Toys and Games

Toymaster Alasdair Dewar on August's spin-offs.

If making toys is one of the best jobs in the world, then making toy Daleks and Sonic Screwdrivers has to be quite the very best. We talked to Alasdair Dewar about the range of toys Character Options have produced for August.

What products did you know there'd be the most demand for?

Well we just looked at the characters who were going to be the series' "heroes" and what our product range and expertise was. The 12-inch remote control Dalek was on the cards right from the start. There were similar products on the market, but we wanted to raise the bar and lower the price.

The end result (which is sitting on a table in Hong Kong next to me as I type) is just too fabulous for words. Codenamed "Derek" our Dalek has a real glowing eye, speech activated off the handset and a swivelling waist like the new TV Dalek.

We also wanted to do the Sonic Screwdriver as it's a cool device and used in every episode. Every kid - including me - wants one! Walkie-Talkies shaped as characters have been very successful for us in the past so we had to do a version with a Slitheen and the Doctor.

The 5-inch figures market is also important - and we're launching with the Doctor and Rose in a "battle set" with two mini remote control Daleks with infrared combat built-in.

We also have Sound Effects mugs, a talking TARDIS moneybank with speech and a TARDIS desk Phone Flasher.

What product were you most excited making?

Evil question... everything. The Daleks, because we were trying to be mega accurate!

The Walkie-Talkies and 5-inch figure range were wonderful, because they were handled for us by the best sculpting company in the business and boy, did they do well! It was absolutely superb seeing the finished sculpts.

I am Police Box-mad and built the 3D computer models myself. And I just like the mugs as they play the theme tune!

What was the most difficult product to "get right"?

The sonic screwdriver was technically the most tricky as the TV prop is the size of an average chunky marker pen and we needed to fit batteries plus a working pen in there!

The trouble is that it could have ended up the size of a truncheon and not a pen. We've kept it as close to the original size as possible. I had so many fights with engineers in Hong Kong and vendors over the size. I was sketching solutions on bits of paper in my room at night to solve the issues. But it's been worth it because we ended up very close to the original size and it works brilliantly.

The Dalek was tricky because we revised the design again, and again, and again and again... we really wanted to get it perfect. There was a decision to be made about whether to have the turning middle section or the glowing eye - In the end we got both.

Can you explain a little about the LCD Dalek Hunter game? How close is it to the show? Do we get to see Daleks in it?

Actually it's fairly straightforward - but sound - game play. As the Doctor doesn't use weapons we have to imply it's not him so the original TARDIS case design was dropped. It became a Dalek design. The Game is simple... pursue the Dalek Mothership while avoiding flying Daleks! And yes... there are lots of Daleks!

We've heard the real sonic screwdrivers were quite fragile - are yours Dalek-proof?

Absolutely... in fact we were just asked to supply our model and moulds to the production team to use for next season - which is a nice compliment!

Props are props, but ours needs to actually work and have a decent kid-proof life expectancy with added play value! I still can't help pointing it at door locks and seeing it light up and "puuurr". Very childish but strangely satisfying!

The programme's main audience is kids. How careful are you in aiming at an audience with not much money and a lot of pester power?

There has to be a drive against producing cheap - but essentially poor value - goods with a logo slapped on them.

Whenever a feature film comes out there are a lot of cheap giveaway toys that appear via fast food outlets etc. Very rarely do these have any real function, play value or integrity relating to the actual film. It's most often an existing mechanism or idea redressed. I hate that, as that really is just 'label slapping' and offers no long-term play or fun to the kids.

The BBC are very protective of their licences and quality is the main concern for both them and us. We've aimed to get a pretty wide range of price points but we've tried to maximize what kids get for their money within those prices.

We have a range of product from pocket money prices up - You may not get the remote control Dalek without Mum and Dad's help, but I bet you're still playing with it long after you get it. The sonic screwdriver again is, I'd say, just within that pocket money range and has a built in pen and a spare nib so you have a toy with a practical function.

How much help did you get from the art department?

Right from the start Ed Thomas and the Art Department were most welcoming and invited us down to Cardiff and got involved with giving us pointers on the best designs to pursue etc. They also provided us with simply tons of reference material, while still up to their necks in producing the show.

What future merchandise is there to look forward to? There's many more figures coming as well as a huge TARDIS console room playset. We have the new Doctor to do plus some fab, yet Top Secret, monsters.

There's also a single mini 5-inch remote control Dalek. The Doctor and Rose pack and Walkie-Talkies are going to be very Limited Edition and marked as such because of the change of Doctor so once they are gone they're gone.

You started work on these before filming had finished. Now you've seen the show, is there something you wish you'd made a toy of?

No, not really. The production team gave us a really good lead on who the major villains were going to be (name starts with a D!). It's just amazing that an entire, licensed, complex toy line of around 16 individual items were developed, approved and manufactured in five months dead! That's absolutely unheard of and a brilliant testament to everyone involved.

The 5-inch figures were originally going to be static and then changed to articulated. The sculptors however particularly enjoyed creating Rose (can't think why) so I suspect another Rose item would have gone down well...