Thoughts after South Tyneside

The magic convention that's been held in South Shields, near Newcastle, for the past few years is going from strength to strength. There was an excellent line-up again this year and some of the highlights for me were:

Paul Daniels, who, as we all know, is an outstanding magician and entertainer and is also a very nice, straightforward man. Paul performed some wonderful magic at the gala show. It was the first time I'd seen him live and he was great. I was also lucky enough to be standing in the dealers' room at the right time and had a little chat with Paul about Manchester and the theatres he's played there. I'd thought he might be a bit scary to talk to but not at all.

Banachek, the amazing mentalist. During the gala show, he picked a few audience members at random and divined facts about them that he couldn't possibly have guessed. Unless he set this up in advance, which I know he didn't, I can't begin to imagine how he achieved this. I'm not normally very excited by mentalism but this was truly astonishing.

Paul Romhany, whom I didn't know before but whom I liked very much, particularly his lecture. He is from New Zealand, lives in Canada and travels almost constantly, so he knows a lot about packing small and playing big, as well as how to cope with airlines losing one's props. He gave us some nifty ideas for how to create the same effects with everyday objects rather than expensively gaffed equipment. Apart from the nightmare of losing one's luggage, this is handy for those of us who can't afford to buy pricey props in the first place.

Bob Sheets, who is famous for his three-shell game (find the pea under one of the walnut shells) but also does a lot of other cool tricks. I particularly enjoyed his lecture and was inspired to make my only purchase of the convention, a version of the three-card monte, done with jumbo cards.


John Archer was at his best compering the Friday evening show and his friend Tim Vine compered on Saturday. Tim Vine is not a magician but he is a great comedian. I went to his show at The Lowry Theatre in Salford a few years ago and John Archer was his warm-up. My friend and I had a drink with them afterwards, which was lovely. My sister really wanted to come to the show but she was in the middle of exams in Oxford so she couldn't. I told this to Tim and he wrote her a long and friendly note wishing her good luck. What a nice bloke!

Tim Vine (my own pic, not very good - sorry, Tim!)

Apart from the magic convention, I always enjoy visiting South Shields. It's a smallish town on the north-east coast, with a few good restaurants (we had an excellent dinner at Pacino's) and a relaxed atmosphere. I love the sea and it's also handy being 20 minutes on the metro from Newcastle. If I didn't live in Manchester, that area would definitely be my second choice.

South Shields park and harbour

Magic in fiction

My sister and brother-in-law are vicars and we sometimes talk about how sad it is that clergypeople on television are so often portrayed as perverted and sinister and/or spineless and grovelling. (The Vicar of Dibley is an obvious and welcome exception.)

I find it interesting also to see how magicians are portrayed in fiction. I don't mean magick fiction, because that's not really my cup of tea and I don't read it (although I do like magic realism but that's another story, as it were). I mean books and films about conjurors.

There seems to be quite a lot of variety as regards fictional magicians: some are rather foolish (Mitchell & Webb's Magicians, Adam Klaus in Jonathan Creek), many are ruthless (the rivals in The Prestige, Henri Lambert in The Magician's Wife, the magician behind The Magician's Tale), some are weak and a bit annoying (Marty Quick in 52 Ways to Magic America, William Wilson in The Bullet Trick), a few are downright criminal (The Vanished Man) and others are just weird (as in The Spirit Cabinet). The magician tends to emerge as more of a hero if he's based on someone who actually lived (Carter Beats the Devil, The War Magician).

In many cases, the magician's whole life is shrouded in mystery, and the fact that he has made a career out of conjuring is just an extension of - and a metaphor for - his living a life of illusion (Jennifer Johnston's Illusionist, Parsifal in Ann Patchett's The Magician's Assistant). I like this angle - as, I believe, does my friend Marc Oberon. He has lent and given me several books about magicians and is a somewhat mysterious character himself.

Welcome!

Hello everybody and welcome to my blog. I've been thinking of setting one up for some time, as a space to write my thoughts about magic, the magic books I've read, the magic conventions I've been to, the magicians I've seen/met... and also about how conjuring fits into the great big scheme of things. I'm interested in what magic is, to what extent real magic exists, to what extent conjuring should be presented as if it were real magic and issues of this sort. I've talked to several magicians about these questions but it occurred to me that, if I write some thoughts in a blog, people might comment and that we could sometimes get some discussions going.

Anyway, what prompted me actually to get this blog off the to-do list and into cyberspace was the arrival this week of my niece Jemima. I've never been an aunt before and it's absolutely wonderful! Magicians tend to use the word 'miracle' quite loosely but childbirth: now, there's a real miracle. Because it's been happening every day since the beginning of time, it's easy to take it for granted but those of you who've been close to it will know what I mean.

Jemima

John van der Put said something similar in my interview with him (click on the link to read it). It's interesting what people consider to be magic and what they take for granted. Automatic doors, mobile phones and palm-top computers are (at least, in our culture) accepted as standard. Occasionally, we may say, "It's clever what they can do these days, isn't it?" but it doesn't feel like magic. And yet, as John says, when he takes a signed four of diamonds out of his wallet, everyone goes wild because it's 'impossible'.

One man's instrument of magic is another man's everyday gadget - but what makes it amazing is not just not knowing how it's done (how does a mobile phone work?) but unfamiliarity with the whole concept. My cousin's wife, Cassie, wrote a fascinating book about the Congo, where they lived and worked for a few years, before moving to Bangladesh. (My cousin, Mark Dummett, is a BBC journalist and I've put a link to his website in the Links section.) Cassie's book is called Brazzaville Charms: Magic and Rebellion in the Republic of Congo and it describes several instances where things happen - and people die - for reasons that make no sense to a Western mind.

So there we are. A few thoughts for the first day. What do you think?