A funny thing that; here we are, twenty minutes or so into Interalia Theatre’s
stage production of ‘Evil’ and the Doctor is quizzing Maxtible and
Waterfield about the creatures who hold them in thrall. Unspeakable monsters,
works of the Devil…you know the score. Then come those immortal grated syllables:
“Doc-tor!”
From the right hand side of the stage a door cracks open and through a swirl
of dry ice a parade of familiar conical shapes emerge- to rapturous applause
from the audience! To an outsider this must seem a curious phenomenon, clapping
as the genocidal dustbins invade the stage; they are after all the antagonists.
But to those in the know it isn’t that surprising, after all the Daleks are
the stars of the show.
I guess that Nick Scovell, who both adapted the screenplay for the stage
and stars as the Doctor, must have known that all too well. He apparently
had the idea to adapt ‘Evil’ two years ago when his young daughter asked
him what a Dalek was; this inspired him to watch the only surviving episode
of this lost classic on the Daleks-The Early Years video. Being a veteran
of several previous stage adaptations of Doctor Who such as ‘Fury from the
Deep’ and ‘The Web of Fear’ Mr. Scovell is no stranger to playing the second
Doctor. However, and here is a mark of a true Doctor Who fan in that he can
place his date of birth by which episode of ‘The Sea Devils’ was being broadcast
at the time, he admits that ‘Evil’ is not a story that he knew an awful lot
about. Before his time you see…
I am just about old enough to remember seeing ‘Evil’ in it’s long lost television
form and I believe it is my memories of the final battle of the Daleks on
Skaro that imprinted the Dalek Factor in my mind. There it lay for many years
waiting for an opportunity to emerge and now I must confess myself as obsessed
as most people are by the wretched little pepper pots. From the audience
around my partner and I it was possible to see that a whole new generation
had caught the Dalek bug; indeed one five year old was heard to remark to
her father that she would like to meet the Daleks after the show. “Not if
you’re going to wet your pants!” was his reply. With such fascination across
all age groups the applause when the monsters come on stage and later on
when the Emperor appears from behind the fireplace, should come as no surprise.
The Daleks themselves come courtesy of the team behind the long-in -production
fan film ‘Devious-halfway to oblivion’ who also supplied props for the Comic
relief special ‘The Curse of Fatal Death’. Like that production the proceeds
of ‘Evil’ have also gone to charity, to Children in Need this time. Back
to the props, very good, in fact Suzanne still tells me she didn’t realise
that they had ‘real Daleks’ in the show; and I guess they were as close as
one can hope to get this side of Skaro. Combining elements from classic and
contemporary Dalek design, the pepper pots came in silver and gold with green
spheres and a dark green dome on one of them. The Devious team were also
responsible for the Dalek Emperor fireplace, which was a faithful rendition
of the original Emperor from the story.
Accompanying the Daleks on stage was a creepy score by Martin Johnson of
the ‘Everybodyelse’ website. His music and the fantastic stage lighting and
special effects really made the show.
And what about the actors? For a mostly amateur troupe they performed exceptionally,
particularly Scovell as the Doctor and John-Paul McCrohon as Jamie. James
George (Maxtible) was one of the professionals in the cast and was particularly
good at portraying the twisted entrepreneur’s greed and arrogance. The Dalek
voices were originally to be provided by Nicolas Briggs but he was unavailable,
so Rob Thrush who owns Portsmouth based Chard House media stepped into the
breach. I would say he did a damned good job of it as well and if I hadn’t
have known better I could swore that it was a real Dalek down there ranting
and threatening.
The story itself was of necessity paired down in order to fit into a two-hour
play with a cliffhanger ending to part one. For the most part this is no
great loss as a lot of the elements removed are the most cod ingredients
of David Whittaker’s original script. Gone is the convoluted plot to steal
the TARDIS and the vaguely racist ideas implicit in Kemel the gentle Turkish
giant. Instead we have Kennedy whose character has been transplanted to the
19th Century, acting as Jamie’s short-lived ally in the mission to rescue
Victoria. He meets a grisly fate at the start of part two and becomes the
play’s first onstage extermination.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, they also shied away from introducing a younger
audience to Skaro and opted instead for the Emperor and his minions taking
over another wing of Maxtible’s mansion. Making Waterfield (Lewis Bailey)
a Reverend doesn’t make an awful lot of sense to me. Apparently this was
to make his agony over unleashing the evil of the Daleks on the world that
much more poignant, but all it does for me is make me wonder what a 19th
Century cleric is doing messing around with time-travel. There are a lot
of unanswered questions about the characters in this story, such as why Waterfield
is living in his benefactor’s house (the Church of England usually provide
accommodation in lieu of remunerative payments, something which makes the
stage version even less likely) and why his dead wife’s portrait is hanging
in Maxtible’s living room. I would dearly love to know what was going on
in David Whittaker’s mind when he put this scenario together back in the
sixties.
The ending seemed somewhat rushed and confused, the Dalek civil war exploding
(literally in the case of the gunshots that made me jump out of my seat twice)
on stage within minutes of meeting the Emperor. I feel that a lot of the
drama and tension implicit in the last episode of the original was lost in
the process. The sense of hopelessness and despair that the Doctor and his
companions feel as they are shoved off to a cell to await conversion by the
Dalek factor, the outrage in the Dalek hierarchy when there orders are questioned
by one of their own, the Doctor’s cunning deception that leads to the final
battle, none of this is evident. Instead we have a shouting match followed
by some onstage pyrotechnics and sound effects to indicate the west wing
has just caught fire. ‘The Final End’ mutters the Doctor as he leaves the
decimated Daleks to their fate.
In spite of my reservations about the end I did enjoy this play immensely
and seeing the Daleks on stage for the first time was a great treat. I understand
that Interalia are considering doing a follow up to this production. I personally
hope they do and will look forward to any developments.
Andrew Panero
10/11/2006
