Ariel (The Tempest – A Work in Progress)

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

Fictional biography
During the early stages of writing the play, Shakespeare struggled for ideas, ultimately culminating in the Tenth Doctor sending him a battery-powered Blu-ray player and a copy of Forbidden Planet to draw inspiration from. The Doctor claimed this was "not stealing" because the film had been based upon the version of The Tempest which Shakespeare was about to write.

One of Shakespeare's first new thoughts after watching it was to give Prospero a "metal man" who would carry out his orders. He originally decided this could be a "robot" as in the movie, (PROSE: The Tempest – A Work in Progress) which featured a character named Robby the Robot, (PROSE: Grimm Reality) but he quickly determined it would be too similar to a man in a suit of armour and that the audience would "never buy it". He instead settled on either a fairy or a familiar spirit. Attempting to select a suitably "windy name", Shakespeare rejected Wafty, Gust and Airco, and briefly questioned Arial before finally picking Ariel.

With regards to specific elements of the plot, Shakespeare had Prospero use Ariel to put his daughter's lover "through the mill a bit" to check he was truly worthy of her. Shakespeare also utilised Ariel to help Prospero "sort out" the "court intrigue" by saving the life of the King of Naples and by using a "force field" to make weapons freeze in the air. Later, liking the idea of doing something with invisibility but doubtful of Blackfriars' capabilities, Shakespeare made Ariel invisible, albeit not to the audience. To integrate this feature into the plot, the playwright elected to do the "people-being-pinched-by-invisible-attacker gag", noting it had been "ages" since he wrote the same thing into A Midsummer's Night Dream and banking on nobody remembering it. Shakespeare also put in his notes that Ariel could shove the clowns into rivers, but subsequently swapped this with Ariel leading the clowns into a swamp.

Shakespeare then moved onto devising a "baddie" for the piece, deciding on a witch who was exiled to the island and a primitive provisionally named Canibal who was her servant and son. Additionally, the witch created Ariel, but then died, leaving Canibal alone on the island. The question of what became of Ariel still remained, however. Shakeseare considered that he was either buried in fathoms of the Earth or in the sea five fathoms deep but eventually resolved that Ariel had been trapped in a magic tree. This also explained Ariel's debt of gratitude towards Prospero as he was the one who set him free.

In other sections of his notes mentioning Ariel, Shakespeare planned to have him sing from behind the audience in order to show off the acoustics of Blackfriars, with music emanating from a hidden musician's gallery. Also, after thinking to pair up Canibal with the clown double-act, Shakespeare also jotted down getting him drunk on wine and dressed up in "hilarious trousers" as another of Ariel's magic pranks.

Coming to the play's conclusion, Shakespeare outlined that Ariel would be set free from his responsibilities to Prospero, who would also give up his magic staff and books. Finally, Shakespeare summarised that the three plot lines (the court intrigue, the love story and the comedy business with the clowns and Canibal) would all be "sorted out" by Prospero and Ariel, but he momentarily wavered over whether this was "too easy" and debated 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". (PROSE: The Tempest – A Work in Progress)