Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
Cast: Sylvester McCoy, Bonnie Langford, Nicholas Briggs, Kirsty Bestermamn, Angus Wright, Mary Conlon, Robbie Stevens, Ashley Zhangazha, Lizzie Roper, Dominic Thornburn.
Every human on Earth has the capacity to become something they detest, something that lingers in the dark realms and festers, seething with hatred, jealousy, rage and revulsion, a creature to whom the simple pleasures enjoyed by others become something of ridicule because they are not like us. This trait is something we overpower every day, something we must steer away from lest the terrifying notion of Fascism looks up and sees an opening in the crack and crawls like a demented pregnant Black Widow Spider, one filled with insanity and corrupted thought into the lives of everyone it touches. It is the Dalek that lingers in us all and appears without hesitation if pushed.
We Are The Daleks sees The Doctor and Mel land on Earth at a point where technology is at of sync with Time, where a single computer console has become the must have gadget and in which adequately demonstrates the anger that burns in humanity, the feeling that still persists when watching anybody play on any game for hours on end, the feeling that they have become disconnected with the real world, that the game and the machine have taken over their lives.
We Are The Daleks conjures up images of being trapped by your own will and writer Jonathan Morris amplifies this sensation to the point where the listener cannot but help feel numb at the crusade going on their name, that they also feel helpless to stop the onslaught and genocide being glorified in the latest of the Daleks master plans. It takes true writing skill to carry something of that magnitude off, to get beneath the skin of what can make a human tick if pushed to a certain extreme and in Ashley Zhangazha performance as the lowly tech consultant Brinsley Heaton, the words of the Dalek passing through a person’s mouth are enough to chill the blood.
Some stories for Big Finish do not convey The Daleks’ blood thirty rage enough to make them appear enough of a threat in the modern age but thanks to Jonathan Morris interesting script and thanks to Mr. Zhangazha’s performance, the reality of the parallels laid down by original Dalek creator Terry Nation between the monsters from Skaro and the Nazis are captured in all their disturbing and hideous detail.
A good story which is underpinned by tremendous detailed thought of what it takes to push a human to the far extremes of nature, a great way to kick of Sylvester McCoy’s latest season of Big Finish stories.
Doctor Who: We Are The Daleks is available to purchase from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.
Ian D. Hall