I have always had a fascination with voices, fancying myself , at times, as somewhat of a voice artiste.
Nick Briggs of "Big Finish", Doctor Who, etc. has some fascinating insights into Dalek voices. There is an article in "Doctor Who Magazine" Issue 326. Creating a good Dalek voice is as much down to the actor's performance as to the modulation effect. Also, it is clear that there were never any specified settings for the modulator so variation was invariably introduced into the voices.
1. Peter Hawkins (voices from c 1963 - 1967)
The "Gaffer." Had a good range of Dalek voices. Indeed, when working alone, he seemed to be able to do more than just a high voice and a low voice to distinguish between different Daleks. He always seemed to portray a menacing delivery as this example from "The Evil of the Daleks" testifies:
2. David Graham (voices from 1964 - 1966)
The voice "maestro," I was always a fan of David's work in, especially "Thunderbirds," where he seemed to have so much flexibility. It was always fairly easy to recognise other voice artistes when portraying new characters (Matt Zimmerman was a cinch!) However, it took me ages to work out that Warren Grafton (from "Brink of Disaster") was done by David. Sorry, this is a real digression!
Insofar as the Dalek work is concened, the first example (from "The Chase") seems a bit tentative:
However, a year or so later, he had more "bite" as witnessed by this excerpt from "The Dalek Masterplan."
3. Michael Wisher (Voices from 1973 - 4)
Hmm! I'm afraid I was never convinced by Michael Wisher's Dalek voices. They just seem a bit insubstantial and quavery! That said, he was for me, the Davros - truly menacing!!
4. Roy Skelton (voices from 1967 -1988)
There's no question about it, in my opinion. Roy Skelton's Dalek voices were the best!! They combined power, menace and a mechanical intonation that other renditions did not possess. Truly nasty!! Roy Skelton, himself, in interviews seems such a nice, self effacing guy!
See what I mean (from "Genesis of the Daleks"):
Now, here's an interesting one - from "Destiny of the Daleks" The first voice is definitely Skelton's but who is the other? Whoever it was remained uncredited.
Well, we all know now that the answer is "David Gooderson," who played Davros in "Destiny" and chucked in a couple of uncredited Dalek voices for good measure.
5. Oliver Gilbert & Peter Messaline (1972)
A one-off double act in Day of the Daleks. I don't know anything about them; not even who was who in the examples below!
6. Big Finish
This voices section would not be complete without the multi talented Nick Briggs, Dalek voice artiste supreme (amongst many other things) on the new series of Doctor Who as well as the Big Finish audio CD's. As he knows much more about Dalek voices than me, he has put this knowledge to good use, as this clip shows.
I was introduced to Nick Briggs through Nick Scovell when I was working on publicity materials for the "Evil of the Daleks" theatre production. Shameless namedropping. Shameless! Sorry!
