The Doctor (William Hartnell) with Odysseus (Ivor Salter) and Agamemnon (Francis De Wolff) in Temple of Secrets, the first episode of The Myth Makers (1965). De Wolff had worn the same costume when he played Agrippa in the previous year’s Carry On Cleo.
Doctor Who has often been involved in comic situations before, but this is the first time he has really been interpreted as “High Comedy”,’ claimed BBC Enterprises when drumming up overseas sales for 16mm film recordings of The Myth Makers. ‘Certainly these are the most sophisticated scripts so far used in the series.’
Commissioned as The Mythmakers by story editor Donald Tosh on 13 May 1965, this wasn’t a conventional Doctor Who tale – nor was it the work of a conventional television writer. Two test scripts were tentatively requested from Essex-based revue star and lyricist Donald Cotton. “It was deliberate comedy and I encouraged it,” recalled producer John Wiles in the fanzine TARDIS. “I had a slight suspicion that the programme was taking itself a little too seriously and I felt we could afford to explore other ways of looking at a story.”