Doctor Who review: The Mahogany Murderers is a brilliant prelude to Jago & Litefoot

The Mahogany Murderers is not only an extremely well-written adventure for two great characters. But it also helped to set up one of the greatest Doctor Who spin-offs of all time…

Earlier this week, we wrote about how this month marks ten years of one of the greatest Doctor Who spin-offs ever, Jago & Litefoot. But while Jun 2010 was when it began, the series had its roots in an audio story released over a year earlier: The Mahogany Murderers by Andy Lane.

This in itself was an extremely special release. It was the first time that both Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter had played Henry Gordon Jago and Professor Litefoot since Tom Baker story The Talons of Weng-Chiang in 1977. The original serial had always been a popular one, and a key reason for that is down to how lovable the characters of Jago and Litefoot are. So expectations were extremely high for this audio.

Released as part of The Companion Chronicles range, the format of the story stands out compared to the spin-off it would eventually lead to. The only cast members are Christopher Benjamin, Trevor Baxter, and Lisa Bowerman – the last of which not only plays the barmaid Ellie Higson but also directs the story. Ellie would eventually become a major character herself in the spin-off, but in this story, her role is small, as Jago and Litefoot meet at the Red Tavern to discuss one of their adventures.

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A believable conversation

This is the brilliance of The Mahogany Murderers and why it works so wonderfully well. The Companion Chronicles often featured companions telling a story to someone else, with the occasional bit of dramatization via the inclusion of another character.

Having Jago and Litefoot tell their side of the same adventure to each other allows for two great things. First, it gives both characters an equal share of the story, with neither one overshadowing the other.

However, even better than that is how much the story feels like hearing an actual conversation between these two. They interrupt each other constantly. They lie or overlook certain details before the other picks up on it. They even discuss their private lives in a natural way as well as their own perspectives of the world. They share the same moral values, but are part of very different classes, and Andy Lane’s writing explores that brilliantly.

Victorian horror and humor

As for the story itself, The Mahogany Murderers is absolutely fantastic. It’s a wonderfully macabre and clever story that captures its Victorian setting brilliantly. On top of that, there’s plenty of humor throughout, mainly because of Jago and Litefoot’s banter more than anything else, so it’s never out of place.

It’s not hard to see why The Mahogany Murderers was so successful, or even why it lead directly into a full-on spin-off series. It captures everything that had made Jago and Litefoot’s original TV appearance so popular in the first place, and yet it also establishes several successful elements of its own. An absolutely essential listen for all Doctor Who fans.

Have you listened to The Mahogany Murderers? Is it one of your favorite stories? Do you think it’s a worthy successor to The Talons of Weng-Chiang? Let us know in the comments below.