Richard Curtis told to rewrite Doctor Who script

Richard Curtis, the screenwriter of the British hit film Four Weddings and a Funeral as well as such TV comedy shows as Blackadder and Spitting Image, has admitted that he was told to rewrite his Doctor Who script.
 
Curtis's episode, which features the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh (played by Tony Curran, above), screens this Saturday. The script had to undergo a rewrite because the show's producers felt Curtis's beginning was "too slow", he has revealed.
 
Curtis, 51, told an audience at a screening of the episode in London that he had been given "all sorts of instructions" about the new Doctor and his assistant Amy Pond prior to writing his script. But when he handed in his first draft, the show's producers told him that the Doctor talked too much. "I was told that... I should go back and watch some of the episodes and see that, actually, he was rather efficient in the way that he talked."
 
Curtis said that, after some initial resistance, he realised the producers were right after a read-through with Matt Smith, who plays the Doctor, and his co-star Karen Gillan, who plays Amy Pond. "I suddenly realised they were right and it was bad - and then I re-wrote it".
 
In Curtis's episode, Amy and the Doctor travel back in time and try to help Van Gogh who is troubled by an invisible monster. Van Gogh also develops a crush on Amy.
 
Meanwhile Karen Gillan has warned Doctor Who fans that they need to be prepared for an emotional finale when the series finishes later this year. The actress said there would be "a big climax for Amy and her story that's been building throughout the series". ·