Robots of Death (stage play)

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Robots of Death was a stage play set within the continuity established by the Kaldor City series. It was adapted by Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore from the Doctor Who story The Robots of Death [+]Loading...["The Robots of Death (TV story)"], originally written by Chris Boucher.

Publisher's summary[[edit] | [edit source]]

Adapted from the classic Doctor Who story The Robots of Death, Iago and Blayes are thrust back in time to the scene of Kaldor City's most infamous crime. Before they can rewrite history... they must simply survive it.

Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]

Crew[[edit] | [edit source]]

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • This production was part of the Greater Manchester Fringe Festival 2012 performed between 22 July and 24 July 2012 at the Fab Café on Portland Street.
  • The script was adapted by Alan Stevens from Chris Boucher's original rehearsal scripts of The Robots of Death [+]Loading...["The Robots of Death (TV story)"]. The mercenary Kaston Iago and his partner Elska Blayes replaced the Fourth Doctor and Leela. Based on the availability of actors and at the suggestion of Ian Winterton, the genders of many of the original characters of the televised version were changed to female.[1]
  • The Fendahl were added to the climax of the story in keeping with continuity established in the Kaldor City audio story Checkmate [+]Loading...["Checkmate (audio story)"]. This served as a narrative bridge to the followup stage play, Storm Mine [+]Loading...["Storm Mine (stage play)"].
  • Promotional artwork was designed by Adrian Salmon.[2]
  • The robots were performed by mime, Will Jude Hutchby voicing them all from off-stage so that they shared the same voice.
  • The Fab Café's mock-up of the bridge from the original Starship Enterprise, normally occupied by the DJ, served as the set for the bridge of the sandminer.
  • A special premiere presentation of the script, in the form of a read-through by the cast seated in front of a live audience, along with Storm Mine, was performed at the Fab Café on Portland Street in advance of the stage play's debut. For this performance only, Paul Darrow and Tracy Russell reprised their roles as Kaston Iago and Elska Blayes.

Reception[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • A review on the blog "Speaker to Animals" praised Marlon Solomon's Iago for "wisely choosing not to imitate Paul Darrow", and Leni Murphy's Toos as "a finely judged comic performance". It also highlighted Terry Cooper's robot masks to be "an excellent approximation of those on TV". However, it did not consider this adaptation to be a total success, citing its main failing as its deviation from Chris Boucher's original concept.[3]

On TV the Doctor had to investigate the mystery, then improvise an ingenious solution when Taren Capel was revealed. Here, Iago and Blayes are aware of Capel's presence from the start, and the story concludes in an unsubtle hail of plasma bullets. Worse, the last few minutes unveil another, previously unhinted-at force behind the events; it's the equivalent of Hercule Poirot gathering all the suspects together in the library, only to reveal the killer is from an entirely unrelated Miss Marple story before spraying the room with a machine gun. The play itself has been made strange.Speaker to Animals[3]

  • A review on the blog "The Fiction Stroker" declared the production to be a "fine re-creation of a classic… retaining much of what made the original enjoyable as well as adding new layers… this new version works free of the constraints of the Doctor Who format to the story's benefit." Of the two leads it said "Solomon's initially foppish Iago gives way to a more steely performance in the latter stages of the play whilst Millest's convincing performance is impressive. Millest knows how to work an audience and is captivating to watch." It also noted that the staging of the production at Fab Café was "for the most part, impressive".[4]

External links[[edit] | [edit source]]

Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  1. ↑ Gareth Kavanagh. "That One with the Killer Robots". Kaldor City. Magic Bullet Productions.
  2. ↑ Adrian Salmon. Robots of Death / Storm Mine. Adrian Salmon Art.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Manchester Fringe 2012: Robots of Death. Speaker to Animals (23 July 2012).
  4. ↑ Robots of Death: The Stage Play – LIVE!. The Fiction Stroker (23 July 2012).
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