Trivia / Doctor Who S25 E4 "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy"

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• Actor-Inspired Element: Ian Reddington came up with a lot of the Chief Clown's mannerisms — the wave, the eyes, the different vocal tones depending on who he's talking to, etc.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Chris Jury (Deadbeat) was one of the finalists for the Seventh Doctor.
• The Cast Showoff: Sylvester McCoy starts the story by juggling and playing the spoons, and goes on to show every single magic trick he can think of.
  • The juggling is an aversion - he's trying to learn to juggle from a book, and doesn't do it very well. This was because the writer and director had assumed that McCoy could juggle because of his background in physical comedy and mime, and only discovered at the last minute that he couldn't.
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • When filming the explosion of the arena, McCoy was told that he wouldn't need to walk too far of a distance, as the bulk of the explosion would be supplied by special effects. However, the pyrotechnicians over-rigged the arena: the resulting explosion was much larger than the crew anticipated, catching McCoy in the heat blast and even setting fire to some of his clothes. Yet he continued to walk away unfazed because he knew that there wouldn't be a retake.
  • Much like Ace, Sophie Aldred is afraid of clowns.
• Hostility on the Set: With the hurried filming schedule and filming inside a tent in hot weather, tempers started to fray. According to Sophie Aldred, production manager Gary Downie (also John Nathan-Turner's partner) snapped at her, causing her to excuse herself "for a quick cry" in the toilets.
  Highly embarrassed by my over-sensitivity, I visited make-up for a repair job on my eyes, and Gary apologised profusely.
• Inspiration for the Work: Captain Cook was an idea devised by Ben Aaronovitch based on the behaviour of older Doctor Who stars appearing at conventions.
• One-Take Wonder: The circus tent explosion was done in a single take. Just as well, as McCoy almost caught fire during the shot.
• Out of Order: This was meant to be the second story of Season 25, but the season was reshuffled to ensure that "Silver Nemesis" was broadcast in the exact week of the show's 25th Anniversary after the start of the season was delayed by coverage of the Olympics. This creates continuity errors with Ace already wearing Flowerchild's brooch on her jacket in "The Happiness Patrol", and looking in this story for the rucksack that she blew up in "Silver Nemesis".
• Prop Recycling: The hippie bus was previously the tour bus in "Delta and the Bannermen".
• Self-Adaptation: The televised story's writer, Stephen Wyatt, wrote the novelization.
• Troubled Production:
  • After the location filming had been completed, the studio sessions were cancelled because of asbestos contamination. At first it was thought that the serial would have to be abandoned, but eventually it was found possible to erect a tent in the car park at Elstree Studios and film there. (It was actually very fortuitous that they were working on this particular serial because the tents made this arrangement possible. With any other story around that time they might have had to simply throw out the location footage, but John Nathan-Turner was desperate to avoid another "Shada" debacle and arranged the makeshift solution. Indeed, it has often been remarked that what they ended up with looked better than the original intention would have done, because they actually were in a tent rather than a mock-up of one in a studio.)
  • While filming a scene where the Chief Clown leans into a cage to talk to Captain Cook, the vertically-sliding cage door accidentally slammed down on actor Ian Reddington's head, causing him to break two teeth. And they were so far behind schedule due to the asbestos situation that he decided to carry on filming for the rest of the day before seeking help. According to Reddington, as he was led off set, he heard one of the wire operators say to the other, "I told you that would happen". Furthermore, it was so hot on location that his makeup ran.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original idea was to have a circus run amuck with underground creatures, before it became clear the idea wouldn’t work with the budget.
  • Ian McKellen was considered for Captain Cook.
  • Danny John-Jules and Clarke Peters were considered for the Ringmaster.
  • Originally, the story was much more truncated due to being set all on a studio. The Doctor and Mel (when she was still a companion) arrive at the circus, where they were forced to compete to survive in the show. Their competition was a punk werewolf, a creature called the Blob, the muscleman Nord (inspired by Thor), and a psychic empath called the Non-Entity. The circus was noticeably more high-tech than it initially appeared. In the end, the circus was destroyed by the Non-Entity amplifying the Doctor's (or the Werewolf’s) anger at their torture and deaths.
  • There was supposed to be a love triangle between the Ringmaster, the Chief Clown and the Box Office Lady (who eventually became Mags).
  • Mags originally came from the planet MacVulpine (rather than Volpana) and spoke with a Glaswegian accent, but John Nathan-Turner felt that this was too silly.
  • The Whizzkid, an expert in all things about the circus, was to die and be turned into a parody of himself as a robot with a scoreboard body.
  • In the original script, Segonax was a pastoral setting.
  • Captain Cook was originally killed off in Episode 1, his death being the cliffhanger. At one point, he was going to survive the Psychic Circus explosion.
  • Bellboy was to be haggard and white-haired, implying that he had suffered electric shock treatment, but this was dropped on recording. The script also indicated that he should be lashed to a kite, not a workbench.
  • In the original script, the last episode took place during the daytime.
  • The "muck" the Doctor and Ace were going to eat was going to be pineapples.

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