Synopsis:
King Richard vows that he will not trade with the man who killed his comrades, so will do nothing to help Barbara...
Fortunately, the Doctor is able to convince him that he can exploit the situation to humiliate Saladin.
The Princess Joanna, sister of the King, appears. She takes a liking to Vicki, who has been asked to pretend to be a page boy named Victor. People might question why a young girl had been brought to such a dangerous place otherwise. She urges her brother to make peace and bring the war to an end.
The Court Chamberlain is suspicious of the Doctor and his friends - recognising items of clothing which he knows to have been stolen from this very palace.
In Saladin's camp at Ramlah, a Genoese merchant named Luigi Ferrigo seeks an audience with the Sultan and his brother to safely trade in the region. Learning of how Barbara had humiliated him, and his threats of revenge against her, he decides to approach El Akir for help. He will assist in her abduction if the Emir will arrange an introduction.
He goes to her tent after dark and lures her to the stables, where she thinks she is being helped to escape back to Jaffa. However, El Akir is here and his men seize her. They ride off into the night.
Richard has a letter prepared - offering the hand of Joanna in marriage to Saphadin as part of a peace treaty with Saladin. She is unaware of this scheme.
He then summons Ian, the Doctor and Vicki. Ian will take the letter to Ramlah, at the same time requesting the release of Barbara and des Preaux. As his emissary he must have noble status - and so the King knights him Sir Ian of Jaffa.
Barbara's disappearance has been discovered. Saladin is furious, and orders an investigation. A velvet glove is found in Barbara's tent - one which matches that of Luigi Ferrigo. He is forced to admit his part in her abduction for El Akir.
At Jaffa, the Chamberlain and the Doctor argue over the stolen clothes - the Doctor winning by pointing out that the clothes had already been stolen by someone else. The merchant Ben Daheer has been summoned, and he confirms that it was the man Thatcher who had stolen the items and passed them on to him. Now that they are accepted at court, the Chamberlain finds he must provide more clothing for the Doctor and his friends.
At Ramlah, Ian is allowed to meet with des Preaux and is shocked to learn of Barbara's abduction. He determines to go after her. Saladin refuses to part with des Preaux at this time, but gives Ian his permission to seek his friend. He cannot be seen to take action directly against El Akir himself, as he depends on his men for his army.
Barbara arrives at the city of Lydda, where El Akir has his base. She is able to give her captors the slip. She conceals herself in a maze of narrow streets and alleyways in the city's Old Quarter.
Hiding in the shadows as El Akir's men search for her, a hand clamps itself across her mouth as she is seized by an unseen figure who has appeared behind her...
Next episode: The Wheel of Fortune
Written by: David Whitaker
Recorded: Friday 12th March 1965 - Riverside Studio 1
First broadcast: 5:40pm, Saturday 3rd April 1965
Ratings: 8.5 million / AI 50
Designer: Barry Newbery
Director: Douglas Camfield
Additional cast: Jean Marsh (Princess Joanna), Zhora Segal (Sheyrah), Gabor Baraker (Luigi Ferrigo), Robert Lankesheer (Chamberlain)
Joanna (Joan) was the younger sister of King Richard. In 1177 she became Queen of Sicily on marrying King William II. He died in 1189 and was succeeded by Tancred, who had the widow imprisoned. Richard stopped off at the island kingdom on his way to the Holy land and freed his sister, bringing her with him to Palestine rather than sending her back to England.
She remarried in 1196, to Raymond VI of Toulouse, and died in the same year as Richard - 1199. She is buried alongside her brother at Fontevraud Abbey in Anjou.
As mentioned last time, David Whitaker had included implied incest themes in his original scripts. A number of rumours surrounded Richard's sex life. One was the relationship with his sister, and another was that he and King Philip II of France had once been lovers.
Julian Glover had spotted this material in the script, as had Jean Marsh, and they had looked forward to playing these scenes. However, William Hartnell had also spotted the suggested theme and objected to it featuring in what he regarded as a children's programme. By the time Glover and Marsh had joined the story for rehearsals, the material had been cut - much to their disappointment. The pair attempted to slip some of the deleted material back in through their performances - prompting Verity Lambert to warn: "Don't think I can't see what you're doing...".
Like Glover, Jean Marsh was already a considerable star at the time. She had worked on Broadway with Sir John Gielgud, and had starred in an episode of the US series The Twilight Zone - "The Lonely" (1959). She met Jon Pertwee when she appeared in the movie Will Any Gentleman? (1953) - a film which also featured William Hartnell. She married Pertwee in 1955, but they divorced in 1960.
At the time this episode was made, Glover was married to actress Eileen Atkins. Marsh and Atkins would later go on to jointly create the popular period drama Upstairs, Downstairs.
If Glover's blue woollen tunic looks familiar it may be because you could have seen it twice before. It had been worn by Mark Eden in his role as Marco Polo, in the Season One story of that name.
Prior to that, it had been made for Peter O'Toole, for the 1964 film version of Beckett. Coincidentally, O'Toole played Henry II in this movie - father of Richard the Lionheart. Four years later O'Toole would play an older Henry in the film adaptation of The Lion in Winter (in which Anthony Hopkins played Richard).
The tunic sold at auction in 2009 for £2040.
Ian is knighted in this episode - providing the instalment with its title. The Doctor would later be knighted by Richard's brother John - though it transpired that this was actually the Kamelion android imitating the King. He was knighted properly by Queen Victoria, as Sir Doctor of Tardis - only to then be banished from the realm due to his involvement with monsters and aliens. Rose Tyler became the second companion to be honoured at the same time.
On completing the evening's recording, William Russell went off on holiday - as did Verity Lambert. Russell had one week off, whereas Lambert was taking the fortnight. Ian would only feature in a pre-filmed sequence for The Wheel of Fortune.
The newspapers of Friday 2nd April carried the news of the imminent departures of Russell and Jacqueline Hill from the series.
This is one of only two episodes from Season 2 which are missing from the archives - the other being another instalment of this same story. It has been argued that this story was not sold as widely to foreign territories due to its subject matter, which might be construed as Islamophobic. It had always been claimed that the story was never sold to any Muslim countries, but copies went to Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Mauritius - countries with substantial Muslim populations.
This particular episode was wiped in 1967. The first and fourth episodes weren't wiped for another two years. By 1972, the BBC no longer held prints of any of the four instalments.
Trivia:
- The ratings plummet this week - down two million viewers. Either the sun had come out, or viewers were starting to go off the historical stories. There is only a one point dip in the appreciation index.
- One of the unsuccessful actresses who auditioned for Joanna was Adrienne Hill, who would the next year win the role of short-lived companion Katarina. Apparently she was turned down for not being tall enough.
- This episode had the working title of "Damsel in Distress".
- Some of the street scenes with the men carrying burning torches were pre-filmed at Ealing, on Wednesday 17th and Thursday 18th March.
- Maureen O'Brien was taken out of rehearsals on Thursday 11th March to pre-film for The Space Museum (the dropped glass scene).
- Both Zohra Segal and Gabor Baraker had appeared in episodes of Marco Polo, which Douglas Camfield had worked on as assistant to director Waris Hussein. She had been a servant in Marco's caravan, whilst he had played the camp way station official Wang-Lo.
- The day before transmission, Reveille magazine featured an interview with Derek Ware, talking about his stunt work. It was illustrated with photographs taken during the rehearsals for the forest ambush in the opening instalment of the story - The Lion:
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