navigation - you are in: archive > 2007
2007 news archive
06 December 2007
December will be magic...
"December will be magic" (isn't that a Kate Bush track?)
...well it will be magic if Ashley manages to get the new version of this website live at last! He's been promising it for weeks, and still has to put live the images from the recent Masterplan play. Well, he has a lot on - like we all do in Devious, which is why the news often takes a back seat! In fact the whole project is, as you know, a hobby project and necessarily sits behind our normal activities.
To atone for this delay here's a few new images to show we have been (slightly) active!
Above we can see the new TARDIS roof that's been built by Ashley and Stephen. It was made out of necessity as the old one was falling into such a state, and besides, the TARDIS prop was needed for the play. In the event only the front panel was used as a flat in the production, as the elaborate mechanism to make the roof appear along with the flashing light proved too tricky for a number of reasons. We hope you'll agree that even the flat looked great on stage! And besides, we've got a new roof now - and the old one is now in Worthing awaiting a friend of ours to build his own new TARDIS prop underneath!
The daleks have now returned from the play, and the famous five await dispersal to their storage homes. Here they are a week or so after the play had finished.
Stuart's excellent Black Dalek has also gone back into hiding no doubt - we'll have to ask him what's become of Mr Sec!
On other matters we are hoping to watch the newly-edited episodes 1 2 and 3 next week so we don't comment and chat all over it when they are shown again next month when we are in conversations over the music score. More on that later we hope. David has been working feverishly on these edits and we're looking forward to some surprises we think...
In the meantime please bear with Ashley as he gets his new web templates ready... cheers.
31 October 2007
Dalek Masterplan Success!
what a week!
A great success all round as far as we hear. Ashley would just like to take this very public opportunity to thank everyone involved with the play who made it such a wonderful experience. The masterplan part of this Devious website will now be used to mount a weighty retrospective of the play. There'll be behind-the-scenes features such as the dalek builds, the in-theatre preparations and some dress rehearsal on-stage puictures, such as the one below...(Now those of you who couldn't get along to the play can now finally see the colour schemes we chose!)...
The most fantastic experience (if Evil wasn't fantastic enough!). Please check again over the next week or so for the launch of the new part of the site - and with any luck the new web design for Devious too!
23 October 2007
Masterplan - the show is on!
News items will necessarily be dominated by Devious' involvement in the Dalek Masterplan play in Portsmouth England! (Earth, Solar System etc) The dress rehearsal was the 23rd and the SELLOUT play is from the 24th to the 27th of October. We do have some news-y things for Devious to impart but they can wait until the fuss and excitement of Masterplan dies down a little - and there's not much chance of that, for sure! We're delighted to be involved in this production, and so we're sure you'll forgive us this divertisement, whilst we all go and celebrate the Doctor Who phenomenon in a unique way this Autumn!
12 October 2007
Final prop builds
Good Grief it's nearly time!
It's got to the scary stage now! Ashley is rushing round like a blue-*****-fly trying to get the last bits of prop completed for the play. With collection of more daleks and bits etc next weekend there's only one more weekend to go, so naturally he's hoping for good weather - he hates working indoors. OK so it's not a major news item in itself but as we said before there's not a lot we can show at this stage. After the play has started the final setbuild and rehearsal stage he'll see if he can sneak some photos out for the website. They'll be pics without showing daleks or stage elements of course so we can really look forward to those! Still, we mean well.
So in the meantime here's a lovely shot of Alex and Dave who are our gallant dalek transport technicians for the play. If you see them on the last night wish them well for they've got to transport the Skaro army back to base when all is said and done. When you're all tucked up in bed dreaming dreams of daleks and Mavic Chen these two stalwarts will be travelling with Ashley back to the Dalek Homeworld (which is just off the A27).
14 September 2007
Masterplan Read throughs
It's all started at last! A week or two ago Ashley popped down and met everyone for the first read-through of Dalek Masterplan. This actually took place on the stage of the Theatre Royal Portsmouth and was great fun. A few photos were taken and here's a couple for you to take a gander at. The eagle eyed amongst you will spot the Doctor Nick Scovell and near him were seated Rob and the dalekmeister Nick Briggs.
The readthrough was not without incident; only when the story was read aloud did Nick realise his adaptation may need the odd tweak due to the amount of innuendo the mischievous cast managed to work out of it. Nevertheless it's better to get the laughs out of the way early and any serious misinterpretations will be ironed out in time rest assured.
And so on to this week, when this Monday (the 10th of September) three daleks made their way down to the highly secret rehearsal rooms in XTown. (You know XTown, it's just off the AXX on the way to Shhville). A great reaction from the cast on seeing the new colour scheme and the kind comments duly noted and thanked by Ashley. There are some more daleks in the show so don't start thinking there's only the three and if you recall last years then let us say there's a different number this time round - or is there????
Ashley in fact stood in for Lorna as a dalek during this first rehearsal although "sat in for" is perhaps a better phrase. So easy to sit there and chip in with suggestions for moves that we're sure the team are glad Ashley isn't going to every rehearsal. Actually he was quite good and made just the one suggestion which was rubbish anyway! Stick to the building work matey.
meanwhile in Deviousland David has been advancing the edits and is ready to hand over episode five to Stephen who is going to do the soundtrack. Later than we thought we've all three of us had a lot on this summer; both Ashley and David are having work done on their bungalows (rooms in roof etc etc) and of course Stephen is again to be found building a house somewhere or other in the Worthing area - amongst his many roles.
13 August 2007
An Obituary for Peter Tuddenham
Peter Tuddenham
It was with sadness that the Devious team learnt of the death of Peter Tuddenham, who passed away on Monday 9th July following a short illness. To me - Peter was a personal friend who I had known for many years, and as we both lived in Worthing Peter and his wife Rosie were regular attendees at social gatherings at Cranford Towers. We were delighted when Peter agreed to play a part of a Timelord in Devious together with Hugh Lloyd. It was a pleasure to work with Peter and Hugh - which was recorded in the DVC studios in Hove, and I know we'll all cherish the memories of that day. They made a wonderful finale to Devious and prelude to the famous Jon Pertwee scene.
I shall always hold Peter in great affection and will always associate him with Blake's 7, a television series that was probably equally as important to me as Doctor Who during my childhood. Our thoughts go to his wife Rosie and sons Julian and Mark.
Stephen
02 July 2007
Hello Again
Hello again! - sorry for the lack of news lately - we've all had things on - our lives in fact! As you know Devious is a spare time thing so there are often times when we don't seem to do much. Actually we've been very active - it's just that the website hasn't been updated! And that's enough exclamation marks for this month! (Unless you want to describe the Third Season of BBC's Doctor Who just ended, and then you'll need loads!!!!!)
So what's been happening... Ashley is working on the new daleks for the next play in Portsmouth (ok, so they are refurbished not new - although there will be something built anew.....) and took the opportunity to repaint one of the Evil Black daleks (the green-domed ones) into an all over silver ready for it's display in a local shop window. here it is below, alongside a shot of one of it's sister (or is it brother) daleks in previous Devious colours and slat configuration whilst it was on duty raising money for charity - seen here alongside Tim (who played our stunt Doctor No Three).
More importantly for Devious itself David has been working on the edit again. Stephen, Ashley, Ian, David and maybe Chris and a few others hopefully are going to watch the episode 4 edit at Stephen's this coming Friday. The edit will then be available to the group with timecode etc on dvd so we can all pass comment and then Stephen will start work on the "foley" and we can turn our attentions to the previous episodes. We recently saw some of episode 5 again at David's and it looked great on the big screen...
We also had a mad evening a few weeks back with the moogerfooger doing the dalek voices for episode 5. Crazy.
Sorry if you've contacted us and haven't had a reply - we're all waiting for Ashley to put his new website system in place, and he's a bit snowed under with work at the moment. Oh yes, and we've just found this old picture showing the set build for the dalek control room.... Day One and Ashley's pondering the wiring...
and look at those legs... (no, not the table legs, the ones on the right - whaddya mean they're the same...)
more pics and news soon...
28 April 2007
Daleks on Stage???
Who'd have thought it? Just seen "Evolution of the Daleks" and there we saw daleks on stage. Blimey! What a concept! Anyway here's another great big hooray for a great episode. We won't say much more here at the moment as it's only just finished and our US cousins (thanks for emailing us!) won't have seen it yet. Which means our next article for the news page "synchronicity" will have to be carefully written so as not to give anything away for followers of the BBC series. So in the meantime if you want to see daleks on stage feel free to watch the Dalek Masterplan trailer from the boys down Portsmouth way which is out there on t'internet. More soon...
25 April 2007
Sec's in the City Triumph and Masterplan UPDATED!
Blimey - can't wait until next week! It's all going to kick off in the BBC's second part of the Daleks in Manhattan story. We'll say no more in case you haven't seen the episode yet - ie if you are from the States (let us know please!) and have to wait ages to see the Daleks in New York. Great story - well done Helen Raynor!
So here at Devious Towers - what can we offer you in the way of sating your appetites for all things dalek as you trawl the web after watching the episode. Well, frankly today only a new dalek photo of one of our Devious (then Evil and Masterplan) dalek props in it's temporary colour scheme. It'll have a rub down and a repaint again (with a better finish from this rough version) for the summer before it adopts the proper colour scheme for the Dalek Masterplan this October.
Certainly it does look odd sitting on Ashley's back patio staring back with that odd combination of dome and eyestalk. But then as always you grow to accept it./ Let's face it - the first time daleks were shown in colour on BBC we accepted the colour scheme - so how about if this were the original? Well fear not all you thespians we won't be doing this to them for the play. Or will we...... you'll have to come along!
Ashley says thanks to the many flattering namechecks from daleklinks in Nick Scovell's recent article (today) along with some exclusive photos from Ashley's collection including the upside-down dalek shot!
Interest in all things dalek is obviously high at them moment and if you've stumbled across this site for the first time then we hope you will find time to take a look around at Devious and also our input into the stage plays Evil of the Daleks and the Dalek Masterplan. As enthusiastic amateurs we only want to do the best we can in ths spirit of the TV series, and we hope you will like and appreciate what you see. As always we are great supporters of the new TV series and of course Doctor Who as a whole and of course at the moment we all in thrall to this new heyday of the show. RTD and his crew have breathed new life into the programme and have made Saturday nights something special again.
UPDATE! As a Masterplan Trailer is now online we thought we really ought to put it live now having hung to it for so long! Well done Rob - enjoy it - you'll see some "Evil of the Daleks" action within! here it is...
12 April 2007
Dalek Masterplan poster
Hi there - thought we ought to put the poster for the Masterplan play on this site at last! Also this Easter Ashley's been playing round with dalek colours and has taken the green off from one of the Devious-Evil-Masterplan daleks. The colour scheme he has chosen is a temporary one as this dalek will hopefully go into a shop window soon - replacing the gold one from Evil as this one needs conversion work for the play! Picture soon! Oh yes, and as you may have realised from last year's poster the final dalek colour scheme isn't shown in the design!
Thanks also to Outpost Gallifrey for the publicity for the play - thanks also to Rob Thrush for including the namecheck for Ashley - he's chuffed!
28 March 2007
The Musical Score
Music Matters!
if we haven't already said this then we'd like to mention that we're delighted to say that Martin Johnson has agreed to do the musical soundtrack for Devious. He wrote the fantastic score for the recent Evil of the Daleks stageplay in Portsmouth 2006 and is writing the score for the upcoming "The Dalek Masterplan" (tickets now available!). We would mention though that we have insisted his Masterplan work comes first!!!!
You can read a piece about the History of the Music of Devious here (in the People section until the next website reorg!)
15 March 2007
episode five
Episode Five
Just in case you think we're doing nothing then here's something! Tomorrow evening (Friday) we're all off to Stephen's to watch a new edit of episode five. (Or is it episode four?) (Or is it really episode six - since we are revamping the episodes due to the shorter lengths of parts 1 to 3...). Anyway, David has been putting things together so we can get a locked off version so we can put on the effects and Stephen can clean the soundtrack. Then of course we will redub where necessary. David is promising us some surprises so we are eager to see what he's done - perhaps we've got Ice Warriors now instead of Daleks?!?!? Perhaps not.
Also we noticed Stephen's name was in the credits for one of the New Beginnings DVD features - see the feature on JNT.
And also we've launched a web poll about the new dalek colour scheme for the Masterplan play. Just a bit of fun as always - we'd be interested in your thoughts! [ See here ]
14 February 2007
Masterplan read-through
Just to let you know that the team down in Portsmouth have just had their first read-through and meeting. Ashley from Devious popped along and took a few photos and has added a few words elsewhere in this site. As we did with Evil of the Daleks, we will be following the progress of this project closely through the year, as again we are providing some props and helping out where necessary. We would like to wish them well for this production.
You can follow the progress at
http://www.doctorwho-devious.com/masterplan [ MPLAN on the main menu ] and also at Dalek Links.
01 February 2007
Children of the Revolution? (updated)
Regeneration of the Daleks?
No - not a new news item for the upcoming play in Portsmouth this year (Dalek Masterplan) - but a few words about the SUCCESSORS of the Devious Daleks. Children of the Revolution if you like. During the (re)making of the daleks for the Evil of the Daleks stageplay, various bits of dalek became spare. Ashley wanted to replace the remaining wooden bases wherever possible - and managed to change three of them. Also he pressed into service one of the dalek-control-room-set dalek-middles as a true dalek middle as the old one had decayed. The idea was to chuck away the remains - indeed 2 of the dalek bases were destroyed / cannibalised.
However, word got about and two of the parts have gone on their travels to start a spawning! Karl from Patcham (where one or two of the Devious daleks have been on display for a few years) has now got the strong wooden base sans balls and may well have the wheelset too once it is retrieved from Portsmouth.
And amazingly, an old dalek middle (actually dalek number 2 used in Comic Relief etc, 9 million viewers etc etc, you know the thing) which was by the back door bins ready for taking down the tip over Christmas as snapped up eagerly by Alex from a SCI-FI collectable shop in sunny Worthing (link to follow) who intends to refurbish and rebuild from the remains.
So, from little acorns.... Even if the dalek middle had been in the same good condition as the base they would still have been given away as Ashley has quite enough daleks thanks! And besides as per the Devious ethic no money was ever going to change hands as Ashley just wanted the bits to go to good homes! - ie to people who could get something from them creatively. We think that Karl's one will be part of a Genesis-style dalek and we're not sure on Alex's. Naturally we will be following the progress of these two new dalek builds over the year and we'll publish photos of the work in progress hopefully! So in a way the Devious dalek count is now up to over ten, and especially if you add the spare halves...!
ps (1 Feb 2007) found a new image of the emperor with transitional paint colours and added it to http://www.doctorwho-devious.com/sets_props_etc/emperor2.htm
pps (1 Feb 2007) KARL! - please ring me - I have news regarding the dalek wheelset! (Ashley here)
ppps (1 Feb again) found an image of Rob from the Evil Team taken back in the summer... at http://www.doctorwho-devious.com/evilofthedaleks
