Rider from Shang-Tu (Marco Polo Episode 5)

The one where Ian reveals his surprising knowledge of burning bamboo...

After struggling with the patchy audio recording at the start of this episode (don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining!), I soon realised that Rider from Shang-Tu is a rollicking good 25 minutes which really gets the serial back on track after something of a lull. We have both action and intrigue, the perfect mix to excite and engage. John Lucarotti's got his mojo back!

It must be said that William Hartnell is really good in this episode. Watching (and listening!) to these early episodes in order has reinforced my opinion that Hartnell is criminally underrated as both a Doctor and an actor. He's searingly good in 100,000 BC, and demonstrates immense gravitas and screen presence in The Brink of Disaster. You can tell he knew what he was doing. However admittedly, sometimes he stumbled over his lines, missed or pre-empted his cues, and some weeks seemed to lack that fire altogether.

Not so in Rider from Shang-Tu. Right from the outset Hartnell is on top form, apparently just as cogent and sharp as he was in An Unearthly Child. Of course, we know now that the actor was probably suffering from the early symptoms of arteriosclerosis, which include confusion and difficulty speaking or slurred speech. But when Hartnell was having a good day, as he was when this episode was recorded on February 28th, 1964, he really did shine.

He delivers his lines with the same unaffected clarity and quickwittedness that makes his performance in An Unearthly Child so special. "We're not going to get very far with this overgrown bread knife!" he thunders. "We'll have to use more enterprise than this!" I'd love to be able to see the Doctor's indignant, defiant glares at Tegana in this episode. When the warlord states that "in battle, all men face death", Hartnell shoots back: "But few expect to meet it!", and the conversation between the four regulars when they're working out that Tegana must have been part of the foiled bandit assault is made all the better for Hartnell playing an active, powerful part. He could do defiance just as well as he could do comedy (as shown by his outrage at the TARDIS being dumped in a stable - "Does he think it's a potting shed or something?").

Elsewhere, William Russell and Mark Eden get to tease out a little more bromance when Ian admits he planned to escape and hold Marco hostage. They exchange a moment of honesty and mutual respect. It's obvious these two men, so similar in their outlooks, want to be friends, but are sorry that they find themselves at odds.

The Mongol attack sounds pretty vicious on audio, and well manned (there are six Mongol bandits credited and uncredited for this episode, plus Acomat and Tegana), but I have to wonder how Ian knew that exploding bamboo sticks make such a "terrifying noise" when placed on a fire. It's not the sort of thing people from inner-city Britain tend to know, is it (unless he was a Boy Scout!). If you're interested in what bamboo really sounds like when on fire, see this YouTube video by the Bamboo Society in Texas.

I'm also just as dubious as the Doctor, Ian and Barbara are when Ling-Tau arrives (the eponymous rider from Shang-Tu) with a message from the Kublai Khan, claiming he rode 300 miles in one day. He admits he swaps horse every league, which is about three miles, so Ling-Tau is claiming that he used 100 horses to get from Shang-Tu to Marco's camp just beyond the bamboo forest. I'm sorry, but I don't care how many headbands he wears to stop his body from being shaken to pieces, I find his claim difficult to believe!

Designer Barry Newbery would appear to have excelled again with his work on Cheng-Ting, the "White City", which is dressed with exotic flowers, lily ponds and waterfalls, and what we can see in telesnaps of Marco's quarters and the stable courtyard looks impressive. The maddening thing about Marco Polo's missing status is that even if we could watch the episodes, they'd be in black and white when we know these sets and costumes would have been stunning in colour (thank goodness for the copious colour photography taken on set).

Lucarotti gives us some beautiful scenes at Cheng-Ting, and some lovely new characters, including the bumptious, obsequious way-station manager Wang-lo, performed with outrageous gusto by Gabor Baraker (he turns in an equally colourful performance as ill-fated merchant Luigi Ferrigo in The Knight of Jaffa (The Crusade Episode 2), which sadly means all three of his Doctor Who episodes are missing). Wang-lo verges on parody, but Baraker is so amusing that it's easy to overlook that. The same goes for Tutte Lemkow's weaselly bandit Kuiju, who agrees to steal the TARDIS for Tegana in exchange for 100 gold pieces ("not Kublai Khan's paper money"). I love the fact he has an eyepatch and a trained monkey on his shoulder too!

A quick aside... Although "yellowface" casting was common practice in the 1960s, and had been since Hollywood's silent era, the casting of Marco Polo is disappointing by today's standards. Too many British white men are cast in East Asian roles (Londoner Derren Nesbitt, Hungarian Gabor Baraker, Czech Martin Miller, Suffolk-born Jimmy Gardner, Leicester-born Philip Voss etc) and too many genuinely East Asian performers are employed as uncredited, unspeaking walk-ons (Clem Choy, Suk Hee S'Hng, Eton F'ong, Irene Ho, Santos Wong, Boon Wan Lee, Ying Wiu, Maung Hlashwe etc). Marco Polo is not unique in this (see also The Crusade and The Daleks' Master Plan), but it's doubly surprising when you realise this serial was cast and directed by a British-Indian.

We get more rich characterisation between the reunited Ping-Cho and Susan too, who endearingly match goldfish in the lily pond at Cheng-Ting to their human counterparts. Wang-lo's fish is "fat, smooth and silky", Marco's is "solemn", and Ian's "energetic". Susan's opinion of Barbara's fish as "all alone, independent" says so much about how she views Miss Wright, but we sadly don't get a fishy description for her grandfather. However, Ping-Cho says Susan's fish is "wicked", while Susan says Ping-Cho's is "pretty, with a wedding veil", reminding us of the teenager's ultimate fate in Shang-Tu: to be married to a man 60 years her senior.

At the end of the episode, the viewer is tricked into believing the adventure is over, as Ping-Cho steals the TARDIS keys from Marco's journal and the Doctor's party actually get inside the Ship. They're standing at the console, ready to dematerialise and leave 13th century Asia behind... but where's Susan? She went back to say farewell to Ping-Cho, and got apprehended by Tegana in the process. It's such a cracking twist to have our heroes so close to escape, but scuppered by a simple goodbye. At this moment, viewers back in 1964 realised that Marco Polo was not a five-part serial, but at least six...

"Great Olympus!"

First broadcast: March 21st, 1964

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: So much to enjoy here, including William Hartnell's on-point performance, but I suspect that, if we could see it, Barry Newbery's Cheng-Ting design would steal the show.
The Bad: Although Marco Polo was made in a different time with differing social attitudes to today, I can't help balking at the "yellowface" casting, especially of Paul Carson as Ling-Tau.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★☆

NEXT TIME: Mighty Kublai Khan...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: The Roof of the World (episode 1); The Singing Sands (episode 2); Five Hundred Eyes (episode 3); The Wall of Lies (episode 4); Mighty Kublai Khan (episode 6); Assassin at Peking (episode 7)

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/marco-polo.html

Marco Polo is available as a soundtrack CD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Original-Television-Soundtrack/dp/0563535083