A few days ago we mentioned the opening of the play Doctor Who and the Daleks in Seven Keys to Doomsday. This was the second time that the Daleks had taken to the boards. The first time was today in 1965, when The Curse of the Daleks opened at Wyndham's Theatre.
Written by David Whitaker, Doctor Who's former story editor and the person responsible for much of the written Dalek material of the "Dalekmania" period, this was a stand alone Dalek adventure.
The Doctor did not feature. The story had certain similarities to The Power of the Daleks (a human villain wanting to turn the Daleks into servants) and even featured an actor who would appear in that TV serial - Nicholas Hawtrey. The Thals also appeared as the story was set on Skaro, where a spaceship from Earth had crash-landed.
Like the 1974 production, the play ran for one month - the Panto Season - but proved more successful at the box office.
The Daleks were about to make their first appearance today in 1963, with the debut broadcast of The Dead Planet - Part One of the story which I tend to call The Daleks, though some purists insist on calling "The Mutants". The episode ended with the first glimpse of a Dalek plunger.
One of the stars of this story - John Lee, who played Alydon - passed away on this day in 2000, aged 72. He didn't actually feature in this episode - his hand being played by Production Assistant Michael Ferguson, who also wielded that plunger. Lee spent his later years in his native Australia, where he became well known for playing Mrs Mangel's dodgy husband Len in Neighbours.
Also on this date, The Invasion concluded with its eighth instalment in 1968, and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy delivered its second episode today in 1988.
No comments:
Post a Comment