A Grand Davros Drama

Shan has potential to be ally to Doctor and companions. Grand dialogue from Davros.

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Davros: The tragedy of good/evil genius

This is an essential listen for Doctor Who fans new and old. This is both an origin story about Davros, but also the true, tragic inception of the Daleks. While none of the murderous pepper-pots make an appearance, this story also shows how formidable Davros is as an adversary to the Doctor.
The performance by Colin Baker is as charming and wonderful as always, as he demonstrates his worthiness for the role (I’m a great fan of Mr. Baker’s audio adventures and consider his adventures to also be essential listening, though this is by far my favourite). And the rest of the cast including Wendy Padbury and Bernard Horsfall add to this fantastic adventure. But by far the performance of Terry Molloy as Davros is stellar. Mr. Molloy adds so much depth to this moustache twirling villain (just get that image of Davros with a moustache out of your head) and plays the character to perfection. Only in the more recent series 9 have we seen such layers to the character as has been played by Julian Bleach, but my opinion is that Mr. Bleach’s performance was with some inspiration from Mr. Molloy’s iconic rendition.
The story is also well crafted, a slow burning pace that eventually culminates in a nuclear explosion of action and drama, this is truly worth listening to and so I shall avoid any spoilers or comments on plot details.
I believe this review can be summed up in three words.
Listen, and enjoy.

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1 person found this helpful

The Doctor faces off against Davros, yet again.

Good story giving light to Darvos in his earlier years and explains how he became the man the doctor met.

Great performance by the cast.

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Turns a cartoon villain into a character

What made the experience of listening to Doctor Who - Davros the most enjoyable?

A sensible range of characters: enough to ensure variety, not so many that it's confusing who's who.
I was also taken by the amount of nuance. Besides Davros himself, there are people who are ruthless without being evil for evil's sake.

Who was your favorite character and why?

After the Doctor himself, Davros. And this surprised the heck out of me.
I'm quite rare among Doctor Who fans in that I think Genesis of the Daleks - the story that introduced Davros - is pretty poor. Davros dies at the end of his debut story, and I really hate it when characters are brought back from the dead. And honestly, what's he got going for him? He's a man in a mask whose wheelchair happens to be the lower part of a Dalek. And he rants a lot.
I avoided getting this play for years, partly because of this.
But as it turns out, not only is he fleshed out as a character, but his backstory seems much more interesting than it did before. I actually might enjoy Genesis of the Daleks if I ever watch it again. Well, maybe not go that far...

Which scene did you most enjoy?

I especially enjoyed the flashbacks to pre-Dalek Skaro.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Not wanting to give too much away, but there's a moment when Davros does *not* deliver a tedious, "Ha ha I was lying all along, I'm actually really evil!" What we get instead is much more satisfying.

Any additional comments?

This play is primarily for Doctor Who fans. If you've never heard of the Daleks before, this probably won't mean much to you. On the other hand you don't have to be steeped in Who lore to enjoy it.

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3 people found this helpful

Okay for £3

Sixth doctor isn't my favourite and Colin Baker was about as good or bad as any sixth Doctor episode, tv or audio. Terry Malloy is generally a joy as Davros but he can range from very loud to very quiet, necessitating fiddling with the volume to catch it all.
The story has some nice touches but the execution is very clumsy with some major plot holes and "really?" moments. For supposedly being a genius, Davros ain't half dumb at times.
Arnold Baines stands out as one of the few convincing characters in this story, very ably played by the excellent Bernard Horsfall. The poor female characters in this tale come off pretty badly in my view, both in terms of being given good scripts to work with, somewhat subservient and weak willed characters to play and the actresses are not particularly convincing.
I paid £3 which is cheaper than the coffee I had today in a well known coffee chain's premises. The coffee was more enjoyable but for £3, even a mediocre Doctor Who is probably just about worth it, for all it's shortcomings.

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