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• The Dalek Masterplan
  • Performance dates and cast details
  • Looking back, moving forward
  • From screen to script to stage
  • Composing a Masterplan
  • The Daleks
  • Daleks out and about
  • Making the music for Masterplan
  • Inside the music studio
  • So it begins
  • The Return of the Daleks
  • The Dalek Masterplan reviewed
  • Photograph gallery
  • Music from the Masterplan
  • Behind the scenes video
• Related Web sites
  • New Theatre Royal
  • Doctor Who: Devious
  • My Dalek Life

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Well it’s been about nine months since Evil of the Daleks was performed and things are cooking up great for The Dalek Masterplan.

Composing music is like riding a rollercoaster in the dark! You’re excited about what’s to come and really enjoy the ride both on the journey to the finish and experiencing that feeling of not knowing what’s around the next bend. Then you’re sad that it’s all over and just want to do it all again!

Composer Martin Johnson in his home studio
I’m now about half way through the score and if all goes to plan I will have it finished by mid-late August. This year is proving to be more difficult than last year for good reasons. This time we will have projected AV segments implemented into the show and some need to be scored. It would proberbly be ok if I just created some generic background piece for them but for me that just wouldn’t cut the mustard. I want to capture the details of what we see on screen and compose something that reflects them. Think of the music in the Looney Tunes classics and you know what I mean. Another factor is the nature of the story. The Dalek Masterplan is epic! Even cut down to two 45 minute parts there’s still that sence of grandeur that Nick has kept within the pages of that fantastic script. That mean a different type of score to that of Evil of the Daleks. I’m not talking apocalyptic rave! It will still be orchestral but the style will be more like the classic sci-fi space films we all know and love.
 
Last time I wrote an article I mentioned that I was toying with the idea of having a variation on the Dalek theme from Evil and that’s exactly what I have done. I couldn’t use the theme from Evil simply because it is too dark for Masterplan so I took the theme and altered it so that it was more adventurous. Although having said that the Evil theme does appear once but that’s because of what our mutated monsters do in that scene, truly horrific!
 
Many of you may have heard a clip of the Doctor Who theme I arranged for this production, yet again firing up rumors of a new series theme, hahaha! The production team have agreed to keep the whole theme a secret until opening night and most of them won’t hear it until rehersals begin in September! The main reason I didn’t want the bulk of theme to leak out is because I want it to give everyone goosebumps the first time it’s heard and that would be impossible if people downloaded it and listened to it over and over...like I have...and proberbly Nick too! I will say this about it though, it is very faithful to the original theme while keeping the excitment of the new series and it also has a spoken choir in one of the four variations.
 
This really is ‘not to be missed’ Doctor Who and the only way you’re going to see it is if you book your tickets now!