Papers laud publication of DIY Dalek plans The Daily Telegraph and others are making much of the online publication of a series of build-your-own Dalek blueprints from the 1970s. The plans were apparently sent by the Doctor Who Production Office to a viewer. Reading today's stories, you'd think the blueprints had been missing, presumed lost, for years. But, as any …
In the early eighties I worked backstage on a panto featuring the Doctor of the day, Peter Davison. The BBC provided various props and outfits for display in front of house, including 3 or 4 daleks that ran on castors, and came in bits for us to have fun assembling. There was also a Tardis - a seriously heavy bastard to put together - and for reasons I still don't quite get, a few triffids. Once assembled, there was a simple wooden bench inside the daleks for the operator to sit, with a cut out in front on the 'floor' to use your feet to move around (but much easier to get someone to push you), the top sides was gauze (as I recall) to see out of and you could waggle the various appendages, although without much finesse.
Finesse wasn't much of an issue though, as we spent a good deal of the time anywhere between half pissed and completely banjaxed, which occasionally involved after hours driving drunk in charge of a Dalek. At the end of run party it got out of hand, starting with dalek racing and ending with a small interspecies war raging across the front of house foyer. How we avoided the large FoH staircase I'll never know, but the daleks were returned to the Beeb slightly more battered than they arrived.
I wouldn't normally admit to the Tunbridge wells thing... It was the Tunbridge Wells Assembly hall, a very well kitted out theatre, and was quite a BBC/Dr Who outing. Apart from Peter Davison and his wife Sandra Dickinson (Trillian in Hichhikers), Anthony Ainley, and JN-T there were the panto's producers, Lovett Bickford and the brilliant Verity Lambert; the show's stage manager was Romey Allison, a floor manager on Dr Who, and the musical director, Rob Young was a regular at the Beeb.
There were also four ponies used who proved the saying "don't work with children or animals" by shitting live on stage in 90% of the performances. The only IT angle apart from the Daleks was that the Hall had a recently installed computerised lighting desk which ran from a floppy and was prone to packing up, but was more immune to beer spillages than its analog predecessor, which looked remarkably like the transporter desk from Star Trek.
If you actually used the Radio Times blueprints you'd end up with a wonky Dalek that leans to one side due to serious mistakes.
What we did back then was ask the Doctor Who office for a copy of the plans and they would send you corrected plans.
I've even had send to me from the Radiophonic Workshop in the mid 1970s a Dick Mills photocopy of how to build a Dalek voice box. Except I discovered he lifted it from the Practical Electronic magazine Issue #1 cir. late 1964 in which there is a circuit for a Rolf Harris 'didgeridoo'. AKA a Ring Modulator by any other name. The text suggested it could be used in creating robot voices....
how do I know this? Decades later when I became an Electronic engineer, I came across this issue and couldn't believe my eyes when I compared his sheets with the magazine and saw the exact same circuit he'd photocopied and cut out.
So much for claims that the Radiophonic got the Dalek voice from a commercial Synthesizer in the mid-1960s... Well they could hardly admit to ripping it off could they?
Nick Briggs will have to re-write the DW history books...
I would much rather have Robbie the Robot plans: http://www.jgokey.com/robotplansmore.htm
Robbie seems a whole lot more practical than a Dalek, whose only purpose seems to be "take me to your leader" and blowing things up.
Talking of blowing things up, I guess you could get a blow-up version of Paris, if you are into that sort of thing.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
