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Candid Dalek shares thesp titbits

Isn't 'Davros' in Switzerland?

Stob Do you remember, earlier in the year, there was an episode of Doctor Who where the Dalek stuck its sink plunger through a computer screen and downloaded the entire internet? And then went on to commit suicide?

(The Doctor, who inclines towards complex and indeed Lamarckian explanations, diagnosed its depression as being caused by the creature polluting its own genome with DNA taken from a time traveller. We suspect it just spent too much time wandering around www.blogger.com.)

Anyway, during the filming of this episode, some secret footage was made of Billie Piper and the Dalek, chatting to each other between takes. Naturally this has escaped onto the Net. To save Whosies, who can never resist such nuggets, the trouble of setting up peer-to-peer software and downloading the DivX codecs, here is the complete transcript.

Dalek, dramatically: Exterminate!

Billie Piper crouches and throws up her arms, as though to fend off the oncoming blast.

Piper: Noooo!

Off camera, we hear the director say 'Cut!'. The video feed showing the Dalek's point of view zooms in on Piper's ring finger.

Dalek: What's he like?

Piper: Eh?

Dalek: What's he like when you get know him?

Piper: Chris? The Doctor?

Dalek: Naao! Not the Doc-tor. Don't care about the bloody Doc-tor! Seems to me the Doc-tor's played by different actor every other week. And hardly any of them any good. Take Bill Hartnell, de mortuis and all that but honestly! He'd lost his marbles before he started. He used to sticky-tape his lines, written out on bits of paper, to the end of my eyestick and then when, surprise surprise, I bumped into the bloody camera, guess who used to get the blame?

Piper: Ummm...

Dalek: Exactly. Whereas Worzel Pertwee and Your Man Tom were both about eight feet tall, talk about miscasting, I had to do all my acting eyestick-to-nipple, it just looked silly. What was I going to do to them, exterminate their nostril hair? As for that shower of clowns that turned up later on with question marks embroidered on their lapels, least said soonest mended if you ask me he said darkly.

No, if you must have a Doc-tor, and in my view that's 'case unproven', then Pat Troughton's the boy. Five foot seven, learned his lines or improvised like a pro, proper clothes, nice bloke, a real Dalek's Doc-tor.

Piper: Whaaaa...

Dalek: Don't get me wrong, not that the present setup isn't great, although it would be even better if they hadn't monkeyed around with the theme tune. Honestly, what were they thinking of? They've got Mantovani's cascading G-strings in there, not to mention what sounds like Rolf Harris on the didgeridoo's harp, twanging away in the background. It's not scary, it's comical. Did I tell you that I had that Delia Derbyshire in the back of the saucer once?

Piper: I don't know that...

Dalek: Anyway, forget the Doc-tor. Tell me about 'OFI' Chris Evans. No good being coy with me, Missy, remember I've read all about your break-up on the goss websites. If you ask me, and I'm sure you were about to, you're well out of it with Gingernuts. Never did hold out much for zoo format radio. I mean, having all those people who just sat around and were paid to laugh at his jokes, what sort of a job was that? It wasn't as though the jokes were any good, you'd find better ones on the Internet.

Piper: Just a minute. You can't....

Dalek: Not that I get much chance to get on the Internet these days. We're in the You-Know-Who ISP and cable TV region of Skaro, right, theoretically bandwidth bubbling under the pavement like hot springs under Reykjavik, but when it goes wrong they make you wait in all morning and then send round this moron whose whole diagnostic technique comprises a) turn the cable modem off and on, count to 10, and does it work now? b) I'll try moving you to another board in the street cabinet and c) turn the modem off and on and count to 20. All this for just 29 big ones a month.

Piper: It's very...

Dalek: And even when you do get on, what can you do? You read a bit of the Reg, Outpost Gallifrey, the Beeb, maybe log on to Wikipedia with username 'Andrew Orlowski' and post an article talking up the importance of the blogging movement. Just like everybody does. Ok, maybe I do pull the odd MP3. Who doesn't? Do I look like the sort of creature that would queue up to buy a CD of Now That's What I Call Rootkit 63 from Sony?

Piper: No, I...

Dalek: Exactly. You have to look out for yourself. The internet's really not a nice place to be these days, what with rootkits and viruses and all that phishing. We all use Opera, of course. We got a species licence. Bought it about three days before they made Opera free, just our luck. But what I don't understand is, right, these phishers put their back into cooking up a fancy email that really looks as though it comes from National Barcloyds and Shanghai Bank of Scotland, the right logo and everything, and then what do they put in the 'Sender' field? 'Boogaloo van Snothopper' or 'Jeff Raspberry'. Wouldn't deceive a baby. What's that all about?

Piper: Surely you...

Dalek: Yes, I can see what you're thinking. The whole how-do-you-get-upstairs-to-conquer-the-universe? thing again. No mystery. I just stick my legs out the bottom and walk, like you'd expect. But that's not high tech enough for the BBC, is it? Oh no, they have to put in some CGI effect and have me float about like a slow motion mayfly on David Attenborough. And then they have the nerve to write it into my contract that I can't show my legs in public. If I want to get the E3 bus to Chiswick swimming baths, I have to get the driver to extend the wheelchair ramp. 'Give the public what it wants' – pah!

Piper: So how come...

Dalek: It has been hard while Dee Double-yew was off air. Of course it's been hard. But I always made sure I got outside work. That's the secret. You've got to keep your sucker in, to avoid being typecast. Blue Peter once or twice a year, of course; a spot of glamour modelling with the lovely Katy Manning; busking with Spike-Gawd-Bless-Him in Q6.

Dear Victor Lewis-Smith gave me my first chance to extend my range and prove my versatility by playing a gay character. Typically generous of him. But, as you know, Victor's one of us, and we're a generous species. Although I'm not sure his decision to 'come out of the pepperpot' was wise. I mean, disguising one's tentacles as dreadlocks is neither dignified nor effective...

Director, off camera: Ok, quiet on set please, everybody. Positions please. Scene 51 take 1... and... action!

Piper, to Dalek, with emphasis: Go on then, kill me!

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