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Successfully Stuck in the Past and Making Real Progress
The Magic Circle Centennial Christmas Show
December 2005
Review by John Derris
Every
year for the past few years over twelve hundred people send money twelve weeks
in advance of the opening of the annual Magic Circle Christmas Show They're not
magicians. They're not nuts. They are ordinary folk with families who enjoy
seeing what is deemed by some as old fashioned magic by elderly gentlemen who do
card tricks on a Monday night. And this is no one-off event boosted by some
clever P.R. campaign. It's a sell-out year after year with many of them
enthusiastically coming back again and again.
Perhaps it's because they prefer what some would call traditional magic. Girls
produced from boxes, doves plucked from the air and a member from the audience
floating unsuspended in mid air. Perhaps they are not so keen on seeing a girl
give birth to a rabbit on stage or the vanishing of a mobile phone later
recovered from inside a man's stomach or the raising of the dead. Some may like
it but I couldn't possibly comment.
But this continuing aesthetic and commercial success in Stephensons Way is not
unique to the premier magical society. The Davenport dynasty with a hundred
years of experience and heritage behind them are also successfully repeating
such traditional fayre with their Davenport Christmas Wonder Show in the middle
of Norfolk. A show led by mercurial performer and producer Roy Davenport with
magic, music, dance and novelty that filled the theatre last year, this year and
surely well into the future. Critically acclaimed by the Norwich Press also the
eagle eye of talented Andy Nyman, magician and stage director of the highly
successful Derren Brown Show, it surely points to the growing demand for live
quality magic on stage by millions of jaded TV viewers growing a little tired of
extreme and bizarre entertainment demanded by producers desperate for ratings at
any price.
And so it was this year at The Magic Circle. As said earlier a sell-out three
months in advance and a family type audience at which this annual show is aimed.
Not a kiddy winkies show but a magic show with close-up, illusions, novelty and
parlour magic from an international line up of performers whose ages ranged from
16 years to 70 plus. Master of Ceremonies was Peter Greenwood, droll, po-faced
but with a Yorkshire delivery of funnies and tricks that can whoop up any
audience be it the Winter Gardens at Blackpool or The Centre for the Magic Arts
in London. He introduced young Jonathan Shotton, finalist in The Magic Circle
Young Magician of the Year 2005 whose yellow and black themed act gets better
and better with doves, cards, candles, silks, canes and closing with the
production of a giant bird cage complete with parakeet. He won an excellent
response not occasioned by his youth or courage but by the sheer quality of his
fast developing act.
Next was John Archer. (John Archer in a show with a liberal sprinkling of
children?) In my view the top comedy magician in Britain today whose sight and
sound gags employ no bad taste, expletives or off colour material and whose
nimble brain can work an audience into a conference of fun that includes
children as well as their parents. Why this performer is not a regular on TV
when I often see inferior talent drawing huge rewards is something I don't
understand. Watch out for his break through. It will come. John is not only an
outstanding comedian but his magic is of the highest quality. Tell me of anyone
in magic today who can do a Magic Square routine with outstanding, original
humour that is genuinely 200% entertaining. Add to that Balloon Swallowing and a
Book Test plus his considerable comedic talent and personality and you have one
of the most entertaining acts around today. He lifted the roof in Stephensons
Way.
An interval in which the audience enjoyed really close-up magic with Phil Banks,
Dennis Patten, Rob Page, Richard Sanders, Stephen Barry, Sam Clarke, David
Tomkins and yours truly as well as visits to the famed Magic Circle museum.
Back on stage Peter Greenwood introduce a magician from the USA, Denny Haney. I
thought I recognized that puckish, fun-filled face but couldn't quite place it.
Of course. It was the guy whose fun ads are displayed on the rear covers of the
American magic magazines advertising the magic wares of Denny & Lee. And the
flavour of his advertisements completely captures the personality of this
performer. Looking like a vaudevillian (which he was) in dinner suit with black
and white checkerboard slippers (his agent told him to dress differently from
all the other professional magicians performing in vaudeville, so he chose
slippers!). No props on stage but he immediately engaged with the audience
presenting a very smooth Malini Egg Bag routine culminating with the production
of a glass of whisky. A cane and a hat changed to a table and he performed card
manipulations and productions but in a style that underlined his many years of
working professionally in theatres. A former Vietnam war veteran he took leave
in London and met Ken Brooke who sold and taught him the original Multiplying
Martini Bottles with which he closed his act. A solid, fun, entertaining magic
act that added a real international flavour to the bill.
Many people had never seen anything like the next act. Imported from Belgium,
Hans Davis presented hand shadows, Victorian perhaps in concept but
enthusiastically and warmly applauded for the sheer skill and novelty in these
days of electronic wizardry. The best I'd seen up to this artiste was perhaps
Edward Victor and Raoul who performed in "Westminster Wizardry" way back in the
50's but Hans Davis was equally excellent. I've seen shadow performers grasp a
cardboard cut-out of Winston Churchill and stick out their finger for a cigar
but this act employed nothing but his two hands. It was original, creative and
most imaginative covering shadows of celebrities, animals, birds and others all
complete with a well scored sound track. Come again Hans.
Closing the show was Scott Penrose, now a fully-fledged, full time professional
and consultant who has successfully migrated from the finance industry in the
City of London to the theatres and TV and film studios of the world. In the past
I've enthused about his prize-winning stage act that contained much original,
self- contained magic cloaked in sartorial elegance, but now he has blossomed
with a new stage format of front cloth routines and stunning illusions. He now
has a class and style that reminds me of the stage presentations of Dante and
Robert Harbin and its delightful to see this performer emerging as one of our
best and leading stage magicians.
His effects and routines are visual delights and include a production of his
assistant Aila from a cage, a levitation with a member of the audience with both
chairs removed and the repeated use of a solid hoop to prove the absence of
outside support, a stunning Cube Box illusion a la Zig Zag and a stage-filling
snowstorm finale. These illusions were interspersed with front cloth
presentations which included his own Gipsy Thread routine, spinning yo-yos that
change to silks, a tumbler of liquid which changes to a silk to reveal a
selected card and a delightful Linking Ring routine with a dove perched on one
of the rings throughout. The choice of music and the originality of the
presentation of this effect was outstanding and it was sheer poetry to watch
although Scott , a man a real integrity, later advised me that the idea was
first dreamed up by a Dutch magician. Scott Penrose makes most of his illusions
himself and his knowledge, respect for the history of magic and past magicians
and sheer attention to detail marks him one of Britain's leading stage
performers.
That was it. Full houses every night, booming sales at The Magic Circle Shop and
departing members of the audience already booking for next year! True! It takes
nearly forty willing members of the Circle to stage this annual success story,
produced by Peter Scarlett and under the direction of Chris Pratt who each year
scours the world for new and unusual magic and variety entertainment. We must be
getting something right.
© John Derris, January 2006