So it begins...

Editor: Nick Scovell · Last update: 29 October 2007

The Dalek Masterplan
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As the stage performance of The Dalek Masterplan grows closer, Nick Scovell takes us behind the scenes to look at the rehearsals and filming of video inserts.

With just a matter of weeks to go until the opening night, all is happening down Portsmouth way to make sure our adaptation of The Dalek Masterplan is ready for its first members of the paying public. Excitement is mounting, especially as so many of the paying public are definitely coming! At the time of writing, ticket sales are approaching the 2,000 mark, so we have all to play for…

Saturday, September 1st was the filming day. Many of the cast and crew gathered in front of a huge CSO blue screen at the New Theatre Royal to be shot ready for lots of very fancy CGI effects to be overlaid behind them! This was our first real gathering ready for the play and everyone was very eager to make a start after such a long build-up. The show features several filmed sequences including news-reports and public broadcasts and means of inter-galactic communication. Rob Thrush and Dave Tozer turned their considerable talents to filming these sections with aplomb, and many ‘cameos’ were shot featuring members of the company who are unable to feature in the live show, so it was nice to get as many people as we could in to appear in some way in the finished product.

Laura Ford as space security agent Sara Kingdom, reprising the role originally plated by Jean Marsh in the 1965 television version of this epic Doctor Who adventure.

Monday, September 3rd was the official read-through. And, I have to say, never has such a gathering created so much fun and excitement before! Read-Throughs are an essential part of beginning the rehearsal progress and this was, by far, the most enjoyable one I have ever known. This was due to the New Theatre Royal allowing us, very generously, to hold it in the theatre itself, and opening the bar to make the evening as convivial as possible. The whole cast, crew and a few special guests gathered and read the script with great flair. We also managed to fit in recording all the pre-recorded dialogue, so the evening was even more worthwhile in that respect! This meant we were able to get Nick Briggs, taking an evening out from a very busy schedule, to tape the pre-recorded Dalek voices as well, which was an added bonus. We also got to hear his ‘new’ Dalek voice for the Supreme Dalek! It’s very sinister and will make many an audience members’ spine chill! My sincere thanks to all who made the effort to come from afar to join us this night. Many of our ‘Whovian’ extended family live all over the country and it was great to have everyone together for the start of the whole process.

The cast of The Dalek Masterplan during the first read-through of the script.

Rehearsals began on Friday, September 7th and I have to say we are making excellent progress. The flow and style of the whole show is coming together very smoothly. An added slice of excitement broke when the Dalek props arrived on Monday, September 10th. As they glided in, off a transit van, in their new colour scheme, everyone crowded round and got very enthused by their new, extra mean, look. We hope they generate as much excitement when they glide onto the stage on the opening night…

Nick Scovell as the Doctor, kneeling over Helen Stoddard as Katarina.

So, now the true hard work has begun. Blocking, re-rehearsing, productions meetings, sound meetings, cue meetings, learning lines, learning cues, costume fittings – it’s all building up in huge swathes of activity! However, by far the hardest challenge with doing Doctor Who is getting over the inevitable fits of rehearsal giggles! Although, of course, we take it all very seriously and work jolly hard, it is sometimes difficult to keep a straight face when talking about avoiding a cosmic cataclysm whilst pretending that a marker pen is a Tarannium Core! It’s also occasionally tricky to work out which Dalek is supposed to be saying which lines when their light batteries are still to be fitted! One also forgets sometimes which operator is in which prop, with the inevitable confusion when Adrian has been given a move, which turns out to be Liam and then they crash into each other! Another aspect of actually getting up and doing these scenes is we end up finding huge swathes of innuendo in the script that had previously gone unnoticed. This usually results in Helen Stoddart, as Katarina, letting rip with her huge and infectious laugh which ends up reducing all of us to a giggling mess. The worst occasion occurred the other night when Tim Skedge, playing Bret Vyon, has to enter brandishing his gun. It says in the script: ‘Bret cocks his gun.’ With the weapon still under construction, Tim decided to just say “Cock,” as a substitute sound effect. You can imagine the inevitable results…

Inside a Dalek – Dalek operator Adrian Cranwell-Child inside ‘Groucho’, showing the very necessary creature comforts of a bottle of water and a fan.

Personally, I’m having a very hard time not laughing every time John Paul, who plays Steven Taylor, speaks! He has played Jamie opposite me three times and now he isn’t Scottish! It all sounds wrong! He is also struggling not to do a Scots burr every time he says “Doctor..!”

Oh, the joys of rehearsal! And I do mean joys, quite literally. We have assembled a great team and they are all doing a smashing job. I’m very proud of them all and grateful to them. We are all having a ball, and we sincerely hope that positive, fun atmosphere will come across to the audience, even when the Dalek invasion begins…