This is our props department.
Yes, wonderful.
This is where we keep all the scenic artists.
Very familiar.
Yeah, I'm sure.
They all look the same, don't they?
They do.
A mess.
And then this is our sort of more specialist store.
Oh, the Daleks.
The Daleks.
Yes, here we are.
Two of them.
Yeah, we've got four in total.
Four?
Yeah, including one which is a black Dalek.
Unfortunately, they're all out and about on various things, exhibitions, etc.
But this is obviously a complete one.
Yes, they're beautifully made.
Yeah, fiberglass, as I think the originals were, were they?
Yes.
I mean, we haven't changed much, I suppose, from your original design.
Yes, I was saying earlier that one of the original ideas I had was behind these blisters,
were going to be P-lights.
Right.
Connected up to a 12-volt car battery under the operator's seat.
Right.
So when the Dalek got agitated, all these lights would all flash off in a random pattern.
Fantastic.
Great idea, great, you know.
But we've worked it out.
You can't afford four 12-volt car batteries.
So the whole idea had to be scotched.
Yeah, yeah.
Because there would have been a perfect position under the seat for the battery, wouldn't there?
Yes, yes.
Because it's a great, very primitive inside, but they look great from the outside.
When they were taken down to the rehearsal room, I went down, I said to the director,
how is it going?
He said, yeah, great.
He said, there's just one problem.
I can't tell which of the Daleks is talking.
So that's when I come up with the lights.
With the lights.
Originally, as an emergency thing, we had ping pong balls stuck on.
I think they were only on for one story, or one particular episode.
And am I right in thinking that they developed into little mini Cooper lights?
Did I read that somewhere?
No, somebody else might have done that.
Might have done that afterwards, OK, yeah.
We never went in for anything elaborate.
We couldn't afford it.
These things, you know what these things are, don't you?
No.
Well, of course, the Daleks were written for the one story, and they lived in the Dalek city.
And they got their power from the floors, like the dodgem cars at fairgrounds.
We want more Dalek stories.
And so the writers wanted to put the Daleks outside of the Dalek city.
Where did they get their power from?
So it was a quick idea.
I thought solar panels.
Right.
These were originally meant to be solar panels.
Yeah.
Wouldn't work in Cardiff, solar panels.
Well, no sun.
Miserable weather.
Yes.
Right, people say that you were inspired by a pepper pot.
Yeah, people do say I was inspired by a pepper pot.
And I always think, well, if that's all it takes to become a designer, it's a doddle.
When I asked Bill Roberts, the special effects chap who was going to make them, when I invited him to lunch,
and I picked up the pepper pot and moved it around the table, and said it's going to move like that.
No visible means, you know, no wheels or anything.
And ever since then, people say I was inspired by a pepper pot.
But it could have been the salt pot I picked up.
When I asked, well, you were inspired by, I suppose it was really a system of logic.
Because I realised that you've got to have an operator to operate them.
If you had anything mechanical, ten to one on the take, it would go wrong.
Go wrong, absolutely.
So you've got a human being in there that would be absolutely totally reliable.
Yeah.
And to be in the studio all day, and I wanted these things to be, they're a bit higher than a five foot four over here.
We did that for a reason, because Billy Piper was a certain height.
And I wanted Billy to be looking directly into the eye stalk of the Dalek.
So that's why they ended up being slightly bigger.
So I thought, well, the operator's got to sit down, drew a seat, ergonomic height, 18 inches,
got the operator down, and then drew round him, you see.
That's how the basic shape appeared.
And I thought, well, he's got to be able to see.
And I came up with this mesh idea, where you can't see in, but he can see out, all round.
And it just grew out of a sort of system of logic, really.
Very clever.
They're a work of genius, I think.
You really did something special there.
After you, then, Ray.
Welcome to the TARDIS.
TARDIS.
So it's, as you know, 500 years old.
Oh, this looks like a dog's breakfast.
Yeah, exactly.
It's seen better days, I think.
We wanted the idea to be 500 years old, and that there was nothing original left on it, really.
Everything had been broken, snapped off, and that the doctor, in his eclectic way, had just gathered things.
Everything from paperweights to all sorts of bits of machinery that basically do the job of what the original machine would have done.
Does the column still go up and down?
Yes, it does.
Yeah, that all goes up and down.
And it's lift from within.
And we've also then created, we've retained the roundels all the way around, and the coat stand.
And then this is a metal structure covered in cling film, and then this is roofing insulation that we've sprayed on.
And just like your idea with the Daleks of putting lights inside, we've done the same sort of thing here.
We fill this with lights so that it all illuminates.
And basically we've created a light box so that we don't have to have any lights within the TARDIS to light the actors, because we light it from the outside with big space lights.
Very good.
I mean, I was keen that, obviously there's been fantastic TARDISes in the past, and I'm sure there'll be fantastic TARDISes in the future.
And I was keen that we sort of had something that grew, that it had grown, so it's quite organic.
It works quite well. It's quite cathedral-like in its form.
It is, isn't it? Massive set, yeah.
Ray, how does it compare size-wise to the original set?
Much bigger, yes, much bigger, yeah.
Of course, as you say, this isn't constructed to dismantle and re-erect next week, is it?
No, absolutely not. It took a month to move it.
Yes.
But it ruined my day when they said it had to move, because it is just literally an installation, not a set built to move.
But they don't tell you that at the beginning, do they?
No, no.
No, no, no.
We want it to be this, and we want it to be that, and we want it to be this, and then all of a sudden...
That was a common problem also in TV sales, where you have a set which is designed for the first episode, never to be seen again.
No.
And then it comes back.
Yeah, because they love it.
Somebody's written it in, you know.
Yeah, we always try and check with Russell when it comes to characters, interiors that we build, whether it be sort of the Tyler's flat.
I always say to Russell at the end of a series, now do we keep this or do we throw it in the skip? Oh, no, they're not coming back.
Throw it in the skip. Off it goes.
First phone call you get, did you throw that flat away? Yeah.
We may need it back.
We've had the Daleks in here. Peter, I think, one episode, we rolled in the Dalek.
Oh, really?
Yeah, and then we blew it up.
Yes.
And it's not the best set to have fire in, because it's all sort of plastic and resin.
Yes, because that was the problem with when the studio-based Doctor Who, if there were anything like that, you know, explosions, bangs, or burning through metal doors or anything like that, you couldn't possibly do in the television studios.
They all had to be filmed on the stage at evening and then slotted in later.
How much was studio-based and location-based in it? Was there a pattern in the episodes?
No, no, no. I mean, the keys of Mariners, it was the model shots, which would have taken time to set up in the television studio.
We haven't got time. We had three hours to do the show.
Something I miss, actually, that we don't do is the model work. When you look at some of the model shots from the classic series, like specifically Skaro and Dalek City, there's a quality to that that's quite unique, I think.
Really?
Yeah, definitely.
Well, we did our best.
Yeah, we tend to use a lot more CGI, don't we? A lot more computer graphics and matte paintings and that sort of stuff now. I think the model, I'm sure, as it was when you were doing it, is very expensive.
Oh, yes.
Very expensive.
Yes, yes.
You know, we would try and do something. And we've done a bit of it, but it's thousands of pounds. It's so labour-intensive. Whereas if you've got a couple of guys in a nice warm room with a computer, it just tends to be a bit…
Yes, there was one model shot which we did in the studio, I remember. We were doing some filming on Canberra Sands down in East Sussex with the Daleks. And he wanted the Dalek to come out of the sand.
And we tried to explain to him that if you half bury the Dalek in the sand, there's a certain sort of suction that builds up and it'd be impossible to pull out. So I got Shawcroft to build a model Dalek about that size. And we had a sand table in the studio. And it was operated from underneath.
Right.
And the Dalek rose up through the sand.
And you got away with it. And it is very often about getting away with it. We take all sorts of risks. Some of them pay off and some of them don't.
This is basically the art department room. So we've got everything from concept artists, Al who's one of our model makers, set designers. And we also have a storyboard artist here as well.
I've been asked this, you know, my art department was me and my assistant. That was the art department.
See, and you made it look so easy.
Thanks for that.
We've got some designs here for the Supreme Dalek. So what we were trying to do was kind of think back in a design in a sort of 60s vein, which is why you get sort of Sputnik ideas going on here.
Yeah.
All the bolting and everything. So those were the first sketches for the new Supreme Dalek. And you can see here how it kind of developed.
Because we're obviously keen to retain that sort of 60s feel as Pete says, you know, without suddenly turning it into a sci-fi fest.
And you don't want to lose the actual Dalek feel to it. It's very easy to sort of digress.
These things are unearthly.
Yeah.
They have powers of intelligence and construction and manufacture beyond human beings understanding, you know.
So if they wanted strength, they wouldn't have to make it look as though it's all riveted and bolted together. This is an earthly concept.
Yeah.
I mean, to them, rivets and bolts are old fashioned, they're not archaic.
And some of these sketches, I think, are very much based on your original designs.
Yes, that was an initial idea, a little squat thing with arms that moved around in all directions, 360 degrees all over. Couldn't afford it.
No, no.
Couldn't afford it.
And we've just got you a little gift. This is an artist's print wrapped in Gallifreyan text of the Dalek DNA, which we thought you might want to take away with you.
It basically portrays what we're suggesting is Dalek text and then the Dalek DNA.
Gracious me.
We thought you might quite like that.
Yes, it's lovely. Thank you. Wonderful.