Doctor Who

Evil of the Daleks

The Stage Play Music

After submitting my own rendition of Ron Grainer's instantly recognisable Doctor Who theme on a website showcasing remixes from fans I was contacted by producer Rob Thrush. He asked if I would be willing to compose the score for a stage adaptation of the 1969 second Doctor story The Evil of the Daleks, a lost classic that has been considered wiped by the BBC.

Poster

At the beginning of September 2006 the production team got together in Portsmouth for a full read-through of the script and the music cues were available to be played during proceedings. It was an exciting time for me because it was the first time I felt like I was part of a professional production. It was also the first time I had my music played to a group of people I didn't know! Nicholas Briggs was present doing the Dalek voices, which was awesome over my music. Unfortunately, Nick couldn't make it to the actual performances because he was in Cardiff to work on the television series.

The production took place at the end of October 2006 and even had its own mini-convention before the Saturday matinee performance. The licence was given by the BBC under strict guidelines and as a charity event all proceeds went to the restoration of The New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth, where the show was performed, and Children in Need.

The performance of Evil of the Daleks was the first time that a production company played to a sell-out audience every night at the New Theatre Royal. The amount of people wanting to see the play was staggering and the box office even had to turn people away because there was no room to accommodate them.

The Main Theme

After discussions with Rob about what he and director Nick Scovell wanted to achieve with the music for the play I set about researching the story, initially purchasing a copy of the TV story in audio format for inspiration. The theme was chosen because Rob and Nick didn't want to use either the original or the new series version. To create something with the energy of the new series theme, but much darker in tone, french horns, chimes and trombones were employed while a cello became the bass line. Adding to the appropriate Victorian motif of the whole piece, a vocal choir was mixed and the end result was very fitting for the whole play. This theme also did something that hasn't been done before. Because it had to set the darkened tone from the start, the theme was given an additional section using a church organ and adapted from the opening sequence of sixth Doctor story The Trial of a Timelord.

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Emperor of the Daleks

I regularly helped Ashley Nealfuller maintain the dalek army. Before the first night spiders hatched in a Dalek!

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Completing the Score

A photo taken in my very first studio after the completion of the score.


Ideas & Other Themes

ThumbnailOften being struck with inspiration whilst out cycling, I would literally hum countless ideas for themes into a small portable voice recorder and then record them digitally into the computer later. The first elements of the script dealt with were the Daleks and after composing a sinister theme for them, I needed to adapt it into a more playful waltz-like variation for the humanised Daleks. The elements I really wanted to nail perfectly was devising the lighter emotional theme for the Waterfields, which needed to convey how much pain and suffering this family took, and the much darker theme for Maxtible. The latter is in fact darker than the Daleks' own theme in order to reflect just how evil this human character becomes in his greedy and manipulative quest.Thumbnail Each theme was composed so they could complement each other during those scenes where the three main forces, the heroes, the villains and those manipulated by the Daleks, are all on stage. The last thing I composed was a piece called The Final End and more time was spent on this that any other piece of music. It ended up becoming the very first highest scored composition on The Screened Music Network when industry judges placed it well about music from professional composers.

What the critics say...

"Martin Johnson's outstanding music in many ways really made the show – textured layers of incidental music which created a rich and often brooding atmosphere, without ever becoming over-dominant or distracting." www.daleklinks.co.uk

"To compliment the live action, an excellent and highly atmospheric score was composed by a man plucked from relative obscurity." www.evilofthedaleks.co.uk

"Accompanying the Daleks on stage was a creepy score by Martin Johnson. His music and the fantastic stage lighting and special effects really made the show." www.historyvortex.org