N is for... Night Travellers

Enigmatic beings whose origins are obscure, they travelled the country as part of the Joshua Joy Travelling Show around the turn of the 20th Century.

Known also as the Night Circus, they only performed after dark. Their arrival and departure was never observed by the local people, though their appearance often followed a fierce rain storm. On occasion, they had vanished by day break, their departure coinciding with local people who had attended the show going missing.

Their leader and Master of Ceremonies was known as the Ghostmaker, and their number included a strongman called "The Great Stromboli", clowns, jugglers and acrobats, and a girl named Pearl who could seemingly breathe under water.

The group came to the attention of Torchwood and Captain Jack Harkness joined them for a time undercover - posing as a miracle man who could come back to life after being shot.

A short time later, the circus itself simply disappeared.

Decades later, an old cinema was about to be reopened in Cardiff, dedicated to classic film. To mark the occasion, the son of its owners edited together a compilation of archive clips from local newsreels. This included footage of the Night Circus, and its screening allowed the Night Travellers to emerge from the celluloid back into the real world. Jack registered their presence when he heard their distinctive circus music.

They attacked a number of people, the Ghostmaker extracting their lifeforce into a small silver flask he carried, leaving victims in a state of living death. They seemed to have a strange affinity with water, establishing a shelter in an abandoned outdoor swimming pool where they stored some of their victims.

The group were destroyed when the original celluloid was burned. Only one person's lifeforce remained in the Ghostmaker's flask who could be revived - that of a small boy. The others could never be saved.

It transpired that other archive footage of the Night Circus might exist - allowing the Night Travellers to emerge back into the world once more...

Played by: Julian Bleach (Ghostmaker), Camilla Power (Pearl). Appearances: TW 2.10 From Out of the Rain (2008).

• Bleach is one of the few actors to have appeared in a significant role in all three RTD series - in Doctor Who (as Davros), The Sarah Jane Adventures (as the Nightmare Man) and here in Torchwood.
• Camilla is a distant cousin of the Hollywood star Tyrone Power.