Things I've Learnt from Watching My Favourite Doctor Who Stories: Part 25 - Revelation of the Daleks

25: Revelation of the Daleks

Good secretaries are hard to find! 

Revelation of the Daleks is a story I've come to enjoy far more as an adult than I did as a child. It's grim and cruel, like most of Eric Saward's stories. As I said back when I wrote about The Caves of Androzani, I'd said that Saward used that as a template for the next season, forgetting that Doctor Who should be fun as well as a bit scary and action-packed. Vengeance on Varos is often proclaimed as the classic of the season, but I find it far too cruel and humourless. 

This is cruel but also funny, definitely Saward's funniest script. It's more of a Davros story than a Dalek story and it's Terry Molloy's finest hour. He's allowed to take it down a notch after the ranting in Resurrection of the Daleks and he's sinister, like a spider in a web, but also has a lot of humourous dialogue which Molloy delivers with relish. 

It's also set in a funeral home, and as someone who used to be a funeral director, whose dad was a funeral director and growing up over the shop as it were, it appeals to me greatly. Saward was inspired by Evelyn Waugh's satire on the Anglo-American culture divide, The Loved One; the character Jobel named after Waugh's Mr Joyboy, an embalmer. The humour is very dark, with references to the president's late wife "starting to froth!" Just what you want to hear on a Saturday teatime! Baffling that the BBC thought this should be shown as early as 5.20pm, and not in the later slot as originally planned. 

The idea of a DJ pumping music into the caskets of those in perpetual instatement is certainly original for Doctor Who, and no more ghoulish than having to sit in a drafty crematorium chapel enduring Daniel O'Donnell singing the Old Rugged Cross...

The DJ's asides to the camera are clever too, such as the idea that George's wife raised money for Beck's disease, which they found a cure for years ago. 

I read somewhere this story was written to accommodate Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant's panto commitments and that's why they're not in it much. How true that is, I don't know, but ironically their scenes are my favourite parts of the story. The scene where they climb the wall, and Peri accidentally breaks his watch is very funny. 

It's cast exceptionally well. Eleanor Bron, resplendent in velvet turban and looking every inch the Disney villainess, is deliciously evil and her double act with Hugh Walters' Vogel is a delight (they're even referred to as a double act!) His abrupt extermination is quite shocking and the effect is better than the one used for Resurrection of the Daleks (and better acted too!) 

But they're not the only Holmesian double act in this (not that Robert Holmes invented the idea of double acts in drama!) Takis and Lilt are reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy; there's Grigory and Natasha the two body snatchers and the assassin Orcini and his squire Bostock. It's clear that Saward is far more interested in Orcini as a character than the Doctor. William Gaunt (at the time famous for the sitcom No Place Like Home) plays Orcini with a quiet dignity, very restrained in comparison to the rest of the cast. 

Clive Swift is also great as the obnoxious Jobel, the latest in a line of monstrous characters letching after Peri. Jenny Tomasin as Tasambeker is equally grotesque. Allegedly Jonathan Powell ordered her part to be edited down as he didn't like her performance but I think she's fine, playing the part as written, a pathetic nobody who idolises the boss who despises her. Finally, Alexei Sayle is wacky as the DJ and his scenes with Peri are charming, so it's a shock (but not a surprise given its a Eric Saward script!) that he's exterminated.

Speaking of exterminated, the Daleks get even less screen time than the Doctor, but look absolutely marvelous in their white and gold livery. This was the last time Classic Who had its exterior scenes shot on film and thanks to a timely snowfall, it looks magnificent. 

Revelation is completely unique, like Androzani should have been but Revelation's uniqueness is probably down to the hiatus and Michael Grade instructing the production team to tone down the unpleasantness. I don't think he was right, because here, the grimness is lightened by a very funny script. 

Next Time: I'll have the choice, not the diamond!