Everybody Loves Irving (audio story)

Everybody Loves Irving was the sixty-second Bernice Summerfield audio story released by Big Finish Productions. It was the third story of the Legion series.

Publisher's summary
Bernice and Braxiatel have never quite seen eye-to-eye...but now he wants to make amends. He's taking her on a leisure drive across Legion's deadly surface to an Ikerian settlement not far from Legion City. Their mission: shopping.

The Ikerians are renowned traders, dealing in everything from the finest art to cut-price battlecruisers. They're willing to do a good deal too. After all, they know Irving Braxiatel of old... and better than this Brax knows himself.

Everywhere they go and everyone they deal with, Braxiatel's reputation precedes him. He has good friends and even better enemies... but one thing's for certain. Everybody loves Irving.

Plot
Irving takes Benny across Legion on a surface trawler to Ikeria City where he purchases a launch silo and a Sartak Explorer Mark VI from Lord Galot, an old friend of the Braxiatel that Benny knew and who has a tracker placed on their trawler. The next day, Irving takes Benny to the silo and leaves her to explore and see what work needs doing whilst he contacts structural engineers, providers of solar panels and an interior designer.

Ruth approaches Peter and tries to get to know him, but he tells her that Antonio says that something is wrong with her and that he does not like Peter being around her. He leaves, telling Ruth that she will never meet Antonio. Jack makes an attempt to ask Peter about him and plants a video bug in his apartment. Later, Ruth and Jack watch and see Peter apparently talking to himself, but decide not to tell Benny about it for now.

Benny finds that the computer, EOIN, at the silo has an extensive file on Irving, but it denies her access. The Surlioids arrive in their spacecraft and Benny assumes that they are attacking until they inform her that they are plumbers, sent by Galot. After Benny almost drowns in the bath because of the heating valve failing, interior designer Julezand arrives and furnishes the place, although Benny finds the result ostentatious. At dinner, she and Irving toast to new frontiers.

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Irving Braxiatel - Miles Richardson
 * Peter Summerfield - Thomas Grant
 * Ruth - Ayesha Antoine
 * Jack - David Ames
 * Galot - Cameron Blakely
 * Ikerian - Matt Butcher
 * EOIN - Andrew Macklin
 * Female Autopilot - Lizzie Hopley
 * Female Surlioid - India Fisher
 * Julezand - Scott Handcock

Worldbuilding

 * Draconians do not drink their own brandy. Irving's father laid down a cellar of it when he was a baby.
 * Irving uses a replicator to make Benny a bacon sandwich.
 * Irving wears handcrafted suits.
 * Irving did not set up the Braxiatel Collection.
 * The White Rabbit has robodrones.
 * Benny is mistaken for a concubine.
 * Benny mentions Adrian Wall.
 * Benny uses a torch.
 * Irving's ship comes from Zeta Prime.
 * Irving finds buttons, levers and switches reassuring.
 * Benny's father recommended hitting something if it did not work the first time around.
 * Jack once knew a Killoran called Artie Triomphe.
 * The Thieving Magpie and William Tell were written by Gioachino Rossini.
 * Alexander Pope was an English writer, poet and essayist.
 * Benny claims that she has the bubonic plague, that she is a black belt in karate and that she is a haemophiliac.
 * The launch silo is located at "Shuttle Crater XJ-7, Legion (the dark side of, very nearly)".
 * The Surlioids next stop is Kurmian IX.
 * Julezand does not like magnolia.
 * Antonio likes Galyari sauce.
 * Peter says that Antonio is going to be a Galweb sensation.
 * Irving has a long table from the Sumerian Empire.
 * Irving and Benny drink wine from Irving's home.

Continuity

 * Ruth mentions the Deindum. (AUDIO: Escaping the Future)
 * Benny sings "The Sky's No Limit", the Historians' rebel song from the Zordin system. (AUDIO: Year Zero)
 * Benny mentions that the other Braxiatel had Jason Kane killed. (AUDIO: The End of the World)
 * Benny mentions Adrian Wall. (PROSE: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Doomsday Manuscript)
 * Irving found Peter in a slave pit on Bastion. (AUDIO: Vesuvius Falling)
 * When Galot says that Irving is the master, he says that he sincerely hopes not, referring to the Master. (TV: Terror of the Autons, etc.)
 * Benny mentions the Galyari. (AUDIO: The Sandman, etc.)
 * Irving says that his home is a painful topic for him. (AUDIO: Panacea, etc.)