The Truth of Peladon (audio story)

The Truth of Peladon was the fourth and final story in the Peladon audio anthology, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Tim Foley and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor.

Publisher's summary
Arla, last of Peladon's great seamstresses, is commissioned to make a great cloak for the latest coronation. She'll need a new assistant to complete her work in time, and one appears: the Eighth Doctor! Determined to show Arla the truth of Peladon, the delicate threads he's drawing together will change Peladon forever.

Plot
The monarch of Peladon has died and the coronation of the next approaches. Chancellor Barok commissions Arla Decanto to make the new monarch's Cloak of Coronation, which will be needed in a month. Arla's new apprentice knocks on the door and, once Barok has left, she opens the door to the Eighth Doctor.

Arla is sceptical of the Doctor, who is far older than any apprentice she has been sent before. She is impressed by the tailoring he has done to his trousers and coat and seems not to know about the royal family, for whom there is no mourning in the streets. When the Doctor asks who is next in line, she asks if he is one of Barok's men sent to spy on her. Ultimately, she says, nothing will change no matter who is sat on the throne. She gets him to reach a box containing the original Aggedor fur from the first Cloak of Coronation.

The Doctor cooks dinner for Arla, who does not have access to very much nice food due to her social status as a service worker. She says that the people became hungry a decade ago and things have changed since then, including a sharp decrease in the number of people.

The next morning, Arla tells the Doctor that she heard him talking in his sleep and shows him her initial sketch for the cloak, which Barok has approved. The Doctor is impressed and picks the silk for the lining. Arla has found out that the original cloaks had a map of the stars stitched in and, when the Doctor says that they will need an astral convergence map, she queries his earlier statement that he was not a man of learning. He heads to the observatory, dressed in Arla's cape with the seal of the seamstresses' guild to keep the guards from bothering him.

to be completed

Cast

 * The Doctor - Paul McGann
 * Arla Decanto - Meera Syal
 * Chancellor Barok - Jason Watkins
 * Ssilas / Gentry - Nicholas Briggs

Continuity

 * The Doctor sings a Venusian lullaby to one of the Aggedor creatures. (TV: The Curse of Peladon, The Monster of Peladon)