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DOCTOR WHO - The Doctor (William Hartnell) and Steven (Peter Purves)
YESTERDAY'S PAPERS - John Lucarotti by Elsie M Smith
"...one might have expected the world-dominating
Kublai Khan to be an impressive figure but in fact
he was a small, gout-ridden man..."

Elsie M Smith - Transcript from THE YORKSHIRE EVENING PRESS

He gets DR WHO ideas on long walks

Are you one of the 10½ million followers of DR WHO, the children’s serial that has a large adult audience peeping over the youngsters’ shoulders every Saturday?

If so meet the man responsible for the doctor’s present adventure that have transported him back in time to the days of Marco Polo.

He is John Lucarotti, English by birth, Canadian by citizenship and inheriting his surname from his Italian grandfather who was a sculptor. He was born at Aldershot, son of an Army man, now retired and living in Devizes. His original love was the sea and he spent nine years in the Royal Navy, including the war years before succumbing to a latent ambition to write.

CONSCIENCE STRICKEN

Resigning from the Navy, he decided to try out his authorship on the Canadian public. For a time he worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and among his contribution to them was an 18-part series on Marco Polo - “the period has always fascinated me,” he said.

Then he decided to free-lance but made most of his money as a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman until his conscience began to trouble him about inducing people to buy something they didn’t really want.

After five years out there, he decided to take Canadian citizenship. “Canada had been so very good to me, I felt it was a way of expressing my thanks.”

Lucarotti also made himself known in the United States where he won an award for a radio play and wrote a 13-part children’s serial for an American network.

WORK ON STAGE PLAY

His return to England was prompted by a desire to write for the theatre, and he is now working on a stage play about Nelson, although it has to be shelved for a while he writes a further adventure for Dr. Who, taking him back to the days of the Aztecs which will be seen in a few weeks time.

He has also been commissioned to write a play for the BBC’s FIRST NIGHT series and he proposes to give it a Mexican background. “I lived in Mexico for six months and love the country and the people."

Just how does a man set about dreaming up the fantastic adventures that befall Dr. Who? According to Lucarotti; it is 5 percent inspiration and 95 percent perspiration.

LONG WALKS

“I go for long walks - people probably think I am mad, because I mutter to myself - stare into shop windows or go in a cinema while ideas take shape. Then I do the research and not until I have the whole thing clear in my mind do I sit down to the typewriter.”

“The Marco Polo stories for DR. WHO were written between July and November last year when I was in Majorca."

I try to combine adventure stories with reality that was or that is. The DR. WHO stories are based on Marco Polo’s journals and a great deal of checking has been done to ensure accuracy."

For instance, one might have expected the world-dominating Kublai Khan to be an impressive figure but in fact he was a small, gout-ridden little man and we presented his as such."

A schoolteacher told Carol Ann Ford (she plays Susan) that just as he was about to start the Marco Polo period of history, one of the children in the class informed him Dr. Who was based on Marco Polo."

NICE COMPLIMENT

“The teacher said he expected to have tell the class that they must disregard everything that saw in the series on television but in fact, after seeing an episode, he told them that although they must discount Dr. Who’s involvement what they were seeing was historically correct. It was the nicest compliment."

He has had to a great deal of research on the Aztecs and in this has been helped by an expert on this subject.

Aztec culture was literally wiped off the face of the earth. They were a highly civilised and cultured race. Children were strictly disciplined, there was a high standard of morality, people retired at 50, their knowledge of astronomy was equal to ours to-day.

“Yet they cut out human hearts for sacrifices. There is a record of having them cut out 10,000 hearts in one day."

I gather we shall not see this gory piece of history in DR. WHO’s time with the Aztecs.

A CHALLENGE

Lucarotti is not especially interested in writing for children but he explained: “ The big challenge for me is in getting kids interested and, at the same time, slipping into the action some knowledge they may not have had before. Writing for children is also very good discipline. You can fool adults with things you would never get away with with children.”

Lucarotti’s pastimes are skin-diving and flying, neither of which he can do here. In Canada he had his own aircraft. As a skin-diver, the conscience that made him give up selling encyclopedias stops him from taking a spear-gun down with him.

“The first time I diced I killed an octopus, I thought afterwards ‘What a senseless thing to do’”

His favourite relaxation is finding a large hunk of rock 80 or 30 feet below the surface of the sea and lounging on it. "It’s fascinating world down there.”

Perhaps he will take DR. WHO down there some day.

Edited for the online version of EOH by Matthew Walter.

 

EOH EXTRA

EYE OF HORUS (EOH) issue 2 - YESTERDAY'S PAPERS - John Lucarotti by Elsie M Smith

A newspaper clipping featured in Issue Two (May 1983)

EYE OF HORUS (EOH) issue 2 - YESTERDAY'S PAPERS - John Lucarotti by Elsie M Smith - Click to ENLARGE
ENLARGE IMAGE

Click to view the original 1964 newspaper clipping


Click to ENLARGE


A behind the scenes glimpse of John Lucarotti's masterpiece, MARCO POLO. Click to enlarge.

MARCO POLO - Mark Eden co-stars

Mark Eden as eponymous 'lead'

MARCO POLO - Martin Miller co-stars as Kublai Khan

MARCO POLO broadcast 22.02 - 04.04.1964 and became the 7th highest watched Hartnell story

THE AZTECS - Lucarotti's second script for DOCTOR WHO

Lucarotti's THE AZTECS broadcast as part of the first DOCTOR WHO season

His final contribution to the series, THE MASSACRE OF ST BARTHOLOMEW'S EVE, was broadcast in 1966

 

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