The Full Circle - Production Notes

Production Notes

• Director Bob Kellett embraced the opportunity this screenplay offered to 'open up' the feel of the programme. Reportedly, he re-wrote much of the script (penned by American husband-and-wife writing team Jesse Lasky, Jnr and Pat Silver) to realise his desire for this series' first (and only) extensive location shoot. As the Landaus disliked leaving the confines of Pinewood Studios, their scenes were shot on Stage 'M' (the ravine) and on the back lot behind the studio's ceremonial gardens. The rest of the cast assembled in nearby Black Park for the scenes set in Retha's lush forests.

• Though delighted by the large role for her character and the idea of the location work, Zienia Merton recalls the trials of this shooting this episode. First, director Kellett handed her a leopard skin from which to improvise her own costume; he did not want fashionable caveman ‘ready-to-wear’—à la Raquel Welch's 'fur-trimmed Maidenform bra' (in the 1966 film One Million Years B.C.), he would say. The weather was abominable, her uncooperative costume repeatedly exposed her bare chest, and a swarm of insects attacked her legs while she lay on the ground after her chase scene. At night, the crew gave her brandy to keep warm, and she claims to have gotten rather tipsy.

• Production designer Keith Wilson was able to effectively re-vamp the infamous 'Ice Palace' set from the previous episode 'Death's Other Dominion' into the Stone-Age home of the cavemen. The cavemen were mostly portrayed by the regular Moonbase background extras (including Glenda Allen, Tony Allyn, Sarah Bullen, Andy Dempsey and Christopher Williams). Alan Meacham, who played the dead caveman in the episode's 'hook', was Martin Landau's stand-in.

• A student of Lee Strasberg and his Method acting, Barbara Bain went home in her cave-woman make-up to practice her primitive vocalisations. She recalls how her daughter chose this time to bring her first boyfriend home to meet her parents, only to find her mother's face smeared with dirt while she practiced her banshee-like howls.