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The official website of Ben Jackson: 2-time international champion magician providing custom-tailored entertainment and speaking services worldwide.
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Houston Magician Ben Jackson shares the story of HINES, the...
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Book Ben; Ben Jackson's Magic at The Four Seasons. Escape...
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Ben Jackson represented CARBO Ceramics, Inc. at the SPE...
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Companies contact Ben to spice up meetings, generate buzz at...
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Ben’s mingling magic allows your guests the opportunity to...
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Leave it to Ben to provide entertaining, witty, and custom...
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Ben Jackson is a world-class magician and host of a one-man show that combines elegant deceptions, sleight-of-hand magic, and piano playing in a close-up and immersive experience. The show is hosted by the Four Seasons Hotel Houston, a luxury destination in the heart of the city, and offers cocktails, dining, and special amenities for guests.
May 2, 2020 · From it's humble beginnings in downtown Toronto to its purpose-driven mission statement, Ben takes us through the history, facts and figures, and core values that truly separates the Four Seasons...
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- Behind the scenes
Benjamin Jackson, also known as Ben, was a companion of the First and Second Doctors.
An able seaman on a shore posting, Ben met Polly Wright and helped the Doctor defeat WOTAN, later entering the TARDIS just before it dematerialised. Ben and Polly witnessed the Doctor's regeneration into his second incarnation and travelled with him and Jamie McCrimmon before returning to their own time.
Early life
Benjamin Jackson (TV: The Underwater Menace [+]Geoffrey Orme, Doctor Who season 4 (BBC1, 1967).) was born in East Ham (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Cybermen) in December 1942 to James Jackson (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People; AUDIO: The Forsaken) and his wife. (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People) According to one account, he had an older brother who taught him and his school friends swear words. (PROSE: Ten Little Aliens) He grew up opposite a brewery (TV: The Power of the Daleks) and, as a child, often searched wreckage left by bombs from World War II with his friends, sometimes finding the corpses of animals trapped by the explosions. (AUDIO: Lost and Found) He once went to a holiday camp and found it to be a lot of fun, enjoying the band that they had there. (PROSE: The Macra Terror) He believed that his grandfather had "lost a few marbles" in the trenches (PROSE: Ten Little Aliens) and always wanted to be an astronaut. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Cybermen) Following his father's death from a heart attack, (AUDIO: The Yes Men) Ben's mother married Alfred, whom he did not get along with. (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People) He once had a headmaster who "got nicked" for not paying his bus fare. (TV: The Power of the Daleks) He found that he was not cut out for acting and said that, when parts were being sorted out for a school play, he would be lucky to be given the role of the back end of a donkey. (PROSE: The Murder Game)
Joining the navy
Like his uncle, (AUDIO: The Mouthless Dead) Ben signed up for the Royal Navy, (TV: The War Machines) joining at the age of fifteen. In 1956, at the age of fourteen, Ben sneaked onto his late father's ship at Tilbury Docks, which was bound for Singapore, and hid under tarpaulin, (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People) sleeping and dreaming of being discovered and of being attacked by sharks. (PROSE: The Murder Game) When he was found out, the captain promised him a "proper" job in four months when he turned fifteen, allowing him to work in the galley or engine room until then. (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People) According to one account, he wouldn't join until 1961. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Cybermen) During his time in the navy, Ben spent time on assignment in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. (AUDIO: The Mouthless Dead) He was transporting a lieutenant to a ship by motorboat one summer when the lieutenant said he had a feeling that something terrible was going to happen, after which he dropped dead. (AUDIO: The Dead Star [+]Error: Code 2 - no data stored in variables, cache or SMW.) By 1966, Ben was an Able Seaman aboard the HMS Teazer (TV: The War Machines) and was based out of Portsmouth. (PROSE: H.M.S. Tardis)
Later life
At some point, Ben was taken to the Black Archive by UNIT to have his record as a companion of the Doctor taken. His memories of the visit were subsequently erased and he was sent on his way. (TV: The Day of the Doctor) Ben proposed to Polly at the top of the Post Office Tower in 1966, which was witnessed unbeknownst to them by the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler. (COMIC: The Love Invasion) He was taken home to meet Polly's parents, but they were shocked by him. (AUDIO: The Five Companions) However, the relationship did not last. Whilst Polly married Simon, (PROSE: Graham Dilley Saves the World, etc.) Ben married a woman whom he did not tell of his dreams of Polly and his nightmares of killing a Cyberman. On New Year's Eve 1986, Ben and Polly secretly met in a hotel room and reminisced about their adventures, almost kissing before a drunk man distracted them and Polly left, saying that they would not see each other again. (PROSE: Mondas Passing) By 1999, Ben's wife was "gone" and he was running a pub in Sydenham. That New Year's Eve, he was taken by the Second Doctor and Jamie to wake Polly up following an ordeal, after which the four of them happily discussed their adventures. Ben told Polly that he loved her and the two kissed. (PROSE: That Time I Nearly Destroyed the World Whilst Looking for a Dress) They were married by 2009. (AUDIO: The Five Companions) In 2010, Sarah Jane Smith stated that Ben and Polly were running an orphanage in India. (TV: Death of the Doctor) The pair still lived in India at the time of Sarah Jane's passing but attended her memorial where they discussed Sarah Jane with the other guests and helped fight the Jackals of the Backwards Clock. (WC: Farewell, Sarah Jane)
In an aborted timeline created by the Decayed Master using a conceptual bomb, the Doctor, Ben, and Polly were dragged to the same address in space and time as the Doctor’s other incarnations and companions were. Soon, Ben’s adventures with the Doctor, and the first time he met him, were erased. This timeline was later negated primarily negated by t...
Ben was practical and a realist. It took him a while to believe that the TARDIS really travelled through time and space. He was also more sceptical than Polly when the Doctor regenerated, believing that the new incarnation was an impostor. It took a Dalek recognising the Doctor to finally convince Ben of the truth. (TV: The Power of the Daleks)
Despite being uncomfortable in groups of strangers and prone to shyness, Ben was adept at taking charge of situations and giving orders and would always dedicate himself fully to a task, completing it to the best of his ability. (PROSE: The Murder Game)
Ben was clever and never shirked danger or action. He was sensible enough to realise that taking on a Cyberman with a screwdriver would be a big mistake, and managed to dazzle one with the light from a film projector before killing it. Ben also worked out that the Cybermen were avoiding radiation, and helped devise a plan to destroy them using the Snowcap Base's reactor fuel rods. (TV: The Tenth Planet)
Ben might have been headstrong and impetuous, but he proved to be mentally weaker than his companions when they faced the hypnotic processing of the Macra. However, he did struggle against it, failing to report Jamie for having taken Officia's keys. (TV: The Macra Terror)
Though they came from different backgrounds, Polly, whom he nicknamed "Duchess" because of her upper-class accent, and Ben became good friends during their travels. They trusted each other, and their relationship was punctuated by good-natured teasing and banter. They complemented each other well, making a good team. When Polly created a chemical potion to kill the Cybermen on the Moonbase, Ben worked out its practical application of it — using fire extinguishers to deliver "Polly Cocktail". (TV: The Moonbase)
During their travels together, he and Polly thought of Jamie as being like their "baby brother." (AUDIO: The Forbidden Time)
Ben was skinny, blond and had the face of a "disreputable cherub". (PROSE: The Roundheads) His hair was usually straight and neat. He considered himself to be fit, but was in better shape prior to his time in barracks and drinking alcohol. (PROSE: The Murder Game) He was about a head shorter than Polly. (PROSE: The Highlanders)
•Ben was originally named Richard, also known as Rich.
•The character was conceived as an "Alfie-type" based on the film Alfie.
•Michael Craze said that he would have preferred it if Ben had been killed off, as he found his depature to be rather weak.
•He was written out of the show because it was decided that three companions was too many and that Ben wasn't working out. Anneke Wills left along with Michael Craze to show solidarity.
•He and Polly Wright were supposed to make a cameo in The Five Doctors, but Anneke Wills was outside the UK at the time and couldn't be contacted, so the idea was abandoned.
•The role of Ben in the Big Finish plays has been portrayed by Elliot Chapman, as Michael Craze had died a year prior to the company's first Who audio.
Sneaking into the TARDIS with Polly, Ben finds himself fighting Daleks, Macra, Cybermen and the faceless Chameleons. Witnessing the Doctor’s first regeneration, Ben is initially sceptical and slow to trust the Second Doctor – only believing when the Doctor is recognised by a Dalek.
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Benjamin "Ben" Jackson and Polly, sometimes called Polly Wright in spin-off material, are fictional characters played by Michael Craze and Anneke Wills, in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.
