Inspirations: Vincent and the Doctor

 

Vincent and the Doctor is this series' "proper" celebrity historical. Victory of the Daleks had included Winston Churchill, but his wasn't essential to the plot. We could have seen the Ironsides already deployed at any WWII military establishment.

This story can only work with the inclusion of Vincent Van Gogh at this specific point in his life - just a few weeks before his suicide.

The Dutch painter (1853 - 1890) commands vast amounts of money for his works today, but famously only ever sold a single painting during his short, turbulent lifetime.

A number of his paintings are visually referenced in the episode:

It opens with Van Gogh painting Wheatfield With Crows (July 1890).

The Doctor and Amy examine The Church at Auvers (June 1890) when they spot the Krafayis lurking in the window.

Vincent is found at the café on the terrace of the Place du Forum, Arles - subject of Café Terrace At Night (1888).

We see him paint over one of his many self-portraits.

His bedroom looks like Bedroom in Arles (also known simply as The Bedroom) (1888).

(Suffering an initial touch of writers' block, Curtis rearranged the furniture in a spare room whilst on holiday in Italy to resemble this painting - which gave him the impetus to get started).

Amy knows he painted lots of Sunflowers - and the joke is that he doesn't like them. She inspires him to paint them. Van Gogh produced two sets of sunflower paintings - the first in Paris in 1887 and the second in Arles the following year.

After the death of the Krafayis, the Doctor and Amy get to imagine the night sky as Vincent sees it - and it transforms into Starry Night (June 1889).

Other works can be seen in the background in his house and at the museum.

The working title for Richard Curtis' story was "The Eyes That See The Darkness" - based on a line from Don McLean's 1971 song about Van Gogh - Vincent (1971): "the eyes that know the darkness in my soul".

Being Curtis, Bill Nighy features. He has appeared in a number of his films, including Love Actually, About Time, and The Boat That Rocked.

Curtis' movies and TV episodes are famous for tugging the heartstrings, and his Doctor Who story is no exception to his style.

Neglected in his own lifetime, and suffering from crippling emotional health problems, Van Gogh gets to see how both he and his work are appreciated when taken to the Musee D'Orsay in Paris in the present day.

(Though wouldn't it have made more sense to take him to his very own museum in Amsterdam?).

After seeing the First Doctor on his library card a few weeks ago, we now see his device depict his face as Hartnell and then Troughton when he tests it on himself.

The accordion player at the café is playing a version of Murray Gold's I Am The Doctor. 

Chances by Athlete - the music from the gallery scene - was selected by Matt Smith as it was one of his favourite songs at the time.

Vincent hearing Scots as Dutch is part of a running joke about the TARDIS translation system - e.g. Latin sounding Celtic. It's an in-joke as well since Karen Gillan and Tony Curran are both Scots.

Some have seen the shape of the tree next to the TARDIS landing site at the end of the episode as mirroring the crack in time.

Next time: Gareth Roberts adapts one of the comic strips. There's a lot of it about...