The Curse of the Daleks was the first stage play to be based upon elements of Doctor Who and the second production to take place within the Doctor Who universe which didn't actually feature the Doctor after TV: Mission to the Unknown.
Overview[]
The Curse of the Daleks came to London's Wyndham's Theatre at the height of "Dalekmania" in the UK. It had a month-long run from 21 December 1965 to 15 January 1966 as a matinee show. Afterwards, the production was not remounted to go on tour and has never been performed since.
Plot[]
In the bare, "curved ribbed store hold" of the spaceship Starfinder are two prisoners. Harry Sline is under arrest for slave trading between Mars and Venus, and he's looking at a thirty year prison sentence in The Deeps underwater prison in the Atlantic Ocean. Meanwhile, disgraced Commander John Ladiver's many crimes include illegal sales of uranium to "the wrong people", an act that almost led to a space war. He's suspected of having "cached away about thirty million". Ladiver is facing execution. Both have just done eight days in a holding cell on Satellite Prison, and Sline is trying to file through the handcuffs chaining the pair together. Food is brought by radio-pic operator and engineer Bob Slater, who is armed with a "short stubbly" detonator handgun, while Captain Stephen Redway looks in on the prisoners.
The Starfinder, travelling at light speed, runs into trouble as it hits a meteor storm, resulting in the programme circuits shorting. Co-pilot Rocket Smith enters to inform Redway that there is smoke coming out of the radio-pic set because somebody sabotaged it by throwing iron filings in it. Forced to land to make repairs, the crew choose the relatively quiet nearby planet of Skaro, even though the Unispace Police have declared Skaro out of bounds. The human crew are dimly aware that Skaro is the home of the now deactivated Daleks and the beautiful race of Thals. The aloof Marion Clements enters with her boss, Professor Vanderlyn. Sline and Ladiver are disembarked, still manacled together, along with Vanderlyn's equipment, including refrigerated crates of biological specimens from around the universe, wheeled in on a trolley to keep them out of the oven-like heat on board the Starfinder.
In a courtyard in the dead City of the Daleks, there are many archways and ramps and secret doors, as well as a dormant Dalek standing in the courtyard, overgrown with vines and with its eyestalk and its suction pad arm pointing at the ground. Vanderlyn relates how the humans managed to switch off the Daleks power at the end of the Dalek war, and embraces the Skaro landing as an opportunity to make notes. Rocket hangs his jacket over the Dalek’s eyestalk. Vanderlyn and Marion pull the creepers off the Dalek to examine it, with Redway attempting to flirt with Marion. Vanderlyn thereafter starts to unload his specimen cases from the trolley and finds there is one that he doesn;t recognise - a large case with his name written on it, that contains a dozen thick black discs. It has a smooth bright metal base, metal without joins, in two sections with "some kind of barely visible pin sticking out of a hole in the base." Before long, Rocket notices one of discs is missing, and it turns up stuck to the side of the overgrown Dalek, whose eyestalk twitches into life as its sucker stick starts to straighten up and it moves around and exits through the ramp. The mystery black boxes turn out to be flooding power into the Dalek like a blood transfusion, and at the same time, whispering recorded orders to the Daleks as well.
Redway takes command of the situation, while Vanderlyn talks about electricity and indeed static electricity. Sline eventually manages to file through his manacles, and is felled by an anaesthetic bullet as he attempts to make a break for it. Three Daleks appear trundling down the ramp with a trolley on which is Vanderlyn's crate, a crate that now contains only the slumped body of Slater. The black boxes are gone.
In the Scanner room of the City, the Daleks are powering themselves up and plugging in a huge screen on which they have the humans under surveillance. As a Dalek gives orders to mobilise, Redway goes missing with the only detonator gun, leaving Rocket in charge. It turns out that Slater was not killed by Daleks, but poisoned by a hypodermic. The humans send up a flare to bring in the Thals, who reply by flashing a piece of polished metal.
An explosion then heralds the appearance of the Thal leader Dexion, and his daughter Ijayna, as they seal passages behind them. These Thals and Commander Ladiver have met before, when Ladiver led the regular five-yearly patrol of local star system three years before and investigated Ijayna's claim that someone had landed secretly on Skaro just before Ladiver's last visit - possibly, as they now believe, to test the black boxes. Ladiver's reports were ignored, and his subsequent uranium-smuggling career was a cover for routine flights across Skaro space. Ijayana and Ladiver become engaged to be married and the Thals set Ladiver free.
A badly-wounded Redway stumbles in, and the Daleks order the humans to hand over their radio as Redway dies. Someone is controlling the Daleks and they have plans to rule the universe from Skaro. Night is falling when a torch-equipped Dalek appears through a secret door. They exterminate Sline when he runs for it, as Ladiver escapes. The Daleks round up the women, and it begins to look as if whoever is controlling the Daleks is probably male, with suspicion falling on Vanderlyn and Rocket.
Dexion, Rocket and Vanderlyn are drugged and propped up on a bench, whilst Marion and Ijayna are secured to floor by magnets. They discover that the Daleks master is Slater, who wasn't really dead, having injected something to freeze his heart. He rants on about how the Daleks obey him, and how the two girls are going to be his playthings when he rules the universes. Ladiver then attempts to thwart the Dalek power-up by clinging to the underside of a trolley full of power cells that is pushed by another Dalek. However, the Daleks do momentarily manage to get full power, which leads to their black boxes falling off, which in turn frees them from Slater's control, immediately turning on Slater, exterminateing him.
Ladiver meanwhile has manged to pull the power cells out of their sockets, and messing with the Daleks electrical engineering, starts to power them back down again. As the Daleks die, Ladiver and Ijanya kiss.
Cast[]
- Captain of the Starfinder
- The co-pilot, nicknamed "Rock".
- communications engineer
- has refrigerated samples of biological specimens from many planets
- Vanderlyn's assistant
- former Commander, convict arrested for uranium smuggling; has been to Skaro before and knows the Thals
- convict arrested for slave-trading
- leader of the Thals
- Dexion's daughter, is engaged to Ladiver
- The Daleks - uncredited
- depowered at the time of the Starfinder's landing
- led by a Black Dalek
Crew[]
- Producers - John Gale and Ernest Hecht
- Director - Gillian Howell
- Licensee and Managing Director - Donald Akbery
- Designer - Hutchinson Scott
Worldbuilding[]
- Unispace Police have declared Skaro off-limits.
- Every five years, the local stars are patrolled.
- The Deeps is a prison located in the Atlantic Ocean.
- Paris and London were destroyed during the war.
Notes[]
- The script for the play is currently filed in the British Library in the Manuscript Collection as Play no 1965/50, Lord Chamberlain's Licence No. 356, November 1965.
- The writing of the play is credited to both David Whitaker and Terry Nation, although Nation actually had very little to do with it.
- An advert appeared in The Stage newspaper in October 1966, in which John Gale Productions announced that they were putting their entire stage production of The Curse of the Daleks, including the Daleks, up for sale. The Dalek props, however, did not get sold - they were recycled for Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D..
- The frequently used title device "... of the Daleks" did not originate with this story. That honour actually goes to the comic story Invasion of the Daleks.
- David Whitaker credits this story as coming from one of the Dalek Chronicles.
- Five Dalek props were used, one painted as a Black Dalek.
- The "Dalek December" rhyme is a reworking of "Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November".
- The Power of the Daleks would again feature the idea of depowered Daleks.
- An official audio adaptation was released by Big Finish Productions in November 2008.
Remakes[]
- Main article: The Curse of the Daleks (audio story)
- In April 2008, Altered Vistas released their computer-generated fan-production of The Curse of the Daleks (AV16). It was later withdrawn on announcement of an official release.
- In November 2008, a new production of the play was mounted for CD release by Big Finish Productions as Doctor Who: The Stageplays - The Curse of the Daleks.
External links[]
- Live From Mars - Curse of the Daleks
- Altered Vistas - Curse of the Daleks (a withdrawn fan-production)
- Dalek 6388 - A Dalek Prop History - Curse of the Daleks Stage Play
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