At an exhibition of the works of Vincent van Gogh, the Doctor and Amy discover a disturbing image hidden in one of his final paintings. They travel back to Provence in 1890, where a penniless van Gogh is haunted by his personal demons and despised by the local townsfolk. An invisible monster called a Krafayis is roaming the streets, and the Doctor realises that the artist is the only person who can perceive it. But as the time travellers rely on van Gogh to help them stop the Krafayis' lethal rampage, they must also navigate his tortured moods -- knowing full well that, within two months, he will have taken his own life.

Over the course of its long history, few writers were approached to write for Doctor Who who had the pedigree of Richard Curtis. Renowned for the projects which had emerged from his longtime partnership with Rowan Atkinson -- such as The Black Adder and Mr Bean -- as well as acclaimed movies like Four Weddings And A Funeral, Curtis was also the co-founder of the Comic Relief charity appeal. It was through the 1999 edition of Red Nose Day that he met Steven Moffat, who was contributing the Doctor Who spoof The Curse Of Fatal Death. Almost a decade later, when Moffat became Doctor Who's executive producer, he contacted Curtis about writing for the show. He knew that Curtis was not a big fan of Doctor Who, and the writer demurred for some time. However, he happened to live next door to David Morrissey, who was co-starring in the 2008 Doctor Who Christmas special, The Next Doctor. Their families watched the broadcast together, after which Curtis' children demanded that he accept Moffat's invitation.

For many years, Curtis had wanted to write a story about the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. He was inspired not only by the artist's ultimately unsuccessful battle with depression and mental illness, but also by the tragically belated recognition of his genius; during his lifetime, van Gogh believed himself to be a failure. Having thus far been unable to find the proper venue for such a narrative, Curtis now suggested that it form the basis of his Doctor Who story. Moffat was initially cool to this approach, which he worried would be inappropriate for the programme's audience, but he was eventually persuaded by Curtis' ideas for the script. Nonetheless, it was agreed that the story would avoid focussing on the more sordid aspects of van Gogh's life, such as the amputation of a portion of his left ear. Curtis also chose to fictionalise some aspects of van Gogh's history; for example, he set his script at the Yellow House which van Gogh had rented in Arles from 1888 to 1889, but he reimagined the associated events as taking place in June 1890, when van Gogh was actually living in Auvers-sur-Oise.

Richard Curtis and his family arranged a spare room in the manner of van Gogh's Bedroom In Arles

To write his adventure, Curtis and his wife Emma -- who routinely worked as his script editor -- took their four children to Italy for a month. After a week in which little headway was made, the family had the idea to arrange a spare room in their rented former schoolhouse in the manner of van Gogh's 1888 painting Bedroom In Arles. Curtis then enjoyed quick progress, bolstered by nightly viewings of past Doctor Who episodes. Input came from his children, with daughter Scarlett suggesting that it could be van Gogh's 1890 painting The Church At Auvers in which the Krafayis -- originally spelt “Crafayis” -- appeared. Curtis and his family had seen the original masterpiece in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. The Krafayis' invisible nature, meanwhile, was one of Moffat's contributions. For much of the story's development, there were in fact two of the creatures, with the second committing suicide after van Gogh inadvertently killed its mate, rather than face the agony of loneliness.

Curtis' preferred title for the adventure was “Eyes That See The Darkness”. It drew upon the description of van Gogh as having “eyes that know the darkness in my soul” in Don McLean's 1971 song Vincent, which was itself inspired by van Gogh's Starry Night (1889). Moffat, however, preferred a less abstruse title, and the adventure became Vincent And The Doctor. Its form was borrowed from the 1990 Robert Altman film Vincent & Theo, about the relationship between van Gogh and his younger brother Theodorus.

In order to achieve a believable representation of a nineteenth-century French village, it was decided that many of the exteriors for Vincent And The Doctor would have to be filmed abroad. To this end, Curtis' script was paired with The Vampires Of Venice to form Season Thirty-One's fifth production block. Directed by Jonny Campbell, it would include a fortnight on location in Trogir, Croatia. However, while principal photography was scheduled to take place in November and December 2009, Campbell made the unusual decision to film material for one scene months earlier. This was the shot of the wheat field used at the beginning of the episode, which would have been out of season in late autumn. The footage was captured on August 20th at Penllyn Farm Estate in Pentre Meyrick.

In 2004, some newspapers had announced that Bill Nighy was the new star of Doctor Who

It would be more than three months before the cameras rolled again on Vincent And The Doctor, with Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff posing as the Church at Auvers on November 24th. The 25th and 26th were spent at Doctor Who's regular studio facilities in Upper Boat, recording the TARDIS scenes. Material in the Vincent van Gogh room at the Musée d'Orsay was recorded on November 27th at Cardiff's National Museum of Wales. A six-foot turntable was used for the sequence where van Gogh realised the enormous impact which his artwork had had upon the world. The cast was joined on this day by Bill Nighy, a good friend of Curtis' who was making an uncredited cameo as Dr Black. Nighy had never before appeared in Doctor Who but, in 2004, he had been a strong contender to play the Ninth Doctor. Indeed, some newspapers had announced that he was the new star of Doctor Who prior to the official confirmation that Christopher Eccleston had actually been cast. Nighy was well-known for a variety of film and television roles, including two movies written and directed by Curtis: 2003's Love Actually and 2009's The Boat That Rocked.

Campbell's team then travelled to Trogir, where recording began on November 30th. Poor weather prompted the abandonment of plans to film in the town itself on this day. Instead, cast and crew travelled ten kilometres west, to the village of Vrsine. There, Campbell taped the scene of the Doctor, Amy and Vincent lying in a field, which was inspired by Starry Night. He then shot some of the Yellow House material at a nearby building; this included footage of the sleeping quarters, which reflected the detail of Bedroom In Arles and other van Gogh paintings. On December 1st, the Café Toras in Trogir was dressed as the establishment in van Gogh's 1888 work Café Terrace At Night. The 2nd and 3rd were spent back at Vrsine for more material at the Yellow House, plus sequences on the country path. Having been postponed from the first day in Trogir, the discovery of Giselle's body was finally filmed at Capo Junction on December 4th.

The next work for Vincent And The Doctor took place on December 8th, with a Trogir alley providing the site where the TARDIS landed in Arles. The only shots recorded for the episode on the 9th were some inserts for the café scene, completed alongside the River Pantan. The last day in Croatia was December 10th, when Campbell filmed the Doctor's evasion of the Krafayis at Capo Junction, the remaining TARDIS exterior scene in which Vincent was escorted to the time machine, and a pick-up shot of the artist for the opening sequence in the wheat field.

Back in Wales, December 14th and 15th were spent at Sutton Farm in Llandow for the remaining sequences in the Yellow House. This was the last material to be filmed for Vincent And The Doctor in 2009, as Campbell spent the rest of the week on The Vampires Of Venice before production stood down for the Christmas holidays. Work in 2010 began on January 4th with several insert shots on the TARDIS set at Upper Boat. Additional footage in the Church at Auvers was taped on the 5th, this time at Neath Abbey in Neath. Recording on January 6th began back at the National Museum, after which the materialisation of the TARDIS outside the Musée d'Orsay actually occurred at Roald Dahl Plass in Cardiff. The day concluded at Upper Boat with the completion of various inserts. January 7th and 8th took the cast and crew to Llancaiach Fawr near Nelson. On the first day, Vincent spotted the Krafayis as he painted outside the Church at Auvers. The following day saw Campbell begin work on material in the confessional booth, which was then completed at Upper Boat on January 13th. Finally, on March 19th, an insert of Vincent's chair in the Yellow House was captured at Upper Boat.

In editing, Vincent And The Doctor was found to be vastly overlength. It was eventually agreed that the episode would be broadcast in a fifty-minute timeslot as opposed to the usual forty-five minutes, but Campbell was nonetheless forced to make a number of cuts. Several scenes were dropped which involved Madame Vernet, the mother of the slain Giselle. The Doctor was also meant to recognise the monster in The Church At Auvers from a book of scary stories he read as a child on Gallifrey, leaving him nervous and jittery for much of the narrative. It was later revealed that the book was called Blind Fury, foreshadowing the Doctor's climactic realisation about the Krafayis.

Vincent And The Doctor was transmitted at 6.40pm on June 5th. Its lead-in was the 2004 animated film Shrek 2. Over The Rainbow had previously been following Doctor Who in the BBC One schedule, but with its run now concluded, The National Lottery: In It To Win It took its place. Given the sensitive issues raised in the episode, the broadcast of Vincent And The Doctor concluded with an on-screen graphic which offered viewers information about a helpline for those affected by mental illness.

• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #27, 16th March 2011, “Vincent And The Doctor” by Andrew Pixley, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Complete History #65, 2018, “Story 210: Vincent And The Doctor”, edited by John Ainsworth, Hachette Partworks Ltd.