Doctor Who Companion Chronicles: The Mahogany Murderers
Starring: Christopher Benjamin as Henry Gordon Jago and Trevor Baxter as Professor Litefoot
Format: 1 CD (or download) of two half-CD episodes, mostly told by one actor at a time
Silly? There is a degree of metafictive silliness, using Victorian science instead of modern science and playing with the different narration styles of the two leads, but the main thrust of the story is not silly.
Standalone? This was standalone when released, but it is also the de facto pilot episode of the subsequent Jago & Litefoot audio series.
Recommended? Yes.
My reactions to this story contain spoilers for it, and possibly mild spoilers for the Jago & Litefoot series following it.
Before listening
Jago & Litefoot were characters appearing in a single Doctor Who television story, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, which is generally regarded as one of the more significant Fourth Doctor stories despite its use of Orientalist cliches. (By "generally", I mean among people who go around regarding Fourth Doctor stories at all, whom I suspect are more forgiving of such things than the global average.)Big Finish decided to bring the characters and their actors back for this Companion Chronicle, then almost immediately started planning to use them further. Lisa Bowerman's direction deserves some credit for this; unlike many Big Finish series, the Jago & Litefoot series has a single director for almost its entirety. If I recall correctly, Bowerman threw in a few lines herself to help set up the frame tale of this Companion Chronicle; the barmaid she plays, Ellie, ends up being a major character in the full-cast Jago & Litefoot series.
Trevor Baxter's death in late 2017 eventually put an end to the Jago & Litefoot series after thirteen boxsets and several special installments. I've heard less than half of the series, but I've relistened to this particular Companion Chronicle and have probably heard it three times. I'm rather glad that my Randomoid Selectortron took me to the ground floor of this series.
The Mahogany Murderers revels in being a Victorian-era science fiction story. The science involves vitalism, the concept of a material life energy that is scientifically distinct from non-living energies; this idea is implicitly true in a lot of how Doctor Who works, but here it is used in a completely explicit, unquestioned way. Wooden automata play the role that metal robots would play in a more standard Doctor Who context, and electrical power is a strange cutting-edge technology that can do essentially magical things as the plot requires. The rough outline of the story could happen without these affectations, but affectations are essential to the Jago & Litefoot listening experience. The way the story is told matters, with Jago & Litefoot telling their respective portions in different ways. From what I recall, the narrators are slightly unreliable but call each other out when necessary so that the listener isn't left unclear about which events they're embellishing.
I am looking forward to another listen of this story, and as Halloween approaches it seems like an appropriate one for the season.
After listening to episode 1 of 2
The Mahogany Murderers opens with Jago and Litefoot meeting up in a bar to debrief each other after an adventure. This is Litefoot's first time in the bar and his first time talking to Ellie, the barmaid (who appears in this episode only at the beginning). Jago's clothes are burnt and neither of the two is entirely clear about the nature of the events they have been through. Litefoot starts at the beginning, telling Jago the details of why Litefoot sent Jago a telegram asking him to investigate a location. Jago then tells the story of that investigation, and the two trade narration back and forth, carrying the story forward more or less chronologically. Jago, an experienced theatre producer, criticizes Litefoot's storytelling style while puffing up his own story. The banter as they interrupt each other is entertaining and is placed at points where the delay increases tension, without to me seeming like a cheap device for doing so.Between their TV appearance and this story, Jago & Litefoot have had other untold adventures together, including one involving a trained anteater and an aluminium violin. They consider themselves firm partners in investigating the unusual, but they haven't seen each other very recently prior to this adventure. Litefoot still examines bodies for the police, which is how he came across the mystery in question. Jago is still working in theatre, but his own theatre is under repairs and he is serving as a master of ceremonies elsewhere to make ends meet, and he has enough free time to have responded immediately to Litefoot's telegrammed request.
At the end of the episode, Jago & Litefoot are still in the bar bringing each other up to speed. In the stories they are telling, each of them has reached a cliffhanger moment and they have not yet been in the same location. While it is clear they both survived the adventure, and they aren't particularly traumatized beyond Jago's upset at his only good suit being burned, the cliffhangers are still reasonably tense.
Electricity taking the role of an advanced and mysterious technology is even more important to the story than I had remembered it. In the same spirit as trying to pin down UNIT TV stories to a specific decade, this raises an issue. Jago thinks of the prospect of electric stage lighting as laughable, but he mentions a song by Arthur Sullivan. Jago is not interested in classical music and would only know Sullivan from a popular work, and Gilbert & Sullivan started using electric stage lighting very early in their collaboration, so electric stage lighting should be on the table as a serious option by now. This timeline question is not worth thinking about too hard, but it is something that occurred to me.
I am looking forward to hearing the next episode. I remember the main twists of it, but I forget a lot of how the story was told, and as I mentioned earlier that is important to this Companion Chronicle.
After listening to episode 2 of 2
Sound designer David Darlington deserves mention. All we're hearing during the bulk of the story is either Jago or Litefoot, solo, describing events, backed with sound effects and music. The sound effects and music carry the burden of making the story sound like anything but a stand-up lecture, and they are effective, particularly at contrasting the pub of the frame tale from the locations of the action. This is very different from the more television-like style of the subsequent full-cast Jago & Litefoot series.Lisa Bowerman has another couple lines as Ellie at the top of this episode, but not otherwise. Ellie's larger role in the subsequent series is not in evidence here.
In the action of this episode, Jago & Litefoot's paths briefly cross, although Jago is unaware of it at the time. The writing quality dips for the duration of one monologue, in which a villain tells other villains things that they obviously already know. This monologue transparently exists for the sake of giving the audience backstory without breaking away from the premise of Jago & Litefoot telling each other the story after the fact. Giving the protagonists actual investigation scenes in which they'd uncover the information more naturally would have taken more than one CD at the banter-driven storytelling pace The Mahogany Murderers does so well, and I think the clunkiness is forgiveable.
The story ends with a loose end: the immediate paranormal menace has been destroyed, but the evil scientist responsible is still on the loose. Jago & Litefoot resolve to continue investigating, and the behind-the-scenes interview track teases the possibility of a sequel. From what I recall, the subsequent Jago & Litefoot series doesn't immediately pick up on the loose end from The Mahogany Murderers, but it is not forgotten.
This is an excellent Companion Chronicle, well worth listening to either on its own or as a prelude to the main Jago & Litefoot series. I am looking forward to more Jago & Litefoot coming up on my Randomoid Selectortron in the future.
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