The Curse of the Daleks
| The Curse of the Daleks | |
|---|---|
A programme for The Curse of the Daleks
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| Written by |
David Whitaker Terry Nation |
| Date premiered | 21 December 1965 |
| Place premiered |
Wyndham's Theatre London |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Science Fiction |
| The Curse of the Daleks | |
|---|---|
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| Big Finish Productions audio drama | |
| Series | Doctor Who: The Stageplays |
| Release no. | 3 |
| Featuring | The Daleks |
| Written by |
David Whitaker Terry Nation |
| Directed by | Nicholas Briggs |
| Executive producer(s) | Nicholas Briggs Jason Haigh-Ellery |
| Production code | BFPDWSPCD03 |
| Release date | November 2008 |
The Curse Of The Daleks is a Dalek stage play, written by David Whitaker and Terry Nation, which appeared for one month at the Wyndham's Theatre in London beginning 21 December 1965. It is notable for being Terry Nation's first live action attempt to exercise his ownership of the Dalek concept independently of the BBC. As such, it does not include the character of the Doctor, the TARDIS or any other elements from the Doctor Who television series. Produced by John Gale and Ernest Hecht, and directed by Gillian Howell, it was performed mostly as a indicating that children were the intended primary audience.
Following the crash landing of an Earth spacecraft on Skaro, one of the astronauts believes he can turn the Daleks into his servants. As ever, the Daleks have other plans.
Freelance writers for the BBC were allowed to retain intellectual property rights over concepts and characters they introduced into individual serials. As a result, Terry Nation found himself co-owning the Dalek phenomenon of the mid-1960s. Nation was eager to find some way of divorcing them from the Doctor Who universe so that he could build a franchise which would not require BBC cooperation, and two such attempts were made in 1965.
One was the Doctor and companionless episode Mission to the Unknown. Though commonly known as an introduction to the Doctor Who serial, The Daleks' Master Plan, it was also preparatory to a proposed Dalek-only pilot called, The Destroyers. Had it been completed, The Destroyers would have been centred on the same "Space Security Service" seen in Mission to the Unknown and Master Plan.
The play was the second attempt, which introduced the idea of the accidental human discovery of the planet Skaro (similar to the storyline of the TARDIS crew in The Daleks), and the humans' subsequent reaction against the Daleks.
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