Sangallo (1455-1534),

39. and two sculptors, Andrea della Robbia (1435-1528) And Bacio Bandinelli (1488-1560).

40. Poetry was represented by Angelo Poliziano (1454-94) And Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533).

41. Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540), listed as "politicians", were also historians.

42. A distinguished but rather prescient guest list!

43. An astrolabe was an instrument used by astronomers from the second century BC,

44. until superseded by the sextant in the seventeenth century.

45. It was used to calculate the altitude and relative position of the stars and planets.

46. The alidade is a rotating bar used to line up the astrolabe with a celestial body.

47. The Doctor's holding his goose-quill the wrong way.

48. In an early version, the Doctor does his sums using Sarah's fingers to count with.

49. In the planning stages, the serial was allocated only four studio days, not five.

50. During pre-production, an extra day became available: 6 June.

51. This was also when they shot the scenes in the TARDIS, the Titan Hall, and some ruined temple sequences.

52. How apt that Mandragora should be named after a soporific drug!

53. How, when, and how much the Doctor sleeps was something Tom Baker thought hard about.

54. Mechanical wire-drawing was developed in Germany during the fourteenth century.

55. They had an erotic edge, because everyone wore masks, so nobody knew who was dancing with whom.

56. What does Hieronymous wear on his feet?

57. One shoe and one carpet slipper that has been slit open.

58. Norman Jones sprained his ankle during the production and the slipper eased the agony.

59. The script for this episode often mentions the energy blazing through the eye slits of Hieronymous's mask.

60. A corresponding energy wasn't always there during recording.

61. At one intense moment, there came a terrible silence and then, from behind the mask:

62. "Oh God, I've dried."

63. In the script, it's a chain mail waistcoat rather than plate armour.

64. Sarah always gently mocks the Doctor when he wears something unusual for the sake of a little plan.

65. When he was swathed in mummy bandages in 'Pyramids of Mars', for example, she ribbed him about his "accident".

66. In 1415, the French spent the night before the Battle of Agincourt carousing and having fun.

67. She was interviewed the same day for Radio 1 and the early evening television magazine Nationwide.

68. This set was delayed because of an industrial dispute.

69. The scenery should have been delivered to Studio 3 at Television Centre on the morning of 24 May.

70. It arrived in the afternoon,

71. so recording started several hours late.

72. In the script, he refers to the particles more colloquially as "cosmic rays".

73. Dudley Simpson wrote just under 42 minutes' worth of incidental music for the serial.

74. This was recorded in a two-day session on 8 and 9 July.

75. The final sound dub took four days, one episode per day, on 12, 13, 21, and 22 July.

76. The last editing session took place on 22 August, six weeks after production officially wrapped.

77. 'The Masque of Mandragora' was ready to go!

78. The Masque of the Red Death also centres on a gathering of noblemen at a masked ball.

79. A diminutive court jester is a prominent character in the film,

80. and the ducal palace is barricaded against a feared intruder: The plague.

81. A 32-second sequence showing the Brethren at dusk was scripted and filmed, but cut.

82. Two of them leaned over a rooftop rail and others lurked outside the palace.

83. The tumbling jester was a fairly late addition, a couple of weeks after principal casting was complete.

84. A contract was duly issued on 29 April, less than a month before the studio recording.

85. It's Stuart Fell,

86. whose fire-eating skills didn't save him from being burnt by the Helix energy in the first episode.

87. In fact, none of the tracks selected for the production were composed in Italy during the high Renaissance.

88. You've been listening to a medieval Italian istampita, 'Istampita Ghaetta', by an anonymous composer.

89. Starting now is the first of two dance tunes, both of them composed by Frenchmen in the sixteenth century.

90. This one is Pierre Attaignant's exquisite basse dance, 'La Brosse'.

91. The script identifies Sarah's admirer as a Florentine gallant.

92. "The gallant takes her and minces off with his prize," it continues.

93. The dancers are the Nonsuch Company, a specialist historical dance troupe.

94. The company was founded in 1966 by Peggy Dixon (who is dancing immediately behind Sarah).

95. The wire was supplied by the Visual Effects Department.

96. They had previously made a public information film for the Central Office of Information,

97. but most of their work was performed live at events and festivals, notably at Hatfield House.

98. 1976 also saw them established as a charity promoting public education in history and the arts.

99. The Doctor puns on the name of the apocalyptic Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516).

100. The "bosh" was scripted, but Tom Baker brought out the allusion by adding "Hieronymous" to the line.

101. The BBC's plans for the transmission of 'The Masque of Mandragora' changed radically in the course of production.

102. At an early stage, in January, 1976, the serial was slated for broadcast between 23 October and 13 November.

103. That was seven weeks later than it was eventually shown.

104. Philip Hinchliffe was happy with this:

105. It meant launching the 1976-7 series at a time when there was a good chance of getting onto the Radio Times cover.

106. But the transmission date was pulled back, first to 18 September, and finally to 4 September.

107. That put Doctor Who up against much stiffer competition for the front of the Radio Times,

108. because the first week in September was when the BBC customarily launched a whole raft of new series.

109. But Hieronymous seems now to be a strangely shrunken figure.

110. He's all energy, with no physical body left - and his energy is starting to run out.

111. The music is 'Branle de Champagne' by Claude Gervaise.

112. Most of the actors playing Renaissance characters are wearing hairpieces,

113. The script makes the passage of time It's now nearly nine-o'-clock.

114. It is Death, come to claim the masquers.

115. In the script, it's Sarah who pulls off the mask.

116. The massacre at the masque was a complicated sequence to record.

117. Seven recording breaks were needed to set up this montage of effects shots.

118. This episode was the subject of a report by the BBC's Audience Research Department.

119. In other words, Doctor Who was now watched by significantly more adults than children.

120. "Is there no other possible plot," someone asked,

121. "than that the Doctor saves the world from doom completely unaided?"

122. The eclipse was achieved with a model, a cyclorama and a lighting effect.

123. They felt that younger viewers preferred futuristic adventures to historical ones:

124. "For our five- and seven-year-olds we need Daleks and gadgetry".

125. On balance, though, more people enjoyed the serial's historical dimension than disliked it.

126. Some adult viewers had another point at issue: They thought the plot was too hard for children to follow.

127. On the other hand, one of them needed his seven-year-old daughter to explain it to him!

128. Norman Jones dubs the Doctor's mimicry, but Tom doesn't quite get his lips in synch.

129. Tom Baker spent one of those days, 12 June, making a publicity appearance at the Blackpool carnival.

130. The salami was a late, unscripted idea.

131. There are only two horses here, even though four were available. Did poor old Sarah have to walk?

132. The horses were hired from a riding school in Stroud, Gloucestershire.

133. In fact, Leonardo hadn't yet designed his submarine: The surviving sketch dates from c.1515.

134. This was one of the first sequences to be shot, in the early afternoon of 3 May.

135. It was rather a chilly day: You can see the actors' breath.

136. These lines were unscripted improvisations.

137. The masquers of Mandragora were:

138. Barbara Bermell, Jean Channon, Martin Clarke, Jill Goldston

139. Martin Grant, Penny Lambirth, Kevin Moran, Eddie Somer

140. Ken Tracey, Sheila Vivian, Neville Ware, Jess Willard

141. Also seen was Derek Chafer.

142. Uncredited production contributors

143. Linda Graeme

144. Gordon Phillipson

145. Peter Grainger, Dave White

146. Mervin Bezar, Michael Purcell, Tessa Spendlove

147. Roger Wood, Val Woodford

148. Come on, Hieronymous.

149. You can do better than that. Come on, Hieronymous.

150. Mandragora, help me!

151. Come on!

152. - No sign of the Doctor? - Not yet.

153. Well, something must have happened to him.

154. Maybe he's here already, he's wearing his costume.

155. No, he'd have let us know.

156. Doctor!

157. Doctor, what happened? Where have you been?

158. Oh, stop playing the fool and tell me what happened.

159. Doctor?

160. It is you?

161. Stop! Stop, Brothers.

162. The final sacrifice

163. must be made in our temple.

164. Bring the victims of Mandragora down.

165. The Brethren! We've been tricked, betrayed!

166. Silence! Take them below.

167. The eclipse! Look, it's beginning.

168. Now Mandragora swallows the moon.

169. Now, as it was written,

170. the power of Mandragora will flood the Earth.

171. Mandragora, we, your servants, welcome you.

172. Bestow your power upon us

173. that we may rule over the whole of your dominion.

174. - Doctor! - Well, I thought that was rather clever.

175. A case of energy squared.

176. It puts Mandragora back to square one.

177. Well, don't just stand there.

178. I'm in the market for congratulations.

179. I wouldn't even say no

180. to a salami sandwich.

181. - Goodbye, Giuliano. - Goodbye, Doctor.

182. - This is lovely salami, thank you. - Oh, it's we who should thank you.

183. - Won't you reconsider? - I'm already committed, sorry.

184. There's so much we could learn from you.

185. It'll all come in time. Keep an open mind.

186. - That's the secret. - Goodbye, Giuliano.

187. Come on, Sarah. - Oh! Coming!

188. Hey, thanks for inviting me to the ball. Smashing.

189. Well, what did you think of Leonardo?

190. - Leonardo... Leonardo who? - Leonardo da Vinci.

191. Oh, that Leonardo. No, I didn't get to see him.

192. - Good thing, too. - Oh, why?

193. Well, his submarine design wasn't exactly practical, you know.

194. Oh, poor Giuliano, he looked so wistful.

195. Yes.

196. Will he have any more trouble from Mandragora?

197. No, he won't, but the Earth will.

198. Their constellation will be in position to try again about... 500 years.

199. 500 years, that takes us to just about the end of the 20th century.

200. That's right. Now, that was an interesting century.

201. - What do you mean, "was"? - Come on.