Last weekend's episode of Dr Who, Cold War, really got me thinking. The story featured The Ice Warriors, or in this case, a lone Ice Warrior called Skaldak, voiced by the brilliant Nick Briggs of BF fame.To coincide with the television broadcast, Big Finish ran a promotion on the various Ice Warrior stories they had produced, including Thin Ice, which I'd worked on with Sylvester, Sophie Aldred, Beth Chalmers and the rest of the company.
What got me thinking was the hazy memory of having played an Ice Warrior in Thin Ice, as well as two named characters and a couple of uncredited minor characters. After much rummaging through scripts and scrutinising the CD recording, it finally came to light; I hadn't dreamed the whole thing up and had in fact played Sslork! Joy!
If nothing else, I am relieved that it wasn't all a figment of my imagination! Nick Briggs played the principal Ice Warrior, Hhessh and Nigel Lambert played Glarva - phew!
What I remember much more clearly is having had the enormous thrill and honour of actually playing a Dalek in a story released not very long ago and getting to say the immortal line "I am a Dalek", which as a schoolboy in the mid sixties, gave me and my mates many a sore throat, as we tried to 'out Dalek' each other in the playground.
Of course, recanting anecdotes of recordings past, also gives me a great excuse to post a bit of relevant Ice Warrior and Dalek artwork!
The audio clip included in this post is something I've put together for The Spotlight, the UK's leading Casting Directory, which almost all actors are a member of. Five minutes is the upper limit, which is quite a lot to wade through if you're listening to a voice with a professional ear for casting purposes. I'm sure no-one will listen to the whole thing, but at least there's a reasonable selection of untreated character voices to fast forward through! If you do have a listen, maybe you'll recognise where some of these clips originate?
