This time, we look at another purely historical story from the second series of Doctor Who, originally transmitted in 1965. It was written by former script editor David Whitaker, and directed by Douglas Camfield, in only his second directing job on the series. It is set in 12th Century Palestine, in the time of the third crusade.
This story has a great guest cast: firstly King Richard is played by Julian Glover, a man who is probably best remembered by genre fans as General Veers in The Empire Strikes Back and Walter Donovan in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He will also appear again in Doctor Who in City of Death in 1979.
Also appearing is Jean Marsh as Richard’s sister Joanna. We actually spoke to Jean way back in Show 2, and she makes two further appearances in Doctor Who – and in fact some argue that her character in The Daleks’ Masterplan makes her a bona fide companion. We will not debate that here, but her performance in this show is amazing.
Also making his first Whoappearance is Tony Caunter, who is also known in the UK for his portrayal of Roy Evans for almost ten years in the BBC’s (s)hit soap opera, Eastenders.
This story is one of the few partially complete stories held in the BBC archives – parts 1 and 3 exist (and were released as part of the Lost in Timeboxed set, and a narrated audiobook is also available of the whole story, so to make this podcast we watched episodes 1 and 3 and listened to 2 and 4. We also have a brief discussion on the work that goes into the sound restoration on many of the CD’s and DVD’s, and pay particular tribute to composer Mark Ayers whose tireless work on the show has given us audio often better than on original transmission.
Show 32 can be downloaded direct by clicking here or is available on the Podcast Feed (details to the right) or from the iTunes store.
We are back in two weeks with our discussion on Ghostwatch. See you then!
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