Daleks, Cyberman & Dr Who Land at Museum

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Doctor.
Doctor Who?

Oh yes, it’s an old one, but so is the TV series Dr Who! It was 1963 when it first started and it’s still going! I watched as a kid, possibly hiding behind the settee when the daleks came on. For my childhood the Doctor was played by Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker.

Today I got a #SneakPeek of the museum’s Adventures in Time & Space: An Unofficial Doctor Who Exhibition and wow it’s good! 🤩🤩

It’s one of the largest collections of Doctor Who exhibits with a huge amount of replica props, costumes, spaceships, daleks and even a full scale Tardis! For Dr Who fans; it’s unmissable!

You’re going to be towered over by Cybermen, Time Lords, Sea Devils and Silurians. You’ll need to bend down to meet K-9 though! lol, and he’s as cute in real life as he was on screen… 🐕

Some additional info from the exhibition models:

The Cyberwarrior (Assension of the Cybermen 2020),
Silurian (Warriors of the Deep 1984) costume designer Judy Pepperdine, Masks by Stan Mitchell, Recreation courtesy of Hyde Fundraisers.
K-9 (The Invisible Enemy 1977) visual effects Tony Harding & Ian Scoones, Recreation by Derek Handlery.
Dalek Saucer Commander (The Dalek Invasion of Earth 1964) designed by Raymond Cusick, story designer Spencer Chapman, recreation made by Jonathon Wrigley.

The official opening took place on Saturday 3rd May 2025. Peter Purves, renowned for two roles in Dr Who, Blue Peter, Jackanory and more, along with Dennis Jones, Leader of Peterborough City Council, opened the exhibition at 12.15pm at Peterborough Museum.

What an honour to meet a person from my own iconic childhood TV.

I asked Peter who his favouririte Doctor was: “Bill Hartnell, without question. I knew Patrick Troughton, not terribly well, but I did know him, an extremely nice man, but without Bill Hartnell, you wouldn’t have done this exhibition now. He was so important to the series when it started, and for three and a half years he was Doctor Who. He created something that was so strong, that it was able to go on and on and on. So he was my favourite.

Following him, I think Christopher Eccleston was rather good, when they brought it back after the show, sort of died a natural death in 1989. And Sylvester McCoy was the last of the doctors of the ‘classic age’ if you like.

I liked Colin Baker. He’s a very good friend now. In fact, a lot of them are good friends. There can never be another one for me, to be quite honest.”

And did he expect the show to last this long? Peter answered, “Of course not. We didn’t know if it’d last another week. In fact, the BBC didn’t want it as a series. They would have killed it quite happily, and unfortunately for the BBC, the Daleks came along. That freaked the audience. It was absolutely wonderful for them, and the show went sky high. I mean, we’ve had big audiences, up to 10 million!

It was, in fact, a children’s television show, so we never thought it would go this far, and Bill would have been very proud. Back then we did it live, so it was never edited. It was just; what we did, was what we got. So it was quite fun, actually. We all knew what to expect.”

So nice to meet him.

You’ve plenty of time to get a look at what’s been created: The exhibition is until 2nd November with a host of activities and special events to go with it. You’ll need tickets (£5 adults, £3 child, under 5s free) peterboroughmuseum.org.uk/events/adventures-in-time-space