You never really die, once you’ve recorded something that retains you for posterity. People will go on watching Henry Gordon Jago and Professor George Litefoot in their one television outing The Talons of Weng-Chiang or listening to their Big Finish audio adventures together until you and I are long beyond propping up daisies. Sadly, however, real life is much less eternal, and when Trevor Baxter passed into the beyond in July of 2017, he left behind him not just a singular legacy involving anything from Adam Adamant Lives! to George & Mildred and myriad points in between – including one of the most popular and enduring guest turns ever committed to Doctor Who – but sadly an unfinished run of stories in those aforementioned audio adventures, which had left the series on a cliffhanger rather too specific to simply let the run discontinue so inappropriately.
Fortunately producer David Richardson, writer Paul Morris and director Lisa Bowerman have combined – under the auspices of executive producer Jason Haigh-Ellery – to find a way of remembering Baxter’s contribution and his character, and celebrate this small corner of his career, in a manner that works to wrap up the fictional story of Jago & Litefoot without being either too obvious or too sentimental.
Beginning at the cliffhanger ending to Series 13’s Too Much Reality, we soon find ourselves remembering back to the events that followed from some indeterminate point in the future, as Christopher Benjamin’s Jago discovers his investigating partner missing at the turn of the year and a few days ahead of a monumental occasion in their shared lives. Finding his memories are disappearing, and with the help of the likes of Inspector Quick, Ellie Higson and Dr Luke Betterman, Jago gradually works his way towards an inevitable reunion and both the only kind of happy ending this story was ever going to get, as well as the most fitting in-universe send-off it was possible to devise.
It’s slightly unfortunate that said farewell involved – of necessity – a couple of performances phoned in from other recording sessions, and the excerpts of Baxter taken from previous plays, while expertly managed, were never quite going to sound of a piece with the acting going on around them. These are but minor quibbles, however, and the tone and subject of Jago & Litefoot Forever could not be better judged. Morris has done an exceptional job of creating a story that rounds off the characters’ investigations in the most suitable fashion – and Christopher Benjamin will break your heart come the end of it.
The three-CD set also includes a physical release for Jonathan Barnes’ Jago & Litefoot Revival, a pair of Short Trips that was the last work the two actors performed together, and a whole disc’s worth of interviews, with the majority of those involved explaining how this final story came about and remembering Trevor Baxter with love and respect. For any fans of the actor and his Doctor Who character – whether you’ve partaken of the Jago & Litefoot audios before or not (the Series 13 reprise and assorted flashbacks to previous adventures won’t be too confusing for newcomers) – this is a truly indispensable purchase, and a graceful commemoration of one of the finest actors ever to appear in the programme.
JAGO & LITEFOOT FOREVER / PUBLISHER: BIG FINISH / DIRECTOR: LISA BOWERMAN / WRITTEN BY: PAUL MORRIS, JONATHAN BARNES / STARRING: CHRISTOPHER BENJAMIN, TREVOR BAXTER, LISA BOWERMAN, CONRAD ASQUITH, LOUISE JAMESON, COLIN BAKER, ROWENA COOPER, DAVID WARNER, JAMIE NEWALL, STEPHEN CRITCHLOW / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 30TH
