WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:13.320 Well, in those days, in the early 60s, I was with the only voice agent in London and I 00:13.320 --> 00:16.160 was getting a certain amount of work now there. 00:16.160 --> 00:22.760 Dozens and dozens of voice agents and I must have been sent up by the agency to the BBC 00:22.760 --> 00:26.640 to test out for this voice. 00:26.640 --> 00:32.060 And it was when I met Peter Hawkins, who was the, of course, the voice of the other Dalek. 00:32.060 --> 00:34.660 And I think that was the basis. 00:34.660 --> 00:40.440 I got the Dalek voices originally, I think, because I had a reputation by that time for 00:40.440 --> 00:43.480 doing tricky voices. 00:43.480 --> 00:49.880 My agent reckons that somebody phoned up from BBC bookings and said, she thought they said, 00:49.880 --> 00:53.080 have you got anybody that's good at dialects? 00:53.080 --> 00:55.200 And that's how I got the job. 00:55.200 --> 00:56.720 It was a bad line. 00:56.720 --> 01:02.720 We've been asked to do a voice for the Daleks and I'd just before and had been doing a play 01:02.720 --> 01:05.840 for radio called Sword from the Stars. 01:05.840 --> 01:09.720 And we had a rather polite robot called the Jones robot. 01:09.720 --> 01:11.940 He was a sort of butler. 01:11.940 --> 01:13.360 And I'd used my voice for that. 01:13.360 --> 01:19.120 And we'd used a system of modulation to make it sound like a robot. 01:19.120 --> 01:23.160 And so I decided it probably would be a good idea to use the same sort of treatment for 01:23.160 --> 01:27.040 the Dalek because you get a nice grating sort of sound in it. 01:27.040 --> 01:33.240 We had a very long trial session, a paid session as far as I remember, with David Graham, who's 01:33.240 --> 01:36.880 a great old chum of mine, still chums now. 01:36.880 --> 01:42.600 And we tried everything and everybody was chipping in with suggestions. 01:42.600 --> 01:49.760 Once I worked out roughly what we were going to do, because you can only really do it roughly 01:49.760 --> 01:53.720 with your own voice, we went along to the session. 01:53.720 --> 02:00.160 And as far as I remember, there was Richard Martin and Peter Hawkins, which was good news 02:00.160 --> 02:02.440 because I knew Peter was absolutely brilliant. 02:02.440 --> 02:07.760 And eventually somebody decided that they should be a monotone. 02:07.760 --> 02:10.680 And we were then lumbered with this particular voice. 02:10.680 --> 02:17.960 I think in one session, more or less, we we got the style of the Daleks. 02:17.960 --> 02:21.200 I have just come from the prisoners. 02:21.200 --> 02:23.080 The old man is dying. 02:23.080 --> 02:33.360 Which was this inhuman staccato rhythmic done with a lot of vocal intensity, with a sort 02:33.360 --> 02:38.820 of intense full stop at the end of every sentence. 02:38.820 --> 02:41.680 And then of course, the radio phonics workshop people were there. 02:41.680 --> 02:44.640 There were a lot of adjustments we had to make. 02:44.640 --> 02:48.720 We had to cut some bass from the voice, take a little top out of it, boost the middle. 02:48.720 --> 02:52.960 I asked Peter if he could slightly elongate the vowels so we could get the modulation 02:52.960 --> 02:56.600 working on the vowels. 02:56.600 --> 03:01.240 And the sound supervisor obviously would have put his two pen at the end as well. 03:01.240 --> 03:07.760 And between all of us, but I would say mainly with Peter, we got the performance. 03:07.760 --> 03:13.240 And once Peter had set that performance, it became the pattern for all future Dalek voices. 03:13.240 --> 03:16.160 Very well. 03:16.160 --> 03:23.400 During the first week's rehearsals, I developed the voice myself because David only came on 03:23.400 --> 03:24.400 the Saturdays. 03:24.400 --> 03:27.280 And then I had to brief him what had happened during the week. 03:27.280 --> 03:28.280 So I went to all the rehearsals. 03:28.280 --> 03:33.800 And during rehearsals, I had to work out really how to use this monotone voice without it 03:33.800 --> 03:35.800 becoming monotonous. 03:35.800 --> 03:43.040 The voice is modulated using an old post office ring modulator and a sine wave of 30 cycles. 03:43.040 --> 03:45.920 I do not understand his words. 03:45.920 --> 03:51.560 This has the effect of turning the voice on and off at 30 times per second. 03:51.560 --> 03:53.960 This gives the nice grating sort of sound. 03:53.960 --> 03:58.720 And then Peter's performance adds all those extra sort of performance things into it. 03:58.720 --> 04:02.760 We still had to act with full intensity before. 04:02.760 --> 04:09.840 I mean, so it was a combination of us and the synthesizer. 04:09.840 --> 04:13.040 But I think there wasn't a lot of trial and error. 04:13.040 --> 04:15.080 We seemed to get it quite quickly. 04:15.080 --> 04:17.080 Testing oral control. 04:17.080 --> 04:19.080 Testing oral control. 04:19.080 --> 04:26.180 I came to the conclusion the only thing was to rise in pitch as they got more venomous 04:26.180 --> 04:32.680 or more excited and also to increase pace on the line. 04:32.680 --> 04:37.680 So they started off with menace and then worked their way up to a screech. 04:37.680 --> 04:40.680 Exterminate, annihilate, destroy. 04:40.680 --> 04:43.680 Daleks conquer and destroy. 04:43.680 --> 04:46.680 Daleks conquer and destroy. 04:46.680 --> 04:54.680 Within the mechanical, almost inhuman personalities of the Daleks, we tried to vary them. 04:54.680 --> 04:57.680 We tried to give them personalities. 04:57.680 --> 04:58.680 If they were hesitant. 05:01.680 --> 05:02.680 Or if they were more angry. 05:02.680 --> 05:04.680 Take in the light. 05:04.680 --> 05:13.680 Or if they had a higher rank or a lower rank, which meant within the parameters of what 05:13.680 --> 05:20.680 we'd established, this sort of voice, we'd go up in register or down in register and 05:20.680 --> 05:23.680 get angry or fearful. 05:23.680 --> 05:24.680 Help me. 05:24.680 --> 05:25.680 Help me. 05:25.680 --> 05:27.680 Help. 05:27.680 --> 05:28.680 Help. 05:28.680 --> 05:29.680 Help. 05:29.680 --> 05:30.680 Help. 05:30.680 --> 05:36.680 Peter had a more mechanical, higher register. 05:36.680 --> 05:40.680 Time to construct, 23 days. 05:40.680 --> 05:43.680 So I think I had more of the base notes. 05:43.680 --> 05:53.680 His words betrayed greater intelligence than normal inhuman beings. 05:53.680 --> 05:59.680 I remember Peter saying, exterminate them, exterminate them. 05:59.680 --> 06:03.680 And then, you know, there might be the controller, you know. 06:03.680 --> 06:08.680 All Daleks report to headquarters immediately. 06:08.680 --> 06:10.680 Immediately. 06:10.680 --> 06:13.680 Immediately. 06:13.680 --> 06:16.680 That was the sort of variety we'd give it. 06:16.680 --> 06:19.680 We are the masters of Earth. 06:19.680 --> 06:22.680 We are the masters of Earth. 06:22.680 --> 06:25.680 We are the masters of Earth. 06:25.680 --> 06:32.680 I know we went every Wednesday, we do the pre-recording late afternoon at Lime Grove 06:32.680 --> 06:33.680 Studios. 06:33.680 --> 06:40.680 We'd get the scripts, you know, several days before so I could work on the dialogue. 06:40.680 --> 06:42.680 And then there'd be a studio manager. 06:42.680 --> 06:46.680 I don't think there was any other direction because they allowed us license once they 06:46.680 --> 06:54.680 knew the format and that we got the voices down and the different interpretations we 06:54.680 --> 06:59.680 were going to give to the personalities of different Daleks. 06:59.680 --> 07:02.680 They just let us get on with it. 07:02.680 --> 07:07.680 And we just took off and did it that way. 07:07.680 --> 07:14.680 And I'm not sure if it was marked out on the script who was going to do which voice. 07:14.680 --> 07:17.680 But if it wasn't, we parceled it out between us. 07:17.680 --> 07:20.680 I always think I used to defer. 07:20.680 --> 07:24.680 I used to think that Peter was the senior Dalek. 07:24.680 --> 07:31.680 At rehearsals, for want of somewhere better to stand, the director normally used to walk 07:31.680 --> 07:36.680 around the rehearsal room and he'd stand facing, as a sort of very close audience as it was, 07:36.680 --> 07:39.680 to the actors here or wherever it was convenient. 07:39.680 --> 07:46.680 And I used to stand by his shoulder and fire all the Dalek dialogue at the actors. 07:46.680 --> 07:51.680 Of course, during the rehearsal period, we didn't have the electronic distortion device 07:51.680 --> 07:54.680 or what, I don't know what the proper word for it is. 07:54.680 --> 07:58.680 So Peter Hawkins would stand there with his script and he used to put his hand over his 07:58.680 --> 08:01.680 mouth and speak in a deep voice. 08:01.680 --> 08:03.680 I can sort of do it now. 08:03.680 --> 08:11.680 It used to be, which actually sounds fairly similar to how it did when they did all the 08:11.680 --> 08:13.680 electronic stuff. 08:13.680 --> 08:20.680 He was an extremely nice guy, I remember, and very clever in the way he did this. 08:20.680 --> 08:24.680 And later on, he would do, I presume it was him, would sort of do different voices for 08:24.680 --> 08:29.680 different ranks of Dalek and so on, which is a bit tricky because you've got absolutely 08:29.680 --> 08:30.680 nothing to go on. 08:30.680 --> 08:34.680 You can't say, I once met this Dalek who had such and such a voice as you can with ordinary 08:34.680 --> 08:36.680 parts. 08:36.680 --> 08:41.680 The Daleks would be around uncapped with the operators sitting like in little, they looked 08:41.680 --> 08:45.680 like they were little bathtubs always without their tops on. 08:45.680 --> 08:50.680 And I rehearsed all their moves and they were supposed to rehearse their lights. 08:50.680 --> 08:54.680 Some of them weren't very good on synchronising the lights with me because they were a bit 08:54.680 --> 08:55.680 lazy. 08:55.680 --> 08:56.680 I don't think they learned the lines very often. 08:56.680 --> 08:58.680 They should have done for synchronisation. 08:58.680 --> 09:02.680 That's why those lights don't always quite work with the voice. 09:02.680 --> 09:07.680 Once we got in the studio, it was very difficult because once they'd got their caps on, and 09:07.680 --> 09:11.680 I was watching them on a monitor where the angles were completely different, then it 09:11.680 --> 09:15.680 became very difficult identifying which one was speaking for. 09:15.680 --> 09:19.680 One of the problems is that we didn't have very many ring modulators. 09:19.680 --> 09:22.680 There was one that was loose and wasn't bolted down. 09:22.680 --> 09:28.680 And of course television borrowed it and as usual with television, it went missing. 09:28.680 --> 09:34.680 And that was a big problem at first because we'd lost a piece of equipment which was rather 09:34.680 --> 09:36.680 important for us. 09:36.680 --> 09:40.680 But there were new modulators coming along and very soon we were able to do it with voltage 09:40.680 --> 09:42.680 control anyway. 09:42.680 --> 09:49.680 I think my main memory of doing the Daleks, and I'm proud of it, is because they've been 09:49.680 --> 09:56.680 loved so much and have given so much entertainment and fun and joy to a lot of people. 09:56.680 --> 10:02.680 And that's what we're in the business for really, not to change society. 10:02.680 --> 10:07.680 I would say the Dalek voice became popular because it was so easy for kids to copy in 10:07.680 --> 10:08.680 the playground. 10:08.680 --> 10:09.680 It was very strange. 10:09.680 --> 10:14.680 You'd be going past a school on the way to work and you'd hear all the kids imitating 10:14.680 --> 10:17.680 what you'd just done the previous Saturday. 10:17.680 --> 10:32.680 And that was really quite nice.