The Curse of the Daleks · The Stageplays

A special audio adaptation of the Doctor Who stageplay from the 1960s.

The spaceship Starfinder is taking two dangerous criminals for trial on Earth. En route, they crash through a meteor storm and have to make an emergency landing on Skaro - the planet of the dreaded Daleks. But Captain Redway and his faithful crew don’t anticipate any trouble. After all, the Daleks were defeated fifty years ago and now they are completely inactive. But when a crate full of mysterious devices is discovered and the Daleks start to come back to life, it becomes clear that there is a traitor amongst the Starfinder’s crew… A traitor intent on reactivating the power of the Daleks!

This is a much stronger entry into the trio of Dalek plays, and it’s not because it is darker or moodier. It’s simply because more effort has been put into the script, it’s a more carefully written play.

The absence of The Doctor does lend a little peril to proceedings, as does the mystery of who is behind the nefarious plot.

You can tell it was written by David Whittaker, it has the rare quality of being a Big Finish story which you could actually imagine a classic Doctor Who story on TV. I’m slightly jealous of anyone who got to see it in person.