The Emerald Tiger (audio story)

The Emerald Tiger
Doctor:	Fifth Doctor
Companion(s):	Tegan, Nyssa, Turlough
Main enemy:	Major Cyril Haggard Shardul Khan
Main setting:	Calcutta and Karabar Caves, 31 December 1926 - 1 January 1927
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Barnaby Edwards
Director:	Barnaby Edwards
Producer:	David Richardson
Music:	Howard Carter
Sound:	Howard Carter
Cover by:	Amazing 15
Release details
Number of parts:	4
Release number:	159
Release date:	17 April 2012
Format:	2 CDs Download
Production code:	6H/G
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-84435-627-0
Main Range
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Next →	The Jupiter Conjunction

The Emerald Tiger was the one hundred and fifty-ninth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Barnaby Edwards and featured Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, Sarah Sutton as Nyssa, Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka and Mark Strickson as Turlough.

Publisher's summary

Tiger, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night

Calcutta, 1926. The Doctor and his companions join an expedition to locate the fabled emerald tiger — a legendary marvel shrouded in myth and mystery. They must journey to an unexplored lost world filled with wonder and wickedness.

But at the centre of this terra incognita, something is stirring. Something with emerald eyes, diamond-sharp claws and a heart of darkness.

Plot

Part one

In 1908 Adela Forster attempts to escape from some unseen threat with her son Jonathan Forster, however he is taken by the unseen threat and she barely manages to escape.

The TARDIS materialises in 1926 on a train platform and has brought the Doctor, Tegan, Turlough and Nyssa to Calcutta, India, on the Doctor's insistence they watch the famous cricket match between All India and Marylebone Cricket Club. Before they can go to the match, however, Nyssa is attacked and bitten by Kimball, a chauffeur and friend of Professor Narayan, after she tries to calm him down while he makes a commotion on the platform and in the meantime the Doctor sends Tegan to gets medical supplies from the TARDIS so they can help him as he realises the man has been infected with what appears to be rabies. It is too late though when he is shot and killed by Major Cyril Haggard arrogantly claiming to an appalled Doctor that he was taking care of the situation and saving their lives before he boards the train. The Doctor believes Nyssa has been infected with rabies but if he can treat it quick enough she should be fine while he tries to bring Nyssa back to consciousness. Professor Narayan explains the situation while a delirious Nyssa slowly comes to and Tegan bumps into a mysterious man and later finds the TARDIS gone from where they had left it, and returns to inform the Doctor. They spot it on the train which is leaving the station, so the Doctor instructs Tegan and Turlough to get aboard and remove it or at least get the medical supplies at the next station and that he and Nyssa will follow them on the next train.

Aboard the train, Major Haggard finds and confronts Adela Forster, claiming he is taking over the train despite her attempts to throw him off, claiming she rented out the entire train. Tegan and Turlough, meanwhile, find themselves locked in a cage with a dangerous tiger. The Doctor, Nyssa and Professor Narayan drive Professor Narayan's Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost after the train when suddenly Nyssa tells the Doctor she's seeing double, except that she can both see them chasing the train but she can also see Tegan and Turlough in front of her, screams that the tiger with the emerald eyes is going to kill them, grabs control of the wheel in an attempt to catch up with the train and save them but the car ends up careering out of control...

Part two

The Doctor is awakened by Professor Narayan and they find that Nyssa has slipped into a coma. He comments that it is unusual because when Kimball was bitten, he didn't have the same reaction. The Doctor reckons it is due to Nyssa's different metabolism, while the Professor explains the circumstances behind how Kimball was bitten, because he was investigating the Karabar Caves, since his field of expertise is mythology and folklore and the caves are his favourite place to do research. Despite the car being broken, they find an air balloon owned by Colonel Burroughs and "borrow" it, deciding to go to the Karabar cavesm the source of the bites. Tegan manages to slip out of the car to find the owner of the tiger so that they might muzzle it so Turlough can get out in one piece. She finds Major Haggard and Adela Foster, and explains what happened.

Cast

• The Doctor - Peter Davison
• Nyssa - Sarah Sutton
• Tegan - Janet Fielding
• Turlough - Mark Strickson
• Lady Adela Forster - Cherie Lunghi
• Professor Narayan - Sam Dastor
• Shardul Khan/Announcer/Train Guard - Vincent Ebrahim
• Major Cyril Haggard - Neil Stacy
• Dawon - Vineeta Rishi
• Djahn/Lord Edgar Forster - Gwilym Lee
• Colonel Burroughs/Kimball - Trevor Cooper
• Jonathan Forster - Benedict Briggs

References

• Lady Adela Forster reads the short story "Tiger! Tiger!" from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book to her young son Jonathan in 1908.
• Lady Adela was a journalist until she married her husband, Lord Edgar Forster, who was killed by a tiger during his 1908 expedition to India.
• The Doctor has come to Calcutta on 31 December 1926 to witness the second Unofficial Test match between All India and Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), which the MCC won by four wickets, at Eden Gardens. Arthur Gilligan was the captain of the MCC team while C. K. Nayudu is a batman for All India. The Doctor considers it to be one of the best cricket matches of all time.
• The Doctor mentions the British Raj.
• It is initially believed that Kimball infected Nyssa with rabies by biting her.
• Professor Narayan owns a white 1908 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost.
• Turlough tells Tegan that "stubbornness is one of Australia's greatest exports."
• Tegan refers to Dawon as "Pussy Galore".
• The Doctor tells Colonel Burroughs that his name is "Dr Smith."
• Dawon's owner was killed in the anti-British Empire protests in Burma in November 1926.
• Professor Narayan refers to the crystal skull carved by pre-Columbian Mesoamericans currently in the British Museum.
• Major Haggard refers to the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.
• The Doctor mentions the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.
• Turlough states that he always hated the works of William Shakespeare.
• Tegan survived the train going over the cliff by taking refuge in the TARDIS. The Doctor had previously given her the TARDIS key.
• Tegan mentions Tigger from Winnie-the-Pooh.
• The Doctor estimates that the Emerald Tiger crashed to Earth hundreds of thousands of years earlier, and the Karabya valley was the impact crater.
• Tegan refers to a crocodile as "an overgrown handbag".

Notes

• This audio drama was recorded on 8 and 9 November 2011 at The Moat Studios.
• The intro to the publisher's summary draws from the first two lines on William Blake's poem, "The Tyger". Another allusion to his famous poem would be made in the Twelfth Doctor story In the Forest of the Night.
• This story is set between Enlightenment and The King's Demons.

Continuity

• Lord Edgar Forster refers to Charles Darwin's voyage on the HMS Beagle. The Sixth Doctor and Evelyn Smythe would later meet him on the Galápagos Islands on 19 September 1835. (AUDIO: Bloodtide)
• This is the third time that the TARDIS has materialised on the platform of a train station during the 1920s. (AUDIO: The Mouthless Dead; TV: Black Orchid)
• The Doctor remarks to Turlough that he must speak to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart about the lack of emphasis placed on sport during his education at Brendon Public School in the early 1980s. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)
• Nyssa refers to the Doctor playing cricket at Cranleigh Hall on 11 June 1925. (TV: Black Orchid)
• The Doctor refers to Sir Isaac Newton. He and Nyssa previously encountered him in the Tower of London in the late 17th century. (AUDIO: Summer)
• Tegan once again uses "Rabbits!" as an expletive. (TV: Logopolis, Earthshock)
• Tegan was previously cornered by a tiger in a fairground menagerie in England in the 1920s. (AUDIO: Smoke and Mirrors)
• Tegan refers to Harry Houdini, whom she met in England in the 1920s. (AUDIO: Smoke and Mirrors)
• Dawon mentions Nyssa's children Neeka and Adric Traken. (AUDIO: Winter, Heroes of Sontar, Prisoners of Fate)
• Nyssa refers to the outbreak of Richter's Syndrome on Terminus. (AUDIO: Cobwebs)
• Nyssa's appearance is reverted to that of her younger self at the time that she left the TARDIS crew. (TV: Terminus) Tegan jokes that she has saved her husband Lasarti a great deal of money on plastic surgery. (AUDIO: Winter)
• The Tenth Doctor would later fly a hot air balloon over London on 24 December 1851. However, on that occasion, he claimed never to have done so before. (TV: The Next Doctor) The memory loss which he suffered following his fifth regeneration may account for the fact that he did not remember this incident. (AUDIO: The Reaping, The Gathering, Peri and the Piscon Paradox)
• During his tenth incarnation, the Doctor would later return to Calcutta in 1947 in the company of Donna Noble. On that occasion, they met Mohandas Gandhi. (PROSE: Ghosts of India)
• During their thirteenth incarnation, along with Ryan, Graham, and Yaz, would also land during the British Raj in 1947. (TV: Demons of the Punjab)

External links

• Official The Emerald Tiger page at bigfinish.com
• DisContinuity for The Emerald Tiger at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide