N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!

Admittedly, this one is stretching the conceit somewhat. With no recording nor indeed any photographs of the original staging of The Curse of the Daleks, I’ve cheated and turned to Big Finish’s 2008 audio adaptation.

“It’s better than watching television, isn’t it?”

Rocket Smith, The Curse of the Daleks

Without a time machine to nip back to Christmas 1965 at the Wyndham Theatre, it’s the best I could do. But I did want to include the first of Doctor Who‘s little side trips to the theatre, imagining that if I’d been lucky and living in 60’s London, I might have been fortunate enough to see it.

As Nicholas Briggs comments in one of the extras in the Big Finish release, I might well have missed that week’s installment of The Daleks’ Master Plan had I gone to the Saturday matinee, but let’s imagine I made it back on time or went during the Christmas holidays on a weekday. Or bunked off school.

Obviously, I can’t vouch for the quality of the original production, nor for the faithfulness of the Big Finish adapation, although Briggs stresses his aim was to be faithful as possible, so that means chauvinistic warts ‘n’ all.

What I will say is that it’s an enjoyably sedate listen, with Michael Praed being particularly impressive. (His rich voice sounded a bit like Paul McGann’s to me, so I kept half-imagining it was the Eighth Doctor undercover as Ladiver.)

The Curse of the Daleks also confirms – as Mission to the Unknown showed before it – that the Daleks could sustain a story that did not include the Doctor and that Terry Nation was probably right to try and pursue a standalone series for them.