The Time of the Daleks

Big Finish Productions audio play
The Time of the Daleks
Series	Doctor Who
Release number	32
Featuring	Eighth Doctor Charley Pollard
Writer	Justin Richards
Director	Nicholas Briggs
Producer(s)	Gary Russell Jason Haigh-Ellery
Executive producer(s)	Jacqueline Rayner
Set between	Solitaire and NeverLand
Length	2 hours 2 mins
Release date	May 2002

The Time of the Daleks is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It is the last serial in the Dalek Empire arc, which began with The Genocide Machine and continued in The Apocalypse Element and The Mutant Phase.

Plot

The Doctor is confused enough when he finds that Charley has never heard of William Shakespeare. But when he travels to Britain in the near future and discovers a leader obsessed with watching Shakespeare's plays — and the Daleks wanting to help her — the mystery grows more sinister. Can the Daleks really claim to be the 'Masters of Time'?

Cast

• The Doctor — Paul McGann
• Charley Pollard — India Fisher
• The Orator — Don Warrington
• Dalek Voices — Nicholas Briggs
• General Mariah Learman — Dot Smith
• Viola — Nicola Boyce
• Major Ferdinand — Julian Harries
• Kitchen Boy — Jem Bassett (actually Jemma Bassett who agreed to take a shortened name to conceal the fact that she was a teenaged girl playing a young boy)
• Priestly — Mark McDonnell
• Hart — Lee Moone
• Professor Osric — Ian Brooker
• Mark Anthony — Ian Potter
• Army Officer — Ian Potter
• Marcus — Robert Curbishley

Continuity

• The kitchen boy in this story is eventually revealed to be a young William Shakespeare, dislocated from his proper time. Shakespeare was previously glimpsed in the Time/Space Visualiser in The Chase. In Planet of Evil, the Doctor mentioned having met Shakespeare, and in City of Death claimed that he helped transcribe the original manuscript for Hamlet. The Doctor also meets Shakespeare in the 2007 episode "The Shakespeare Code". Shakespeare also appears in the Virgin Missing Adventures novel The Empire of Glass. A time-travelling adult Shakespeare appears in The Kingmaker, again credited under an alias. None of these stories reference each other and it is unclear how these different accounts can be reconciled, if at all.
• The short story "Apocrypha Bipedium" by Ian Potter (in the collection Short Trips: Companions) is set immediately following The Time of the Daleks, and involves the Doctor's attempt to return young Shakespeare to his own time. Also featuring Vicki, it deals with the Doctor's previous encounters with Shakespeare and tries to reconcile Vicki's apparently happy ending as Cressida in The Myth Makers with the tragic ending of Troilus and Cressida
• This is the last in the Dalek Empire arc previously heard with the Seventh Doctor (The Genocide Machine), the Sixth Doctor (The Apocalypse Element) and the Fifth Doctor (The Mutant Phase). Elements from these stories tie in with the Dalek Empire series.
• Direct references are made to the invasion of Gallifrey in and the events on Kar-Charrat in The Genocide Machine.
• The Daleks trapped at the end of this story are later seen begging for mercy in Neverland.

Outside References

• The dialogue in this play is loaded with direct and indirect quotations from the plays of Shakespeare, but several character names are also taken from the plays, such as Osric from Hamlet, Viola from Twelfth Night and Ferdinand from The Tempest. Mariah Learman's name could also be a reference to the title character of King Lear.

External links

• Big Finish Productions - The Time of the Daleks
• The Time of the Daleks at the Doctor Who Reference Guide

Reviews

• The Time of the Daleks reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• The Time of the Daleks reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide