The reason 'Curse of the Daleks' warrants its own page, unlike the other two Dalek stage plays 'Seven Keys to Doomsday' and 'The Ultimate Adventure' (which are covered on the Exhibitions+ page) is because Shawcraft were used to build the props so they are Daleks with real pedigree.

According to research by Andrew Pixley and confirmed by other sources, the five Daleks used in this stage play were a new build by Shawcraft. Four silver and one black were provided, and these appeared in the style of their debut story 'The Daleks' in order to fit with the timeline of the play, i.e. without the solar panels that were added later.

As was explained in 'The Chase' page, following the batch of props being built for the 'Dr Who and the Daleks' film, all subsequent props provided by Shawcraft (be they light-weight mock-ups, or fully-working props) were built using the same methods and therefore bear the same underlying features as the film props, regardless of their "finish". That is to say, the Curse props bear the same badly aligned skirt hemis and trapezoid gunboxes etc. as film Daleks.

'Curse' Daleks also had a slightly shorter eye-stalk than their TV counterparts, and at least  one had an apparently shorter arm, although this may have been a result of the arm being pushed back inside the casing. A minute difference of note is that they had differently screwed lower shoulder collars: The first screw of film Daleks is only an inch from the leading edge of the collar, however the first screw of the Curse props is about four inches back. This is useful in differentiating these props from other similar-looking TV props.

According to the aforementioned article in 'The Frame' fanzine, one or more of these props was later reused in the TV series, however there are two problems with this theory. First, the way the Curse collars are mounted is different to TV Daleks' appearance, although a complete remounting is not impossible. But secondly, following the performance of 'Curse' there are only two candidate props on screen which could potentially be one of these stage props, one of which is said by some to be a converted film prop anyway! There wouldn't appear to be any obvious opportunity for a 'Curse' prop to fit in to TV Dalek history. That's not to say it's impossible be to squeezed in but it does seem to be based on rather simplistic observations.

Many assumptions have been made down the years about alleged "film conversions" or "Curse conversions" as has previously been discussed on 'The Chase' page, however there is no primary supporting evidence for this, and these theories seem solely based on the fact the props have misaligned skirt hemis as film props did. But as 'Curse' itself proves, all props made new by Shawcraft after 1965 had film-style parts, so the argument goes around in circles!

'The Curse of the Daleks' met with generally positive reviews and at this point in Doctor Who history more than any other, the Daleks were at complete saturation point. This play opened whilst their TV versions were already in the midst of an epic adventure that ran for three months solid on BBC1...

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