Lost Media - The Curse of the Daleks
The Curse of the Daleks is a fascinating piece of Doctor Who history - a 1965 stage production that never featured the Doctor at all, and has never been performed since its original month-long run at London's Wyndham's Theatre.
The Curse of the Daleks
Stageplay
"Remember, Remember, the Dalek December
With Paris in ruins and London an ember
In times of the future when fears are abating
Don't try to forget them, the Daleks are waiting
Quietly planning and scheming and hating"
Doctor Who has managed to traverse many mediums - and the stage is no exception. The first Doctor Who stage production featured not the Doctor, but the Daleks - a common theme in the mid-1960s, when the Daleks eclipsed the Doctor in popularity, leading to a boom in "Dalekmania". The Curse of the Daleks is credited to Terry Nation, creator of the Daleks, and David Whitaker, script editor of the show - however, as with other stories of the period such as The Dalek Book and The Dalek Chronicles, the script was primarily Whitaker's work. Gillian Howell directed its month-long run, which premiered just before Christmas on the 21st of December 1965 and ran until the 15th of January 1966 as a matinee show at London's Wyndham's Theatre. It was never picked up for tour and has never been performed since.
The story follows the Starfinder, a spaceship carrying two prisoners and a small crew, makes an emergency landing on Skaro after being sabotaged. Once there, the crew discover a crate of mysterious black discs smuggled aboard, which are reactivating the dormant Daleks and feeding them pre-recorded orders. The villain turns out to be the ship's radio operator - Bob Slater, who faked his own death and is using the newly awakened Daleks as his personal army in a bid for universal domination. He is defeated when one of the prisoners, Commander Ladiver, sabotages the Daleks' power supply from the inside, freeing them from Slater's control and turning them on their would-be masters. Ladiver powers the Daleks down again - and in a quietly charming ending, decides to stay on Skaro and marry one of the Thals.
The Dalek props used throughout were later reused for another Dalekmania production, Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 AD. The play was never staged again; however, two remakes were eventually produced. The first was by Altered Vistas, who released their computer-generated version in April 2008, but withdrew it shortly after Big Finish announced their own adaptation. Big Finish released a number of stories as part of their Stageplays range, and The Curse of the Daleks was the third.
As for the original stageplay - copies of the script were never avaliable to buy, and while the adaptions are avaliable, they are different to the original in one way or another. The only original script copy known is filed in the British Library in the Manuscript Collection as Play no 1965/50. As such, this archive considers it lost.