Archie Maplin

Archie Maplin was a famous silent film star of the 1920s.

The Tenth Doctor had decided to pay Maplin a visit in 1926 to honour a final request of Donna Noble, who had wanted to visit a silent movie set. At the time, Maplin was attempting, with little success, to film a movie called The Fun Fair, which was plagued by mysterious accidents and had driven Maplin to the brink of bankruptcy. Maplin was instrumental in aiding the Doctor in putting an end to the predations of Maximilian Love and Leo Miller on the backlot of the United Actors Studio. In repayment, the Doctor used a sheet of persuasion paper to convince a bank officer to both forgive the debts Maplin had already incurred and to give him a new loan to finally finance The Fun Fair.

The Doctor apparently had met Maplin previously from his point of view; from Maplin's perspective, the Doctor's crashing of his gala party in Hollywood was their first encounter. His later movies included Future Times and The Great Oppressor. (COMIC: Silver Scream)

Behind the scenes

 * Archie Maplin is meant as a stand-in for real-life silent star Charlie Chaplin, whom Donna Noble had expressed an interest in visiting just before the Doctor wiped her memories. (TV: Journey's End) Writer Tony Lee told Doctor Who Magazine that while IDW were allowed to use Chaplin, they did not have the rights to use the likeness of Chaplin's character, which they only realised the day before printing. The writer and artists hurriedly changed his name to Archie Maplin and added a handlebar moustache and changed the Tramp's bowler hat to a top hat as they had no time to do anything else. (DWM 528)