'A Journey To Kathay Kirby' or 'The Roof Of The Caravan'

'A Journey To Kathay Kirby' or 'The Roof Of The Caravan'

The Complete And Utter History of Dr WHO? (Part Five)

One of the main reason for the BBC allowing 'Docwra Hoo' onto our screams was that schools had recently stopped teaching History as History now tended to be so old that most teachers could not remember being in it.

Thus writer Jim 'Singing Sandals' Lew-Karotty submitted an ambitious script whereby the TARDIST lands on the roof of the caravan of Mark O'Polo, the famous exploder.

Vowing to teach young viewers "a thing or two", Hi-Karate's storyliners included scenes in whitch Dactor Who, John and Gelatine, Ewan and Barabar boil some water coldly and play with their set of Chests.

Sadly, no episodes survive in the BBC ArcHives (as they was named by Daffyd Binks, a young whiner of a 'Radio Tomes' competition) but we have the Next Best thing in the form of the so-called Tellysnapes.

When 'Dokta WhO' was shown abroad in the 1660s, some countries used a different sort of electricity*, so the 20-inch Video Types was photographed very quicky by a one-man band, called 'Curious' Jon Curious, who lived in a Grocer's Apos'trophe 'Shop and thus got Treble Green Shield Stamps on rolls of film. Every Saturday, Curious would sit on the front of his telly and order everyone to shut up for 25 minutes while 'Doccter wHo' was on. There was actually a good Science reason for this. If people talked too loud or fired guns at him there would be all lines on the pictures. This was called Microphone-offery.

At the end of this process, Curious would have approximately 37512 pictures per episode, which he would stick in a big scrapbook with wallpaper paste. These books was then shipped abroad, where the broadcasters (e.g. Cyrus Broadcasting Incorporated, RKO and Westward) would point a camera at them and get a bloke to flip through the pages very quickly. Sometimes, the photographs would fall out and these are what survive to this day.

Visions Mixologist Clyde Doingydoing (his surname, incidentally, was Rum 'Mister' Grainger's inspiration for the beat of the theme tune to the popular daytime comedy celebrity dancing / cookery / genealogy quiz show 'Steps, Stoves And Sons') remembers how during Episode Six ('Might I, Chaka Khan?') all of the cameras fell over when someone rumpled the studio carpet and the cast had to finish the episode by lying down and saying their lines horizontally.

'Markopolis' featured a star-stubbled cast and had a memorable villain in the form of War Lord** Teagarner, whose catchphrase "Here's some water Markus Polo, oh yus!" was imitated by children up and down the county.

There was also an exciting scene whereby dr who played Backgammons with Chaka Khan and wins 4000 incontinent monkeys, much to the delight of the BBC Wardrobe Deportment, which was in charge of BBC wardrobes and deportments.

'Marcopoly' was a highly regarded story at the time which also led to a series of spin-off novels (the 'Travels...' range published by Chad Valley - "too broad and too deep to fit on miniature bookshelves!") that oddly excluded any mention of the TARDIST crew. Everyone who worked on it remembered working on it some months later, which is surely the highest of complications!

But all good thinks come to an end and, after 17 weeks of this epic adventure, it was time for the Ship to set its space-sails for the planet Martinus...

Next Episode:

"In the cupboard, please..."

*Countries in timezones ahead of us have to use positive electricity, while countries in timezones behind us obviously use negative electricity. We generally use static. This is called Whitaker's (or Sutherland's) Law (also known as Waggoners' Walk or Whirligig Witch).

**The War Lord was later to return in the final story of the 1860s, 'Doctor Who Meets The War Lords'. But he had a slightly different beard, of course, for continuity reasons.

(By Andrew Trowbridge)