Seven lost episodes of Doctor Who 1964 series Marco Polo filmed by fan to be unveiled next month

Thought to have been lost forever, footage recorded on a cine camera has been restored by BBC Worldwide

Seven lost Doctor Who episodes that were recorded by a fan are set to be unveiled next month.

The BBC are desperately keeping the existence of the 1964 series - called Marco Polo, featuring William Hartnell as the Doctor - secret.

They are one of the only series where no video footage exists – and was thought to have been lost forever.

A TV insider revealed: “This is a massive deal for Doctor Who fans, these episodes were hugely popular with viewers when they were first shown and are set to be a hit again.”

The chance to recover the wiped Marco Polo episodes has come from the dedication of a fan who enthusiastically recorded the episodes on a cine camera.

The fan recorded the episodes directly from the television onto a 16mm film camera.

Since the discovery of the cine film, the recordings have been carefully restored and transferred onto broadcast tape by BBC Worldwide.

The source continued: “This new discovery is all down to a dedicated fan who spent ages recording the episodes back in the sixties.

“The recording - which is a silent film - came out really clearly so it will be easy to watch... the fan did it in a very professional way.

“There are already audio recordings of the episodes so the Beeb have had to match everything up. There are some gaps in the audio so it has been a painstaking process.

“Where there are gaps in audio they are going to be re-recorded using contemporary actors who sound as close to the original actors as possible.

“The fan had been holding onto these tapes for a long time and when the BBC found out about the tapes they jumped at the chance of using them. It’s a massive coup for the broadcaster.”

Marco Polo also features Mark Eden, 85, who went on to star in TV series such as Jesus of Nazareth and Coronation Street as evil Alan Bradley.

The story is set in China, in the year 1289, with the regular series characters interacting with Venetian merchant-explorer Marco Polo and Chinese Emperor Kublai Khan.

The amazing discovery comes after nine missing Doctor Who episodes from the 60s - featuring Patrick Troughton, the Second Doctor after William Hartnell - were unveiled last month after being discovered in Nigeria.

They were finally tracked down by Phillip Morris, director of Television International Enterprises Archives, using the Beeb’s old records of material sent for overseas transmission.

The stories recovered include The Enemy of the World, which first aired in December 1967. Episodes 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 had been missing from the archives.

Also unearthed were episodes 2, 4, 5, and 6 of the 1968 six-part adventure The Web of Fear. Sadly, episode 3 is still missing but a restoration team working with BBC Worldwide has pieced it together using salvaged images and the original audio tape.