The Girl in the Fireplace Press Release

Programme Information for 6-13 May has today been released by the BBC Press Office about the season's fourth episode, Steven Moffat's The Girl in the Fireplace. The episode is currently scheduled for 7pm on Saturday 6 May, and this week's PI Features (note: PDF file) includes a two-page piece on the episode and its writer, Steven Moffat. Moffat reveals that he "could not believe his luck when lead writer Russell T Davies asked him to write an episode of the new series based on Madame Du Pompadour and the 18th-century court of Louis XV -- not least because it was his first time writing a period piece, and he knew nothing about the subject matter. 'Russell said he wanted a story that involved Madame Du Pompadour and possibly a clockwork man,' recalls Steven, writer of the acclaimed series Coupling. 'I had to read up about her – I didn't have the faintest notion of who she was! I had never done [a period piece] before ... I'd never had to do research in my life for any show that I've ever written -- they've always been a kind of mutation of my own love life! So to suddenly have to pick up a book and learn about the Blitz [for The Empty Child], or learn about Madame Du Pompadour in 18th-century France, almost seemed like being sent back to school!' After completing his research, Steven had a new-found respect for Madame Du Pompadour. 'She's tremendous!' exclaims Steven. 'She's someone who keeps her position at Court by being incredibly clever, incredibly smart… one of the sharpest, most educated women who ever lived and she was only the King's mistress – it's kind of a ludicrous position to be in! The story kind of writes itself. If you place the Doctor in a room with a woman like that, what is she going to make of him? What's she going do to him? They're obviously going to get it on! ... I can't see it any other way! I just thought it would be really interesting if he came face to face with someone like Madame Du Pompadour, someone who won't be so easily impressed and who can be a real ‘woman' with him.' Best known for his comedy work, Steven didn't find it difficult to take on the more dark and sinister storylines of Doctor Who. 'The point of Doctor Who in many respects, or the thing that people say about it, is that it's scary, so it's necessary for a Doctor Who story to have frights in it. It's just part of the job description – if I'm writing a comedy I have to write jokes, and if I'm writing for Doctor Who I obviously have to make it scary, but there are quite a few jokes in Doctor Who, too, it has to be said.' A self-confessed Doctor Who fan, Steven admits that at first he found the whole idea of writing for the series an intimidating experience. 'The first week when you're sitting down to write it, as I did a year or so ago, it just seems so weird writing the words ‘Doctor' and ‘Tardis' – all those words that are so iconic and huge. It was very, very odd and disorientating. 'It took me about a week to get over the stage fright!' he laughs. 'But after that, to be honest, it becomes an extremely exciting job, and you start enjoying it for reasons that have nothing to do with being a fan. It's a big action-based pictorial show, with fantastic production values. There's a kind of story-telling that you can do on Doctor Who that you simply can't do anywhere else. I mean, nowhere else on Earth are you going to get to write a scene where Madame Du Pompadour walks from a room in Versailles to a corridor of a space ship. You're not going to do that anywhere else and that's really exciting.'" The episode is also among Saturday's highlights.