'Adventures in Time & Space’ exhibition report
I recently visited the ‘Adventures in Time & Space’ Doctor Who exhibition at the Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery. Visiting on a quiet Friday afternoon, my two friends and I were pleased to find we largely had the place to ourselves.
The museum has gone all out with the Doctor Who theme. The entranceway and lift doors have been decorated to look like the TARDIS. The gift shop is full of merchandise and the café displays Doctor Who poster prints – and, more impressively, gives you milk for your coffee in a TARDIS jug.
The hallway before the exhibition displays an (ahem) ‘original’ Mona Lisa from City of Death and the poster billing Ace’s appearance at the Forum from The Happiness Patrol, which provide a nice amuse-bouche for the main event.
The museum is clear to state that this is an ‘unofficial’ exhibition. That means than none of the props or costumes have been loaned by the BBC itself. Curator (and old-school fan) Derek Handley has therefore reached out to fandom to borrow a varied assortment of items, both fan-made replicas and originals, from private collections.
The first room is divided in two, its first section featuring displays of Silurians and Sea Devils down one side and Time Lords (plus K9) down the other, each row of costumes depicting the development from the 1970s to the latest new series variants. These costumes are mostly replicas but they look as good as, probably better than, the real thing.
The centrepiece of this section is a very impressive recreation of the original TARDIS console by Chris Petts. Sadly, Perspex screens prevent visitors from playing with it but you could hardly expect otherwise – without such protection it’d be pawed to bits in days! I was particularly pleased to see that the radiation meter was reading ‘danger’ as at the end of ‘The Firemaker’ and into ‘The Dead Planet’.
The second half of the room comprises an extended display of Cybermen, again depicting their development across the decades. Many of these are recreations by Handley himself, including a rarely-seen Wheel in Space variant, but there were a few originals too, such as the Controller from Attack of the Cybermen. The centrepiece of this area is an excellent TARDIS prop replica in the colours of the early Hartnell version (but with blue tinted window panels like some real police boxes).
Moving into the next room, the exhibition mixes things up a bit. Two corners give us selections of costumes which mix original and recreated items. The originals items include parts of several of Tom Baker’s costumes and the Doctor’s coat from The Trial of a Time Lord, loaned by Colin Baker himself. Amongst the oldest original items are Mark Eden’s tunic from Marco Polo and a UNIT uniform worn by both Robert Sidaway in The Invasion and Paul Darrow in Doctor Who and the Silurians.
This room also collects together smaller items: models, masks, hats, prop guns and so forth. The original items include the Ultima Machine and Haemovore masks from The Curse of Fenric. I was pleased to see a space helmet from The Ambassadors of Death. I’m assuming it was original but frustratingly it was unlabelled so I can’t be sure.
Mat Irvine, who worked as visual effects designer on the series in the 1970s, has loaned a collection of props and models to the exhibition. Of these, my friends and I were most struck by the image of Tom Baker’s face set into the cliff from The Face of Evil. Although I had never given the subject much thought, I must have unconsciously assumed the face had been carved into a model several feet high. But seeing the model in the flesh reveals the truth that should have been obvious: the face is life-sized as it was simply a cast direct from Baker himself.
A highlight here is an original giant spider from Planet of the Spiders, loaned by Grahame Flynn who has a number of items in the exhibition, which if anything looks even more gruesome in the flesh than on television. The model display also includes a number of reproductions, such as guns from Galaxy 4. I particularly enjoyed seeing Handley’s recreations of all the spaceships from The Daleks’ Master Plan.
The centrepiece of this room is a recreation by Dan O’Keeffe of the huge space station model from The Trial of a Time Lord. It was good to be able to inspect the intricate model up close but in truth it was a little disappointing as it looked unfinished compared to the original, which was bedecked with lights and had an intricately detailed paintjob, neither of which apply here. Perhaps this is work-in-progress.
The final, and largest, room is perhaps the highpoint of the exhibition. Cleverly, a sofa has been placed centrally within the room for visitors to hide behind as one half of this room is dominated by the Daleks and the other by an assortment of other monsters.
A huge variety of Daleks is represented here thanks to some beautifully crafted fan-built props. I won’t list them all but I was particularly impressed by the lovely shiny 1960s models, especially the stripey black/silver one from The Dalek Invasion of Earth, for which the builder’s attention to detail has even recreated the distinctive neck ring repair. The display also includes Davros and some of the Daleks’ humanoid servants.
But most impressive of all is Connor Hart’s recreation of the huge Emperor Dalek from The Evil of the Daleks, complete with blinking lights around what I’m going to call its collar. It’s quite intimidating to look up at is as the characters in the story would have done.
The other end of the room features a motley collection of monster costumes, from an Ice Warrior representing the earlier years of the series, to a Weeping Angel and a Judoon bringing us nearly up to date. The impressive Sutekh replica, by Marley John and Amelia Howard, is made mildly interactive with eyes which light up at the press of a button, should you wish to abuse yourself before him. A glass case in the centre of this area contains an original Fifi from The Happiness Patrol and a restored Destroyer head from Battlefield, thanks to late-1980s monster effects designer Stephen Mansfield.
If I had to make one criticism of the exhibition, it would be that a handful of exhibits don’t have information plaques, or where they do they are lacking certain details, so it’s not always clear from where an item was sourced or whether it is an original or a recreation. However, that’s a minor dissatisfaction and, overall, my friends and I were very impressed by the exhibition.
The rest of the Peterborough Museum is free and is also worth looking at while you’re there. I particularly enjoyed the nostalgia rush of the Ladybird Books exhibition. In a neat little crossover for the eagle-eyed, one piece of Ladybird art on display features a toy Dalek.
‘Adventures in Time & Space’ runs until 2 November 2025. For its five pounds entrance fee it offers great value for money and I recommend a visit if you can get to Peterborough. Visit the museum’s website here.
Photographs above © Oliver Wake but the designs and images within the photographs may be subject to other copyrights.