HOUDINI @ HALLOWEEN

A curious juxtaposition of 90th anniversaries this month: the birth of Winnie-the-Pooh on 14 October and the death of Harry Houdini on Halloween 1926, ninety years ago today.

 

Back in 1996, I made a radio programme marking the 70th anniversary of Houdini's passing: twenty years on, it's still quite a good listen...

MAGICAL MOVIE MOMENTS

I've long been fascinated with magic in the movies and recently had an opportunity to write something on the subject for the June issue of The Magic Circular, the magazine of The Magic Circle. 

It feels like there's a book in there waiting to get written: I wonder if I can convince a publisher that I'm right?

Meanwhile, depending on the efficiency of your eyesight, here's the preliminary version (click on individual images to enlarge)...

DEATH AND THE MAGICIAN

Many strange things are alleged to have happened on Halloween. One that most certainly did occur was the death of a man whose name was – in his lifetime and has remained in the 87 years since – synonymous with Magic...

HOUDINI

Throughout his life, Harry Houdini diced with death – accepting challenges to undertake life-threatening stunts and dangerous escapes. 

Following the death of his beloved mother, he sought to discover whether there was a means of contacting the departed: a quest that led him to expose fraudulent mediums and spiritualists who faked contact with the dead for financial gain.

And so he danced with the Grim Reaper – cheek-to-bony-cheek – until his own tragic death on 31 October, 1926.

The story of Houdini's life, death and what did (and didn't) happen afterwards is told in this radio programme which was first broadcast on this night in 1996 to mark the 70th  anniversary of the legend that was HOUDINI...

"ARE YOU THERE, HARRY HOUDINI?"

THEY'VE GOT ME COVERED

True it's not Vanity Fair or GQ Magazine, but amongst the select readers of The Magic Circular, the magazine of The Magic Circle, I've finally arrived and have a cover profile to prove it!

 

MAGIC MOMENTS

Today is a sad occasion for British magic with the funeral of former Chairman and President of The Magic Circle, Alan Shaxon, Member of the Inner Magic Circle with Gold Star. Alan was a stylishly elegant, consummately professional performer and a generous colleague to fellow magicians worldwide, by whom he was much loved, admired and respected.

 
Here's some rare footage of Alan with his wife and assistant, Anne, performing two classic illusions by another master magician, Robert Harbin...

And here's a variation on the subdivision of the female form, 'Little by Little', performed by Alan with his daughter, Julia, on the Paul Daniels Magic Show...

Finally, check out a period snippet from a 1964 Pathe Newsreel in which Alan and another subsequent President of The Magic Circle, the late Ali Bongo, are seen confounding Britain's newspaper photographers with their sleight of hand.

 FAREWELL TO A MASTER OF THE MAGIC ARTS

PAPER MAGIC

Have you started your Christmas present list yet? Probably not, but when you do get around to it, here's a unique little gift book that will delight kids of various ages – and keep them busy. It is, in fact, a perfect stocking-filler...

Written by Steve Biddle, internationally acclaimed practitioner in the Japanese art of paperfolding and with illustrations by Megumi Biddle (herself a super silhouette-artist) Origami Magic is a collection of seventeen fascinating tricks, puzzles and illusions...

 A starter-pack of multi-coloured sheets of origami paper is included with the book and there are easy-to-follow instructions will allow any beginner to create all sorts of entertaining and amusing diversions...

For the aspiring conjuror there are several creations that are both a kind of magic in their own right as well as intriguing and original props for an impromptu display of legerdemain! You can not only make a rabbit – as seen on the front cover – you can make a magic tube from which to produce the little fellow...

You can learn more about the artistry of Steve and Megumi Biddle by visiting their website Paper Magic!

MAGIC & HUMBUG

Charles Dickens was a conjuror: he produced unforgettable characters and scenes out of thin air and made them an indelible part of national – and world – culture; but he was also a keen amateur magician who amazed his literary friends with his acts of legerdemain.

Dickens has now become inseparably associated with the Christmas season – largely as a result of that 1843 ghost-story-with-a-moral, A Christmas Carol, and the other Christmas Books that followed.

The story of the tight-fisted Ebenezer Scrooge, Marley's Ghost, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim and the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet To Come has been told and re-told to a point when it has ceased to be a literary phenomenon and has assumed a mythic status.

With the success of what Dickens called his little "Ghost Story of Christmas", the Victorian theatre – where ghosts were being regularly being conjured as an ingredient of plays and programmes of entertainment – began calling up Scrooge's spectral visitors with the aid of the cutting-edge special effects technology of their age.

This December the British Library celebrates the author's particular fascination with ghostliness and spookery in an exhibition, A Hankering after Ghosts: Charles Dickens and the Supernatural.

To coincide with the event, David and I are presenting a couple of performances of A Christmas Carol and the Conjuror: a divertissement combining a reading by me of Dickens' famous text – as abridged and performed by the author in his Public Readings of 1858 – interspersed with magical interludes from David featuring a cavalcade of mystifying tricks inspired by Scrooge's saga.

Performances are on Friday 9 December 2011 at 6:30 and Saturday 10 December at 2:30.

Don't be a HUMBUG: BOOK NOW!


Portrait of Dickens by Scala

MAN OF MAGIC

BIRTHDAY GREETINGS

to
Master Magician, Illusionist, Actor, Showman, Yachtsman, Pilot, Death-defying Stunt Artist...

JOHN CALVERT


100
years old today

still performing magic and booked to appear at the London Palladium in September!

ON THE CARDS

There's more Euro-silliness in the offing today with revelations that forthcoming European Union legislation will require a bizarre change to an item of everyday life that has gone unchanged for several centuries - the common or garden pack of playing cards.

According to breaking news, the proposals announced by the European Union, which will come into place in April 2012 include the dropping of the 12 Royal cards (Kings, Queens and Jacks) from all packs of cards manufactured within the EU in order to reflect the fact that there are more republics than monarchies among members states.

The familiar suits of Clubs Diamonds, Hearts and Spades would be joined by a new suit, Stars (see specimen pack above) making up the new 'metric' pack of 50, as opposed to the traditional 52, cards.

I understand that The Magic Circle is, apparently, planning to mount a legal challenge to these proposals. A spokesperson said: "We are very concerned by these news rules... The standard pack of 52 cards embodies a long legacy of cultural and magical history. Frankly, many of our members are hoping to make these new rules disappear."

For more on this story and the response of the world's premiere magic club, visit the website of The Magic Circle.

BIRTHDAY TRICK!

wishing
DAVID WEEKS
A Magical 60th Birthday!

Click to watch David performing magic!

Image: © Brian Sibley 2010

You can view more of my pictures on my flickr Photostream.

IF EVER A SWIZ THERE WAS

Never having previously had a book of mine announced with a film commercial, I was understandably excited when my forthcoming volume, Harry Potter Film Wizardry, was accorded this treatment...

Two minutes of ecstatic marketing wizardry and yet, evidently, no time to mention the writer! Still, there's no mention of J K Rowling either!

Never mind: at the time of posting, the 'trailer' has already clocked up more than 22,000 viewings on YouTube, so let's just hope – at some not-too-distant point – that a few magical royalty cheques will serve as compensation for my anonymity!

Incidentally, I'm not being a spoilsport, but – whilst I haven't yet seen a copy of the finished book – I don't think the pictures move about as much as they do in the advert!

SMOKY SOUNDS

Amazon kindly wrote to me the other day, saying: "As someone who has purchased or rated Winter Lullabies by Howard Goodall, you might like to know that Yanomami: Music for Choir and Guitar is now available. You can order yours for just £13.69 by following the link below."

I did and was faced with the following - rather disturbing CD cover...


Well if ever there was proof that smoking can damage your health, that is it!

Apart from which, I remain unconvinced that Amazon's similar-product-identifying machine got it quite right on this occasion. The link between Howard Goodall (that nice English composer who wrote the theme music for The Vicar of Dibley) and the Hispanic/Latin American choir, Coro Cevantes, elludes me.

Still, it's intriguing! And might just possibly provide David with a musical accompaniment for a multiple cigarette production routine!

And to inspire him, here's a superb performance which only needs the addition of another four fags to achieve something similar to the illusion demonstrated above.

THE MAGIC OF RADIO

Some years ago, I presented a six-part radio series on the history of magic.

"Ho, ho!" everyone laughed, "Magic on radio! That's like ventriloquism on radio!"

Of course, that's like ignoring the fact that one of the biggest American radio shows in the 1940s starred ventriloquist, Edgar Bergan and his dummies Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd while the biggest British radio show of the 1950s featured Peter Brough and Archie Andrews.

As it turned out, my series - rather unimaginatively entitled It's Magic! - was successful and, indeed, earned me my membership of The Magic Circle.

* Pause for cries of astonishment and muted applause *

Anyway, now there's a new radio series with the much better title of Smoke & Mirrors that has just started on Resonance: 104.4FM in London or online anywhere in the world.


Smoke & Mirrors is presented by fellow Magic Circle member, Matt Duggan, and I'm delighted to be his guest on this evening's programme, talking about the history of magic and some of its colourful characters like Chung Ling Soo, the famous non-Chinese Chinese Magician, one of whose posters (above) carried the somewhat immodest legend: A GIFT from the GODS to MORTALS ON EARTH to AMUSE and MYSTIFY.

We'll also be talking about two of the early masters of British magic, John Nevil Maskelyne and (below) the Magic Circle's first president, David Devant...


...as well as the man often referred to as 'The Father of Modern Magic', French conjurer, Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, whose many wonders included the Marvellous Orange Tree (shown below) which bore flowers and then fruit and from which two butterflies emerged holding a previously borrowed (and vanished) handkerchief.

You can read more about the show on the Smoke & Mirrors website and to hear the programme online tonight at 6:00 pm or the repeat on Friday 24 April at 10:00 pm...

Tune in here

A LAST SHRIEK

Today we'll be attending the funeral of the President of The Magic Circle, Ali Bongo.

Here, for my international readers, is Ali performing ('trilingually') his signature trick featuring the mysterious pom-pom stick or, as Ali's English patter used to call it, 'The Chinese Whatsit' - a cue to ask "Whatsit do?" Well, I'll let Ali show you...

And so, as Ali used to say, "That  answers the question 'Whatsit do?', but that still leaves the question 'Whatsit FOR?'"

Our friend's passing is very much the closing of a chapter in the history of magic, and there's no better way of remembering this zany, lovable, colourful personality than as he was seen on The Paul Daniels Magic Show with all the energy, vigour and eccentric inventiveness of his prime, performing his madcap act -- 'The Shriek of Araby'...

Best Salaams, Ali!

You can read more about Ali Bongo in my obituary to him in The Independent

NEWS FROM PONGOLAND

The Independent have published my obituary to Ali Bongo. And at 4:00 pm on Friday 13 March, I'll be talking about Ali on the BBC Radio 4 programme, Last Word. The programme will be repeated on Sunday 15 at 8:30 pm and can be heard via the BBC iPlayer for the following seven days.

And here's the front page cartoon by Matt from the Daily Telegraph. How Ali would have laughed......

Cartoon by MATT, © Telegraph Media Group Limited 2009

ALI BONGO (1929-2009)

A fond and sad farewell to our good friend Ali Bongo.

The President of The Magic Circle, Ali was one of the most quirkily inventive magicians of our time.

Born William Wallace in India, Ali became known throughout the magic world as the 'magician's magician'.

The author of many books of magic, often illustrated in his own distinctive cartoony style, he also worked as an adviser on countless films, plays, operas, ballets and TV programmes, teaching non-magician actors how to convincingly perform illusions on stage or screen.

Ali would later serve as the inspiration for Alan Davies' popular television character, Jonathan Creek, and acted as the series' magical consultant.

A great comedy performer in his own right - his crazy, Arabian Nights-inspired wizard act, the Shriek of Araby was a tour de force of anarchic zaniness - he spent much of his career as a back-room-boy for two of the greatest television magicians of the twentieth century, David Nixon and Paul Daniels: advising them on their magic and devising new tricks and illusions for their shows.

Ali appeared on many of Nixon's shows: sometimes in the guise of a bewigged footman named Alistair, sometimes as himself, but always to ensure that the front-man magician got the magic right!

Here he is assisting David Nixon with an illusion of his own devising, featuring the American performer, Barbara Hanna.

Funny, generous-hearted and hugely knowledgeable, Ali was universally respected and loved by the magical community. He was presented with The Magic Circle's Carlton Award for Comedy in 1983 and was elected as the society's President last year although he had already long been an unofficial, international ambassador for magic.

His passing means that there's suddenly a little less magic in our world...

There are a number of interview clips with Ali on the BBC's web-site page for Jonathan Creek in which Ali talks about the series, magic, Harry Potter and The Magic Circle.

Video by John Helvin © 2009

MATRIMONIAL MAGIC

A few months ago, I revealed a startling revelation about the Mickey-mousehold...

No doubt there were those who were a tad shocked to discover what the world had assumed was a long-standing boy-and-girlfriendship had resulted in progeny (albeit acquired via the stork method), but to allay any disquiet from the Moral Minority or other interfering do-gooders, I'm happy to bring you this evidence of their true marital status...

This picture of Mickey and Minnie's wedding day bliss appeared on a silk handkerchief first manufactured, I would think, in the 1930s for use in a children's magic show. The little Mephistophelean profile in the bottom right-hand corner signifies that it was made for the oldest family-owned magic shop in the world, Davenports, founded in London in 1898 by Lewis Davenport a magician who - inspired by Mickey's huge popularity - incorporated a trick featuring Mickey in his own stage act.

Having settled the question of those mouselet's legitimacy, I'll leave you with a reminder of the fact that their dad is no slouch when it comes to magic as can be seen from his 1937 film, Magician Mickey...

MAGIC MILESTONE

Congratulations to

D A V I D

who, this week (according to his blog), performed his

4000th

Magic Show!

I never tire of watching him perform, whether for children or adults:
it's a great gift to be able to be able to create

WONDERMENT!

GOING BANANAS!

Following on from the misadventure of the keys and the bananas which I reported the other day, I can now tell you that the---


...is, apparently, he world's---

MOST POPULAR FRUIT

It is also, of course, unquestionably the rudest (wasn't it Mrs Beeton who described it as "a vulgar fruit"?) and, probably, the silliest which it is why it is the butt - if a banana can be a butt (no, please don't let's go there!) - of so many jokes...

Q: What's yellow and always points north?
A: A magnetic banana.

Q: Why don't bananas snore?
A: Because they don't want to wake up the rest of the bunch.

Q: What do you do if you see a blue banana?
A: Try and cheer it up.

Q: Why did the banana go out with the prune?
A: Because it couldn't find a date.

Q: If a crocodile makes shoes, what does a banana make?
A: Slippers.

Q: What is yellow on the inside and green on the outside?
A: A banana dressed up as a cucumber!

But what about this one...

Q: What's the best way to make a banana disappear?

A: Send for regularly-featured Sibley-blog-star, Richard Wiseman

And finally......

Knock, knock!

Who's there?

Banana!

Banana who?

Knock, knock!

Who's there?

BANANA!

Banana WHO?

Knock, knock!

WHO'S THERE??

Orange!

Orange who?

Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

MAGIC MOMENTS

If you missed my appearance on yesterday's BBC Radio 4 programme, Before Your Very Ears, you can 'Listen Again' on the BBC's Radio 4 website for the next seven days.

And on the subject of magic: last Saturday, David took part in a Charity Gala Concert in aid of the Slough, Windsor and Maidenhead Samaritans.

Held at the Norden Farm Centre for the Arts in Maidenhead, the three-hour-plus concert was a feast of music and entertainment featuring the legendary Laurie Holloway and a talented line-up of singers and musicians, many of them graduates of the Montgomery Holloway Music Trust founded by Laurie and his late wife, Marion Montgomery.

Laurie performed a couple of solo items - a superb Sinatra medley and a wickedly clever Beatles medley that managed to incorporate references to Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and other classical composers along the way - as well as accompanying several of the other artistes including the amazing soprano, Shola Hector, here seen singing 'Cabanera' from Bizet's Carmen.


The wizard Mr Weeks performed two magic sets: one with his usual line of patter, the other featuring his less frequently seen silent act. Here's part of the latter for your enjoyment...

SAMARITANS is a remarkable organisation offering confidential non-judgemental emotional support, twenty-four hours a day for people who are experiencing feelings of distress or despair, including those which could lead to suicide.

If you know anyone whose worried about something, feeling upset or confused, or just in need of talking to someone, make sure they know about Samaritans. Whatever a person's going through, whether it's big or small, Samaritans are there for them on the end of a telephone 24/7.