View source for Advanced technology has arrived on the Christmas show scene

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| publication = The Stage and Television Today
| file = 1974-12-27 Stage.jpg
| px = 450
| height = 
| width = 
| date = 1974-12-27
| author = Peter Hepple
| pages = 
| language = English 
| type = 
| description = 
| categories = The Seven Keys to Doomsday
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| morePublications = 
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| text = 
ADELPHI

'SEVEN KEYS TO DOOMSDAY'

Opened December 16

ADVANCED technology has arrived on the Christmas show scene at the Adelphi in the shape of that seasoned inter-galactic traveller Dr Who battling against his perpetual adversaries the Daleks.

Not, one might think, a particularly promising subject for stage treatment, but that is reckoning without the ingenuity of director Mick Hughes, designer John Napier, sound man Phillip Clifford and what must be a whole host of uncredited engineers and electronics experts, who together have created what can only be called a multi-media, environmental experience.

This does not leave much room for the author, who is Terrance Dicks, or even the actors, led by Trevor Martin, who imparts a nice touch or two of character to the ever-resourceful Doctor, and Wendy Padbury and James Mathews as his two young helpers, entering the non-stop action in the guise of bewildered young members of the audience.

They are prepared, and quite rightly, to subordinate themselves to the whole, and the whole is strong enough to make one overlook the comic strip style of the script and to concentrate on the succession of effects, produced by imaginative projections, all-embracing sound and the appearance of a variety of creatures which could well startle very young children. They include "Clawrantulars," monsters with one arm like a lobster's claw and the other resembling a soldering iron, and of course the Daleks themselves, so familiar that despite their evil ways that they are almost lovable, like the robbers in "Babes in the Wood."

"Seven Keys to Doomsday" is all about the search for seven mysterious crystals which, when assembled, generate enough force to destroy everything in the universe except Daleks, but it is as well not to pick holes in the story, just sit back with the kids and let one's nerve ends be pleasurably jangled.
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