J is for... Jago

 

Henry Gordon Jago was the owner-manager of the Palace Theatre in London in the closing years of the 19th Century. Not only did he labour behind the scenes to manage the theatre, he also acted as Master of Ceremonies at each and every performance - delighting the audience with his flamboyant alliterative introductions for each act.

In the winter of 1889, the top act at the palace was the Chinese magician and mesmerist Li H'sen Chang, who was often accompanied by his grotesque ventriloquist dummy Mr Sin.

Little did Jago know that Chang was a servant of a war criminal from the far future, whom he believed to be a god. He had helped Magnus Greel establish a base in the cellars beneath the theatre, and was procuring young women from the neighbourhood, upon whose life essence Greel was forced to feed. Greel had become horribly disfigured by his time travel experiments and he was desperately searching for his lost time machine, which had been traced to London.

Jago joined forces with the Doctor, whom he assumed at first to be from Scotland Yard, but later considered to be some kind of private detective. Their investigations brought Jago into the orbit of  Professor Litefoot, the local police pathologist. The two attempted to work together to assist the Doctor, but were captured by Greel's Tong of the Black Scorpion. In captivity, Jago admitted that he was not as brave as he liked to make out. The Doctor and Leela arrived in time to rescue them. 

Once Greel had been defeated, and with his star attraction dead, Jago dreamed of making a fortune by selling guided tours of Greel's lair.

Played by: Christopher Benjamin. Appearances: The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977).

• One of three performances by Benjamin in the series. He first appeared as Sir Keith Gold in Inferno, in 1970, then became one of the few people to appear in both the classic series and "Nu Who" when he guested in The Unicorn and the Wasp in 2008.
• It is said that Robert Holmes and Philip Hinchcliffe considered a Jago & Litefoot spin-off series back in 1977. This never happened on TV, but the characters enjoyed a long relationship in audio adventures until the death of Litefoot actor Trevor Baxter.
• Jago's name derives from the 1896 book A Child of the Jago by Arthur Morrison. The Jago here refers to a fictitious slum area of East London.