Miranda (The Tempest – A Work in Progress)

Miranda was a character in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.

She was the daughter of Prospero and eventually fell in love with Ferdinand. (PROSE: The Tempest – A Work in Progress)

Fictional biography

First thoughts

In his earliest working notes for the play, Shakespeare pondered over it being a boy/girl love story featuring feuding fathers who were Kings or Dukes of somewhere in Italy, possibly Milan or Naples, later settling on Dukes of Milan. He developed a storyline in which one Duke had deposed the other and exiled the deposed Duke to an island which ended in the usurper being shipwrecked on the island and the deposed Duke murdering him. However, Shakespeare scrapped this "revenge tragedy" upon reminding himself the brief was for a romantic comedy, revising the plot so that the boy and girl would get married and the deposed Duke would forgive the usurper rather than kill him, after which "everybody goes home". Shakespeare considered the possibility of the shipwrecked ship being undamaged in order to allow everyone to go home at the end but deemed this a "bit implausible", highlighting in addition to this the already-quite-large coincidence that the usurper Duke ended up on the same island as the deposed Duke, though he also acknowledged that he "got away with it" in both The Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night.

With regard to more specific details, Shakespeare wished to work in a chess scene due to it being a "popular craze". He thought the boy and girl could play a game together, though also noted a match between the Dukes and a chess-themed song and dance as potential alternatives to this. (PROSE: The Tempest – A Work in Progress)

Following Forbidden Planet

At some point, the Tenth Doctor became aware Shakespeare was struggling to write his play. He sent him a battery-powered Blu-ray player and a copy of Forbidden Planet to draw inspiration from, reasoning that it was "not stealing" because the film was based upon the version of The Tempest Shakespeare was about to write.

Filled with fresh thoughts, Shakespeare nailed down the identity of the girl as Prospero's daughter, who was exiled to the island with him. Having never seen any other men before, the girl experienced love at first sight upon encountering the boy. Additionally, she was "overcome" whe she saw the other arrivals, stating "oh brave new world that has such people in it". In order to check that the boy was truly worthy of his daughter, Shakespeare had Prospero use new addition Ariel to put the boy "through the mill a bit".

Later, coming to the play's conclusion, Shakespeare outlined that all three different plot lines (including the love story) would be "sorted out" by Prospero and Ariel. He wavered over whether this was "too easy" and if he could claim it was a deliberate Deus ex machina to impress Johnson. Brushing aside these concerns, he stated in his notes his belief that he was "nearly there" and that the rest of the story would "write itself". Finally, Shakespeare informed the Doctor that he just needed to think up some character names. Telling him "Ah, might be able to help you with that", the Doctor listed off two moons of Uranus, Miranda and Ferdinand, thus giving the boy and girl their names. (PROSE: The Tempest – A Work in Progress)