" I'm kind of done with running down corridors." "What do you think, Rory?" " How about somewhere romantic?" " Venezia!" " This week, Confidential packs its bags and goes abroad." "The best place you could possibly go for a romantic weekend would be Venice." "And gets to meet up with a Venetian count..." "Looking for vampires in Venice?" " Aaargh!" " What was that?" "It's Venice, but not as you know it." "I think it's alliteration, really." "Vampires." "In fact, a few things aren't what they seem to be." "They find out that they're not actually vampires, they're something else." "What there are actually there is... you know, fish from space." "OK." "Move!" "What is going on?" "And action!" "And are the Doctor Who team really in Venice?" "Confidential finds out." "Turn over, please." "70, take two, A camera." "And action!" "The TARDIS touches down and the Doctor sort of bounds out and starts describing La Serenissima, this impossible, mad city." "Venice!" "Venezia!" "La Serenissima!" "It really felt like stepping back in time, stepping out into that." "One of the most powerful cities in the world." "Constantly being invaded." "And I think there's a real sense of vibrancy and colour to that scene." "Ah, you've got to love Venice." "And so many people did." "It sets the romp off, as it were." "Byron, Napoleon, Casanova..." "It's the perfect start to a Venetian romp, but it's shot hundreds of miles across the sea in Croatia." "We thought from the beginning we would like a foreign shoot, somewhere exotic and really mix it up a bit." "The trouble with real Venice is you'd have to spend an awful lot of time covering up the pizza parlours and the shops and all that." "Doubling up as Venice was a small town on the Mediterranean coast called Trogir." "And it looks so beautifully like Venice." "The Venetians colonised there, so it's a great double." "It has the look, but when it comes to standing in for Venice, size is everything." "We needed, with our Trogir skylines, to have some proper Venetian buildings sitting there on the horizon." "So a small crew, including Dave Houghton from The Mill, went over to Venice to get some of our wide shots." "At the moment, I'm looking for angles for our opening wide of Venice, so we're trying to match a plate that we've already filmed in Croatia." "What we didn't have in Trogir was some of these painted buildings that go directly into the water that have no kind of walkway." "So this side, that will go, be turned into Venice, and anything this side of this umbrella will also disappear." "We'll have gondolas in the foreground and some piles." "To become the perfect vision of Venice, Trogir just needed to be time-travelled back to the 16th century." "You can see behind us we've decorated this area of the set to look like a Venice marketplace, and the breads and the garlic and all those sorts of bits that we've brought in." "We've also got some very big banners that are very Venetian-looking." "It's looked really, really amazing." "There was hundreds of extras and loads of chickens running around." "Chickens and goats and a guy selling eels." "And all sorts of props everywhere." "And all the local people were in as people in the market." "This is at the beginning, before Matt turns up." "We were sitting having a coffee on one of the recces, and this old lady walked past with a goat and I said, "Right, book her and the goat."" "Hello, hello, hello..." "Bless her, she was from a local village about ten miles out of Trogir, and she had a wonderful goat, but she didn't have a clue what I was saying." "And then..." "Watch me." "Through here." "I was asking her to do things and saying, "Watch me, watch me,"" "but she kept following me and I'm going, "No, no, stay there."" "No, no, stay, stay there." "Just watch." "There." "And, unfortunately, her little route kept changing, because as the camera shot was changing, that was changing, so we were getting confused, so she was getting even more confused." "Up there, through there, round..." "THEY SPEAK IN CROATIAN" "We had a close relationship by the time we'd finished!" "THEY SPEAK IN CROATIAN" "OK." "70, take three, A and B." "And background action." "And action!" "GOAT BLEATS" "METALLIC THRUMMING" "Venice!" "Venezia!" "La Serenissima!" "Confidential took the chance to visit modern-day Venice to check out the actual events behind the Doctor Who story, particularly the great plague of the 16th century." "So writer Toby Whithouse went to meet a man whose ancestors lived through it all." "Architect, historian and TV personality, Francesco da Mosto." "Hello, Toby." "How are you?" " Lovely to meet you." " Looking for vampires in Venice?" "Vampires of Venice, of course!" "'Francesco tells me of a Venetian vampire story, but that's for later." "'First, I get a tour of the da Mosto mansion.'" "How old is the actual building itself?" "It's from the end of the 15th century, 16th century." "The period of your plague." "Absolutely perfect." "It's beautiful." "'This amazing building has been in the da Mosto family for over a century.'" "Oh, my goodness." "Look at this." "Here I learnt to ride a bicycle." "It's the perfect space." "Look at this!" "This is incredible." "Yeah, nice shape." "And your Doctor Who, during the plague, he was a doctor of plague, or...?" "No, no, our Doctor is not a medical doctor." "He's a time-traveller." "But my episode is set just after the outbreak of the plague in the late 16th century, and a race of aliens have arrived in the city and are using the fear of the return of the plague as an excuse to close down the city." "'Francesco had something for me which was an absolute goldmine - 'a collection of documents relating to the period in which I set my episode.'" "Yeah, it was quite terrible, and here I found also a lot of the people of my family, like this one, they died of plague." "As you see, "Death by plague."" "We say "peste"." "That was the black one, called la peste bubonica." "This is the doctor with a stick." "So would that be used as a weapon?" "No, in a certain way to keep a distance." "So you can't come closer than this point?" "Yes, there was this danger of infection." "They were using the mask with a filter or something like that in the nose." "And so, finally, they lighted upon a way to stop the spread of the plague?" "What is sure is the idea of the isolation of the infected people, dividing the town in different parts, and also putting the infected people in different islands, that worked." "And there was the old Lazzaretto, the hell." "This is the new Lazzaretto." "Now there is not any more these walls." " Was that the one where they put the people who were under observation?" " That's right." "So on these islands, who was actually in charge?" "Who was running them?" "To run the rules in that period, there were three health officials, and one of these was one of my family called Pietro da Mosto." "One of your ancestors?" "Yes, he was one of the bad guys, saying, always like that or nothing." "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" "Papers, if you please." "Proof of residency, current bill of medical inspection." "There you go, fella." "He was in charge of all the rules, the strict rules, like no-one could go out from the islands, everyone has to be isolated." "So it was quite a tough job." "It was the only way of survival for the town." "What exactly is your job?" "Checking aliens, visitors from foreign lands what might bring the plague with them." "Oh, that's nice(!" ") See where you bring me?" "The plague." "Obviously, the Venice of today looks very different to the Venice of 1580." "Too many new shops!" "Too many new shops, so we filmed in Trogir in Croatia." "There is quite a funny coincidence." "During the period of the plague, there was one of my family, he was a Count in Trogir." "It's quite interesting." "This guy was called Francesco da Mosto, like me." "Can you imagine?" "!" "There was always a person of a noble family of Venice controlling the different town..." " Oh, all the little..." " Just at that moment of the plague that was in Venice, he was Count in Trogir." " Where we filmed the episode." " Yes, strange." "I found that out yesterday." "Quite strange." "I never looked at all the things." "It was quite funny." "Trogir town square." "The cast and crew are preparing to meet a bunch of bloodsuckers." "# Now, baby" "# I've got a lot of love to give" "# And I've been over, oversubscribed with relationships... #" "Ah, the look of the vampire girls." "Where do I begin?" "It brightened up our day." "The crew, I tell you what, I have never, ever seen them so occupied and satisfied and work hungry." "Everyone was happy." "The composer was joking with me, saying, I bet there was only one vampire girl in the script, and by the time we'd got to the shoot, there were like 12 vampire girls." "# You've got a little thing I haven't seen before... #" "They looked like 80s glam rock stars, I think." "Sort of bonkers hair." "The vampire girls had to be sexy, but it was important, for me, certainly, to try and hark back to some of the classic Hammer House of Horror vampire films." "There's something weird and gothic and brilliant about them." "I think they'll be a real hit." "Come back, you're always welcome!" "193, take one." "And set!" "# I get all the girls, I get all the girls" "# I get all the girls, I get all the girls" "# I get all the girls, I get all the girls... #" "Actually walking as a pack together, they do look absolutely terrifying." "We were worried it was going to be a bit too scary, but we thought, no, just make it scary!" "# Maybe I can learn to settle down one day... #" "How are you doing that?" "I'm thrilled." "Oh, this is Christmas!" "# I get all the girls, I get all the girls" "# I get all the girls, I get all the girls" "# I get all the girls, I get all the girls" "# I get all the girls, I get all the girls" "# I get all the girls, I get all the girls" "# I get all the girls, I get all the girls" "# I get all the girls, I get all the girls" "# I get all the girls, I get all the girls... #" "We needed to destroy all of the other vampire girls." "The best way to do that, big explosion." "We are Venetians!" "So obviously, we created a house exploding." "Hello, everyone." "These are the pots containing our explosive charge." "We've got some soft, fine board here, which will go here." "I've pre-weakened this just to make sure it doesn't come out like a lump." "It'll actually break up." "What will come out is the explosive charge itself will actually blow out all the dust and debris and cork towards the other side of the building." "Then you go and we can start the explosion almost at the same time." "We needed Matt to run for his life and jump in the air and fall away from where the explosion was going to happen." "So stunt co-ordinator Crispin had to just run through that with Matt." "More height, and the reaction in your face." "When you react to the explosion, it's like run, run, run!" "A successful jump is down to the confidence of the actors." "They're confident about what they're going to do, they go for it more and they're a lot more dynamic and obviously the better it looks in shot." "Bang, bang, bang, bang!" "Ha-hah!" "And then you can look..." "We have to rehearse the jump, simply because we have one go at the explosion." "To reset it was an hour, hour and a half, and obviously our schedule didn't give us time to do that." " We haven't got many of these, have we?" " We've got one." " That's why we've got to be spot on." " One?" " Yeah." "So it's all down to you, Matt." " No, it's not, is it?" " Yeah." "Good luck, mate." "# This used to be a funhouse" "# But now it's full of evil clowns" "# It's time to start the countdown... #" "OK, step in, Matt." "Here we go." "And action!" "It does make you jump, it's a big old bang." "But I love all that, I love all the pyros and the explosions." "It's like a good external that's coming in that keeps you alive and aware, and it does a lot of the acting for you." "# This used to be a funhouse" "# But now it's full of evil clowns... #" "So more explosions, please, Danny." "# I'm gonna burn it down, down, down" "# I'm gonna burn it down. #" "'For stage two of my Venetian tour," "'Francesco took me to a place at the very heart of the plague story." "'A perfectly preserved 16th century pharmacy.'" "The cave of Aladdin!" "This would be similar to a pharmacy of the time?" "Yeah, in the period of that plague." "And it's here that they would make the kind of concoctions and remedies to supposedly cure the plague?" "Yeah, supposedly." "But all these things were quite expensive." "Can we have a look at these?" "Nearly all kind of things like" "Talco Venetian, oil of cod, peels of sulphurs of iron..." "We've got more of this." "Acido Tannico." "It's the red thing that you use to, that's..." "Like a tannin." "Yeah, I like wine, but I never..." "Never touch that." "It's a mistake you make once." "And Elixir China." "More far away, it was expensive." "Of course, and because I suppose the belief was that if it comes from a culture a long, long way away, they're very wise, they must know over there." "Nonetheless, no one really knows if it works." "No, they were hoping, more expensive it was, the more people were buying it." "That's something they still say today." "If it costs an awful lot of money, it must work." "They didn't know exactly, so it's better to try than to die." "Of course!" "'I've invited a friend to come and join me in Venice.'" " Matt." " Toby!" " How are you?" " Hello." " Welcome to Venice." " Thank you." " Come and meet my new friend." " Do you get seasick, by the way?" " Uh, no." " Good." "Matt, this is Francesco." "Francesco, this is Matt." " How do you do?" " Nice to meet you." " Nice to meet you, sir." "We're going to come on your boat, are we?" "Thank you." "Marvellous." "'Francesco is still promising me a vampire story." "'But first, we take a trip around some Venetian locations connected to my episode.'" "Venezia!" "La Serenissima!" " It's so nice that it's sunny." " We're in luck." "Why did you choose to set it in Venice?" "Because Venice has always had a very... a very strong sense of its own individuality, from the rest of the world." "It's always wanted to keep itself separate from the rest of Europe." "So for the aliens, in the episode, if you were going to go anywhere and be left alone, where you could carry on your business..." " Have your own individual empire." " Exactly." " With water." " With water, exactly." "So it's absolutely ideal." "And it really is." "There's nowhere like it in the world." "That's true." "And the interesting thing is it's separate, but without walls." "Like, all the castles had walls, here, nothing." "We only had about five minutes to shoot the scene of Guido punting, or gondoling, the Doctor and Rory." "All it consisted of was parallel tracks and Lucian standing on the trolley, being pushed." "All the way up, put it in front of you." "Standby to shoot, please." "We didn't have time to talk about it." "It was grab the flambeau, time's running out, get it done." "It was like, "Right, you're on a gondola." "Go!" So that was interesting." "I've got a great big flambeau there and we're having to..." "Almost like you're riding a horse." "'We take a trip down the Grand Canal, and come across a house 'my character Rosanna may have lived in.'" "Attend!" "Attend!" "The storm is coming!" "Now we are arriving at the Ca' d'Oro." "The Ca' d'Oro, this one." "This is an example of how they were in the Byzantine and Gothic period." "Inside, this, the courtyard with the staircase." "And here we are." "It's funny to see the reflected light off the water on the wall there, because you wouldn't believe the amount of trouble that we had trying to recreate it." "Because, obviously, where we filmed, there wasn't the Grand Canal." "Take two, A camera." "B camera." "Obviously, we got the buildings of Venice, but unfortunately no water." "So, as you can see behind me, two of the electricians are rippling away with shining lights into water which gives you the ripple effect on the buildings behind me." "We put mirror tiles on the bottom of a ripple tray and shine a light into the ripple tray." "The light bounces off the mirrors, and we ripple the water to give you the effect behind us." "The fake gondola, yeah, wow." "Well, it was a piece of wood." "Just a bit stuck on the side which didn't really feel like a gondola, but it looks like a gondola." "Let's just see it rocking, guys." "OK." "Move these poles over a little bit." "To the left of frame, keep going." "Standby." "Thank you." "Here we go." "And action!" "And here, the courtyard." "Where, with the well for the water." "There is something similar in Trogir." "Croatia." "It's sort of an incredible spit, really, isn't it?" "Mummy is hydrating, Francesco." "And we'd never interrupt Mummy when she's hydrating!" "Remember when we pop up in the Calvierri mansion?" "And we've built a well like this, not as pretty as this, I have to say, which we climb out of." "It has a similar grate and everything." "Push, push!" "There we are." "Do you, Toby, ever write from locations?" "I mean, the thing with Venice is you have a kind of, a sort of slideshow in your mind of the different..." " The aesthetic..." " Exactly." " ..that it could be." "Because you want that kind of very heavy, slightly medieval architecture." "And that dark, and the light rippling, and stuff like that." "Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah." "Which all adds up to the very other-worldly quality of it, which is why I think Venice was the perfect setting for it, because there's something about it that is quite, that is just unlike anywhere else on the planet." " And there's something very magical about it." " Yeah, yeah." "As a Venetian, I start to feel like an alien!" "And there's a great line in it, there's a great line." "A young girl is about to be sent to her death." "She's walking the plank, basically, into a pool of alien piranhas, essentially." "And she says..." "I'm Venetian!" "I can swim!" "We can all swim!" "A small lake outside Trogir." "The Who crew are here because there are some water scenes where only the real thing will do." "I'm six inches off the bottom here." "Ah, right, you are close then." "It's December." "It's cold." "And before making waves, the team's task is to make it safe." "I wanted a water test because, basically, we have the actors jumping into the water in Croatia, and they had to get pulled under the water as if they were pulled by these fish." "They bite!" "We had a dry suit specially made for them, and I need to test whether they were buoyant, whether they managed to get pulled under the water or not." "So I wanted to do a test for myself just to see how safe the costumes and the suits were." "And to prevent floods of tears, a special volunteer offers to take a dip." "Our lucky lady for the test was our very own executive producer Beth Willis, we got to go in the water." "So we put her in a suit." "And she was more than keen to go in." "We had two divers in the water." "In this instance, it was both safety, and also I wanted the divers to assist the actors getting pulled under the water." "OK." "Is she set?" ""JAWS" THEME PLAYS" "As soon as we got into the water, this swan suddenly came out from nowhere, came flying towards us, obviously very protective of its territory." "And we just had to wait and hope the swan goes away." "So we had a bit of swan wrangling to do!" "OK?" "Set?" "OK." "And, three, two, one, under." "Splash about." "Get yourself ready." "Set." "In three, two, one, under." "We just thought it would be a good idea if I could go in, and I can honestly say how cold or not cold it is." "And it was cold, but it was do-able." "I'm not looking my best!" "Thank you." "I think, if I'm asking anyone else to get in the water," "I've got to be able to say whether or not I think it's OK." "Now I do, so I feel much better about it, having done it." "I wasn't massively looking forward to it." "But it was fine, and everybody was lovely." "Apart from the swan, who was a bit active." "But other than that, it was fine." "However, before you go dunking members of the cast, there's something else to take on board." "That's the way you're going to be pulled under." "It's essential the crew are high and dry when filming on water." "That's always the tricky thing with water." "It's a nightmare to shoot on." "So, the local Croatian art department built us a wonderful pontoon, a movable pontoon." "And that took both the cameras, we got the monitors on there." "Essential equipment that needs to be on there." "It was great, it really worked for the day." "So, we had one camera on the floating pontoon." "The other camera, I was very keen to get the camera as close to the water surface as possible." "And so, in order to achieve that, with very expensive non-waterproof cameras, we had to put the camera into a glass housing." "We had a waterproof fish tank." "So, you put the camera in the fish tank." "The fish tank submerges slightly, and the camera is right on the water level." "So it's a little bit of a cheat, but it works really well." "One of the trickier things that we had to achieve was to get two actresses to jump into freezing cold water." "Erm..." "It's not cold enough to get that ice cream head that we often get." "The only way to do that was with a great deal of persuasion." "It's not like that." "It's cold, but it's not like, oh, my God, you know, this is unbearable." "I, for one, had to jump in myself in a previous recce to check it out." "So, by the time we got to them doing it, they didn't really have any way out." "231, take one, B camera." "And action!" "I'm Venetian!" "I can swim!" "We can all swim!" "So, I literally had to jump into freezing cold spring water." "It was an initial shock, but once you're in, you're in." "So it wasn't too bad." "Diver in position, please." " Are you OK?" " Yeah, cool." " Standby." "'I didn't really have to act at all, because you genuinely were freezing cold." "'So it was pretty good." "I can definitely imagine how she would have felt.'" "Bubbles." "And action!" "Something touched my leg!" "It bites!" "'There was a bit of cramp going on there because of the shock.'" "But I think, if you just relax and stuff." "Well, as relaxed as you can be, jumping into freezing cold water in December." "'But just... you relax and just go with the flow.'" "And action!" "Something touched my leg!" "It bites!" "SHE SCREAMS" " CREW CLAP" " OK, take her to the side." "Back on dry land, Arthur and I are getting ready for a fight." "Here we go." "89, take one, A camera." "Still on camera." "Let me go to the smile to begin." "So we don't see the teeth to begin with, then you reveal them." "And action!" "Oh, yeah, the sword fight!" "It was brilliant." "And I was there looking very concerned about the whole thing." "But it was just incredible." "Arthur and Alex totally thrashed it." "And Arthur was hilarious." "It was really cool to watch." "'I'm glad that I didn't have to look cool.'" "I looked less cool when I watched it than I thought I did." "'But I think, if I'd have had to be particularly good at sword fighting, it might have been a problem.'" "I think I'm quite far off being an action hero." "I think I'm going to stick to doing what I do, but it was fun to do, a taste of it." " 91, take two, A camera." " Get set." "And action!" "# Anything that's worth having is sure enough worth fighting for" "# Quitting's out of the question" "# When it gets tough, gotta fight some more" "# We gotta fight, fight, fight, fight, fight for this love" "# We gotta fight, fight, fight, fight, fight for this love" "# We gotta fight, fight, fight, fight, fight for this love" "# If it's worth having, it's worth fighting for... #" "He's just defeated Francesco, so she's very proud of him, secretly." "I'm being reviewed now, am I?" "He's just battled a vampire, who's turned into a fish and exploded on top of him." "The last thing he thinks is going to happen is that Amy is going to kiss him." "It was funny, it was really embarrassing, actually." "Because just before I did it, Jonny, the director was, like, "No pressure, Karen." ""But make it the kiss of his life." I was like, "Oh, my God!" "Right..."" "Well, I basically just told Karen what Arthur Darvill had asked me to say to her." "And he said, "Jonny, just make sure you say to her, make it the kiss of your life." So that's what I did." " 87, take one, camera A." " And action!" "So yeah, I just had to go for it." "Do you know what?" "It was fine." "But I actually, when I was kissing him, forgot that I was the one who was supposed to stop it, so it went on for ages." "God, and they were like, "Karen?" "Karen!"" "Why don't we go and see the Doctor?" "Cut that." "But that was just the first time." "Yeah, it was funny." "Let's put it this way." "The episode was running short!" "THEY ALL LAUGH" "Should we just do that once more?" "Reset, please." "# We gotta fight, fight, fight, fight, fight for this love" "# We gotta fight, fight, fight, fight, fight for this love" "# We gotta fight, fight, fight, fight, fight for this love" "# If it's worth having, it's worth fighting for. #" " Now we go help the Doctor." " Cut there." "Very nice." "Cut there, thank you." "'Next stop on my tour, one of the plague quarantine areas 'that Francesco told me about when we first met.'" "Francesco, we are on our way now to the islands." "We are going to try to arrive in the old Lazzaretto." "Where there were the people not only suspected but infected." "So this was the one you really didn't want to go to." "It was the last chance." "The place where you say bye to everyone." "It was like a place no-one gets out of." "Right." "That was the situation." "OPERA MUSIC PLAYS" "So, this, where we're going now, is the old Lazzaretto." " Lazzaretto?" " Yeah, it was the hell place, where the people were coming to die." "There is all these walls which are surrounding it." "Why don't we stop here?" "What do you think?" "Yeah." "Let's climb in." "Now, we are going to break in to the plague... the house for the poor people that had the plague, and were brought here to peter away and die." "God, it feels particularly dilapidated." "'It's a grim place with a grim purpose." "'But how else did you stop a plague in the 16th century?" "'" "The only thing was isolation." "You had to isolate the infected people." "Yes, yes, but, so who would determine..." "Well, obviously if you are wasting away..." "There were the doctors arriving." "When they see that you start vomiting." "One of Francesco's relatives was one of the health officials." "Yeah." "He decided the rules." "Because our episode is set in the 1580s, so it's just a couple of years after the plague has died down." "But still, the fear within the city, having experienced this unbelievably traumatic event that would have touched absolutely every family, and everyone who lived in Venice would have lost someone." "And so that's why they used the fear of that coming back again as an excuse to close the city down." "Because, just the word would fill everyone with such terror, that it was coming back again." "We follow the plan." "Let them hammer on our door." "Beg to be taken." "There's that great line at the top, I walk into the city and to the gates of the city, and someone says, "You can't come in because you are them what bring the plague."" "My character says..." "How interesting." "I heard the plague died out years ago." "Not out there!" "No, Signora Calvierri has seen it with her own eyes." " Streets are piled high with bodies, she said." " Did she, now?" "And of course, as you say, it's Rosanna, this mad fish alien." "This lie that's been put around, that it's coming back." "It's like vaccinations." "I had it." "'With Matt on board, Francesco finally gave us his Venetian vampire story." "'A tale that came to life when archaeologists found the remains of a plague victim 'whose burial bore all the hallmarks of something even darker.'" "They found a skull of a woman that has a brick inside the mouth." "Because when they died, what was happening, they also, when they were dead, they found blood coming out." " And the veil a little eaten." " Right." "But, blood comes out as a result of the plague?" "Yeah, but after the death." "So that was strange." "So they were thinking that the body, this person, could pass this thing to other dead." "And then the plague was going around more." "And so they were putting this brick so she could not move the mouth." "Strange!" "'Tales of deadly creatures sucking the blood of the living.'" "It looks like I was closer to the truth than I expected." "Perhaps there really were vampires in Venice." "Well, Francesco, sir." "Thank you for a wonderful, brilliant and completely insightful tour of Venice." "It's been a joy." " It's been fantastic." " Absolutely fantastic." "Thank you for showing us around this beautiful city." "We found the plague, we found the cure for the plague." "It does feel kind of alien as a world." "Yes." "It's been good." "Thanks for watching as well, Doctor Who Confidential." "Do come back and, er..." "Yeah." "It will be great." "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd" "E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk"