The Crash of the Elysium (stage play)

The Crash of the Elysium was a Doctor Who stage play by Felix Barrett and Tom MacRae, based on an idea by Steven Moffat. Developed by Punchdrunk (of which Barrett is creative director), a performance company that specialises in immersive theatre experiences, where audience members are placed within the action of the play itself, the production was developed for the 2011 Manchester International Festival, and was performed from 30 June to 17 July 2011.

The play was initially restricted to children between the ages of 6 and 12, with adults only allowed if they were parents of children ages 6 to 8 accompanying them for a special version of the show for younger children. Due to demand, however, several adults-only performances were added.

To promote the play, the official Doctor Who website had featured a series of cryptic clues that were added on a weekly basis during the course of the first half of Series 6's broadcasts. This included brief video footage of Matt Smith as the Doctor. In a move harkening back to the early days of the 2005 revival, viral marketing was also employed, with the development of two tie-in websites: a Blogspot blog for the character "Daryl the Diver" and a Wordpress site for the fictional Northwest Historical Society.

During the course of the play performances, Matt Smith appeared as the Doctor in specially produced video footage. However, audience members at the 15 July 2011 performance were treated to Smith appearing in person as the Doctor in lieu of the show's standard closing video. This marked the first time since the stage play The Ultimate Adventure in the 1980s that one of the TV Doctor actors has participated in a full-length Doctor Who stage play.