Conception and writing , as well as some of his friends and associates. Show creator
Sydney Newman suggested writer
John Lucarotti, an old colleague from the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, to the production team during the show's early development. Story editor
David Whitaker contacted Lucarotti to write for the programme; Lucarotti, who had recently worked on the 18-part radio serial
The Three Journeys of Marco Polo (1955), was commissioned on 9 July 1963 to write a seven-part serial about Italian merchant and explorer Marco Polo, titled
Dr Who and a Journey to Cathay. While developing the storyline Lucarotti struggled with the fourth episode, and used anecdotal material from Polo's memoirs,
The Travels of Marco Polo, to pad out the plot. The serial was originally placed third in the show's running order, to begin broadcast on 18 January 1964, but was pushed back to fourth to accommodate the two-part "filler" serial
The Edge of Destruction.
Waris Hussein, who worked on the show's first serial, was selected as the director for
Marco Polo;
John Crockett directed the fourth episode in Hussein's absence. Like most serials in the show's early history, the costumes for
Marco Polo were designed by Daphne Dare. The serial's designer, Barry Newbery, used
Aurel Stein's
Ruins of Desert Cathay (1912) and
Nelson Ikon Wu's
Chinese and Indian Architecture (1963) for research of the 13th century designs. Newbery also found that
Korean architecture from 1900 was similar to that of the 13th century. The
incidental music for the serial was composed by
Tristram Cary, who previously worked on
The Daleks. Cary used conventional instruments for the score, including flute, harp and percussion, and he recorded electronic voices for the second episode's sandstorm scenes.
Casting and characters Mark Eden was cast as Marco Polo; Hussein had seen Eden in the
Royal Shakespeare Company's production of
A Penny for a Song in 1962. While the serial's narration was originally scripted for the Doctor, Ian and Barbara, Hussein decided to make the story more personal to Polo, and the narration was rewritten for Eden. Derren Nesbitt, who had appeared in several historical film series in the 1950s, was cast as Tegana. For the role of Ping-Cho, Hussein wanted an "oriental" actress who had not appeared in the
West End production of
The World of Suzie Wong or the film
55 Days at Peking (1963), due to the prominence of those productions. Actress Zienia Merton auditioned at Hussein's home, and was offered the role. William Russell was unhappy with sudden rewrites minimising the role of his character, Ian Chesterton, in the serial, and his agent wrote to BBC's head of serials
Donald Wilson; Wilson replied to Russell's agent, assuring that he would "be watching very carefully" to ensure the scripts "use [Russell's] talents to the maximum". The fifth episode featured an untrained
spider monkey, which the cast found difficult to work with; Carole Ann Ford recalled that "it was a nasty little thing peeing all over the place and biting anyone who came near it".
Filming A week of shooting took place at
Ealing Studios from 13 to 17 January 1964, consisting mostly of
inserts of locations and props for the montage sequences. Rehearsals for the first episode ran from 27 to 30 January, and the episodes were recorded weekly at
Lime Grove Studio D from 31 January to 13 March. When William Hartnell became ill in the first week of February, quick rewrites were performed on the second episode to eliminate the Doctor from most scenes; Hartnell only had one line of dialogue in the episode. For the sandstorm in the second episode, a
wind machine was used, with other footage superimposed on top; Hussein was unhappy with the effectiveness of the effect, later stating that "it looked like everyone's
aerials had blown over". Merton recalled the wind machine blowing sawdust into her eyes, rendering her unable to see for the rest of the scene. During camera rehearsals for the sixth episode, Eden's right hand was accidentally lacerated by a dagger used by Nesbitt. == Reception ==