Magician (Notes on a Play)

A magician was a character in the earliest drafts of William Shakespeare's play Hamlet.

He wore "exotic apparel" such as a knotted bow of ribbon at his neck. The magician entered for his one scene from a blue box which spontaneously appeared and spoke with Hamlet, claiming to have met him before. He described himself as a Lord of Time and also mentioned to Hamlet the "foul crimes done in the War of Time", the "secrets of [his] homeworld", and the "quills upon Koquillion". Eventually, the magician revealed the murder of Hamlet's father to him, telling him to seek revenge for his unnatural demise. Shakespeare admitted that the scene still needed a bit of work.

The inclusion of the magician in the playwright's first thoughts about Hamlet merited their inclusion in the Shakespeare Notebooks because the character was based upon the Eleventh Doctor. (PROSE: Notes on a Play) At some point between the First Doctor's collaboration after the first draft (PROSE: Byzantium!) and the Fourth Doctor's collaboration with Shakespeare on the final draft, (TV: City of Death, PROSE: The Stranger, The Writer, His Wife and the Mixed Metaphor) the magician was cut from Hamlet with his role in the narrative being fulfilled by the ghost of Hamlet's father. (PROSE: Notes on a Play)