Big Finish Doctor Who - The Stageplays - The Curse Of The Daleks

The space ship Starfinder is taking two dangerous criminals for trial on Earth. En route, they crash through a meteor storm and have to make an emergency landing on Skaro – the planet of the dreaded Daleks. But Captain Redway and his faithful crew don’t anticipate any trouble. After all, the Daleks were defeated fifty years ago and now they are completely inactive. But when a crate full of mysterious devices is discovered and the Daleks start to come back to life, it becomes clear that there is a traitor amongst the Starfinder’s crew… A traitor intent on reactivating the power of the Daleks!

Doctor Who: The Stageplays concludes with the Doctor-less ‘Curse of the Daleks’ and it’s just as good as the previous two!

Originally performed in 1965, the play is notable for being Terry Nation’s first attempt at performing 'live Daleks'. The original play was performance at the Wyndham's Theatre in London. Elements of this story were used in the Second Doctor’s first full serial - ‘The Power of the Daleks’.

Much in the style of the excellent ‘Dalek Empire’ series, we are given a tale of how a group of people are forced to land on a now-deserted Skaro. The Daleks are believed to be long dead, despite there still being Dalek casings scattered across the planet’s ruins. But when a mysterious crate is found on board the ship, it is long before the Dalek’s rise again. What is in the crate and who is behind the rise of the Daleks? Is it the two prisoners? The passengers? Or even the flight crew? Or is it the Daleks, up to their old manipulative tricks?

Despite there being no Doctor, the play is still as good as a normal Big Finish play. Linking narration is provided by Nick Briggs, who as always voices the Daleks. Despite hearing his voice again, Briggs’ is an excellent narrator and puts a nice touch on the play.

I especially enjoyed the performance of Michael Praed, who played the mysterious prisoner Ladiver. I thought his performance really held the play together and the whole thing certainly hinged on that!

4/5

Overall, I’ve been very impressed with this series of stageplay adaptations, I do hope that Big Finish will adapt more spin-off stuff. I would love to hear some of the Virgin New Adventure books, being adapted!

Big Finish Doctor Who - The Stageplays - The Ultimate Adventure

Big Finish have decided to adapt three Doctor Who stage plays onto audio, the first of which is ‘The Ultimate Adventure’. They just manage to pull it off.

The play was originally performed by Jon Pertwee from March 1989, until he became ill. David ‘Cyber Leader’ Banks took over as The Doctor, for some of his performances. It wasn’t long though until Pertwee was replaced by Colin Baker, who was sacked from his television role just three years previously. Colin reprises his role as the 6th Doctor for this audio version.

Early on it becomes obvious that this play wasn’t designed to be on audio. Everything seems a bit OTT but once everything settles down we are treated to a good story. We are introduced to the Doctor’s companion – Jason (played by former Hearsay ‘singer’ Noel Sullivan), a Frenchman saved from the guillotine by The Doctor. They materialise in London to meet Prime Minister Margret Thatcher, who wants them to protect a US envoy, who is a key man in peace talks being held in London. When they turn up, at the nightclub, the Cybermen are coming from the shadows and abduct the envoy but they are not working alone in their attempts to plunge earth into war….

The audio really gets going from part two onwards, once we are introduced to nightclub singer, Crystal (Claire Huckle), the play really goes up a notch. While it doesn’t hit the heights of Big Finish’s monthly releases, the play is adapted very well and does what its designed do - a bit of harmless fun!

The supporting cast are good and it’s great to hear David Banks back on Doctor Who. He isn’t playing the Cyber-Leader though, so there’s no chance of an “Excellent” catchphrase! Booooo!

We are also treated to the songs from the original play. Whilst there isn’t many, “Business is Business” is the standout song and the title is used as a catchphrase throughout the play. We could have done with a few more songs though!

3/5

Next Month – Trevor Martin plays The Doctor in ‘Seven Keys To Doomsday’