Cyril (The Celestial Toymaker)
- You may be looking for Cyril Arwell.
Cyril was one of the deadly pawns used by the Celestial Toymaker against Steven Taylor and Dodo Chaplet when they were trapped in his realm. When not in a contest, Cyril stayed in doll form. He was dressed as a schoolboy and acted childishly, as well as hating losing games.
Cyril looked familiar to Steven, and confirmed to him and Dodo that he had previously been both the Knave of Hearts and the Kitchen Boy.
Cyril played against Steven and Dodo in TARDIS hopscotch. He used tricks such as not properly explaining the rules until the game had already started, using a scary mask to frighten Dodo and making one of the numbered triangular spaces slippery in his quest to win. However, he became the victim of his own trap when, in his excitement at having won, he forgot about the slippery triangle and fell onto the electrified floor. All that was left of Cyril afterwards was a charred doll. (TV: The Celestial Toymaker)
Behind the scenes
- In an unscripted ad-lib by Peter Stephens, Cyril tells Steven and Dodo toward the end of the third episode, "The Dancing Floor", that he is "known to [his] friends as Billy". This is because his character was inspired by Billy Bunter, a fictional schoolboy who starred in an eponymous series of books following his success in the British comic The Magnet. This resulted in complaints from lawyers representing the estate of the late Frank Richards, who thought Cyril infringed copyright; the character of Billy Bunter was still under copyright in 1966. A BBC continuity announcer issued a disclaimer at the end of "The Final Test", apologising for the resemblance between the characters. Ironically, "The Final Test" is the only episode of The Celestial Toymaker currently known to exist.
