'60's Cybermen @ Peterborough

The first of three batches of photographs from the exhibition covering Cybermen, this lot all come from 1960's stories - and all five of the B&W adventures are represented.

We begin with the original Mondasian version seen in The Tenth Planet...

This is a pretty faithful recreation of the original costume, and I love the fact that we get to see the eyes, which could be glimpsed in some of the original episodes - reminding us of their humanoid origins. I much prefer it to the remake design seen in World Enough And Time / The Doctor Falls.

Jumping ahead chronologically, on the shelf behind you'll have seen a mask from The Invasion. There was no full recreation of this model. This was where the "ear-muffs" first came in.

From The Moonbase we have another full-size outfit. You can always tell this model from the Tomb one by the footwear (lace-up shoes) and the arrangement of hoses running from the chest unit. (Moonbase ones don't have any running from the base of the unit). Another thing to look out for is the circular pattern of breathing holes on the cheeks of the mask, introduced in Tomb for the comfort of the performers.

This Mark II version is definitely my favourite of all the Cyberman designs, and I've been lucky enough to capture a few reproductions, and even one original costume, on camera before.

From The Tomb of the Cybermen we get the impressive Controller...

Darker in colour and with no chest unit, it has a large translucent brain case which was supposed to light up - but the effect was rather lost under the bright studio lights. The original Controller helmet still exists, and the collector who owns it allowed it to be photographed and measured to create this copy.

The images from the exhibition printed in the recent DWM bookazine Cybermen: The Ultimate Guide (highly recommended) were obviously taken before the exhibits were properly set up, as they are seen against a plain grey background. If you visit Peterborough you'll see set elements from Tomb now form a more interesting backdrop, including the half-moon ladder steps, the stylised wall stencils, and the large panel which concealed the Controller's personal chamber.

As mentioned, we only get a mask from The Invasion, so the final full costume '60's Cyberman on display here is the one seen in The Wheel In Space...

As you may already know, this was not the original design for this story. They came up with a version for filming at Ealing which had a vinyl suit, but this proved quite impractical and the director asked for a remake before the story went into studio - and this was the result. The original version did make it to screen, in the sequence where the Cybermen attempt to space-walk onto the Wheel in the final episode, and when they first appear inside the big egg-like pods.

It clearly represents a bridge between the original Troughton design and that which would follow in The Invasion, in that we now have a wetsuit as the base for the costume, there are rigid rods along the limbs instead of hoses, and the tear-drop motif first appears. The chest units were the older Troughton ones, just put on upside down.

This is the only reproduction of this design I've ever seen. The Blackpool Exhibition had featured a Wheel helmet, but stuck on a Mark II body. One of the problems with accurately reproducing this design - and the one from The Invasion - is that the style of wetsuit is no longer manufactured, so you'd have to spend a lot of money adapting a modern one, or getting one custom made.

Next batch... time for some Daleks.