Antonio (The Tempest – A Work in Progress)

Antonio was the placeholder name for a character featured in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.

He was the brother of Prospero, whom he usurped as the Duke of Milan and exiled to an island. (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, having decided the feuding fathers would be both Dukes of Milan, he outlined an altered version in which one had deposed the other and exiled the deposed Duke to an island, where he remained until the usurper Duke was shipwrecked there, at which point the deposed Duke murdered the usurper. Shakespeare thought of this iteration as a revenge tragedy but quickly discarded it upon reminding himself the brief was for a romantic comedy. Consequently, he revised the plot again by framing the deposed Duke as the "good guy" and making him forgive the usurper rather than kill him, after which "everybody goes home". Shakespeare questioned why the usurper exiled the deposed Duke instead of killing him when he had the chance and made a note to think up a good reason for this potential plot hole. He subsequently decided that the Dukes could be brothers, adding in the family angle as well as explaining why they would not be eager to kill each other. On the subject of the Dukes' wives, Shakespeare put down that they were either dead or at home in Naples. Desiring to work in a chess scene due to it being a "popular craze", he thought the Dukes could play a game together, though also mentioned a match between the boy and girl as an avenue for this.

In his notes on more specific details, Shakespeare wrote that the usurper Duke would be helped by the King of Naples and at some point would attempt to kill his ally, only to be stopped by the deposed Duke in what the playwright himself described as "nice irony". Contemplating the fate of the shipwrecked ship's crew, Shakespeare judged it to be a "bit grim" for a comedy if they all drowned, instead weighing up as alternatives either that they were just lost on the island or that the Duke and the King were the only ones swept overboard. He also considered the possibility of the shipwrecked ship being undamaged 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. Soon after this Shakespeare attempted to select a name for the usurper Duke, rejecting Usurpio and Mutinio before temporarily picking Antonio. However, he underlined the fact that this was a placeholder only on account of the fact he had already used the name on four separate occasions. (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 ideas, Shakespeare, having decided that Prospero was not just a Duke but also a wizard who studied books of magic, removed the coincidence of the two Dukes ending up on the same island, with Prospero causing a storm at the play's beginning using his magic staff, forcefully bringing "Antonio" there as a result. The magic shipwreck also served to explain why only the usurper Duke, the King of Naples, the Duke's son, the courtiers and the funny servants came to shore. The boat was located on the other side of the island, with the rest of its crew as its occupants all asleep inside.

With regard to the play's conclusion, Shakespeare outlined that the three different plot lines, which included the court intrigue, would all be "sorted out" by Prospero and new addition Ariel. He wavered over whether this was "too easy" and if he could claim it was a deliberate Deus ex machina to impress Johnson, pondering if there was a potential gag in Dukes ex machina. 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". (PROSE: The Tempest – A Work in Progress)

Behind the scenes

William Shakespeare evidently never got around to thinking up a better name for the usurper Duke because he is called Antonio in the real world's version of The Tempest, in spite of Shakespeare's insistence in The Tempest – A Work in Progress that the name would only be a placeholder.