A VOICE SAID: ‘LEAVE YOUR HUSBAND AND GO TO VEGAS’... SO I DID!
Queen of magic Romany has performed for Prince Charles, is friends with David Copperfield and plays the world’s top venues. But it could all have been different if she hadn’t had a nervous breakdown at BT, she tells KATHRYN SPENCER
AVISION of showgirl glamour in feathered headdress, hour-glass corset and fishnets, Romany, Diva of Magic, is probably Britain’s leading female stage magician. Though she doesn’t like to be described as such.
“I’ve been arguing for years that if there is a comparison made I want to be compared to both men and women,” says Romany.
“Magicians aren’t athletes, there’s no reason to have a different category. I like to say I’m one of the world’s favourite magicians.”
She is indeed. Romany is the only female to win the Magic Circle’s stage magician of the year and the only British person to win the Las Vegas World Magic Seminar Gold Lion award.
Her fans include American magic superstars David Copperfield and Penn & Teller and even Prince Charles.
However, as Romany admits, magic is still a male-led world and she is one of very few women earning a successful international living.
Yet Romany wasn’t always Romany, the sassy and witty magical stage diva.
She was once a shy, “sturdy”, curlyhaired girl from unglamorous Shenfield, Essex, two stone overweight and working in sales for the decidedly unmagical British Telecom.
Not only that, she struggled and still struggles with the eating disorder bulimia.
How she transformed herself, mentally and physically, into what Time Out magazine described “as a flamboyant hybrid of Bette Midler and Mary Poppins... a razzle-dazzle mix of magic, comedy and intelligent glamour...” is told in her new autobiography Spun Into Gold.
‘“Magic is still very maledominated,” says an off-duty, makeup free, casually dressed Romany, sipping a dairy-free coffee in her home town of Brighton, East Sussex.
“It’s only recently that the Magic Circle let in female magicians, a couple of years before I joined in 1994.
“The thing that changed it was Hermione Granger in Harry Potter – she was a magician icon and girls then wanted to do it. Before then the well-known magicians were male, Paul Daniels, Tommy Cooper.”
HERMIONE, who is – after all – fictional, didn’t inspire Romany. She was doing magic long before then – and she didn’t always want to be a magician.
But she knew she wanted to be on stage from the age of six when she was taken to the ballet at the Royal Opera House and was enchanted by its colour and spectacle.
She also grew up idolising glamorous American screen heroines. “I didn’t have an ambition to be a magician but I loved old Hollywood films and women like Judy Garland, Doris Day and Liza Minnelli.
“But I can’t sing so I couldn’t do what they did. I took ballet from age three then I turned 13 and put on weight and realised I was not going to make it.”
She put her showbiz dreams on hold to study English and Italian at Manchester University. In her spare time she learnt juggling, stilt walking and salsa.
She got a graduate job in sales at British Telecom where she was promoted to be an account sales executive. But it wasn’t what she’d hoped for in life.
Overwork led to a nervous breakdown at 25 – and she quit. “That was when I decided to do a magic course and also one in circus skills. Then I got hurt in a hit-and-run accident and couldn’t exercise and could really only practise the magic and it went on from there.”
She also changed her name. “My real name was perfectly nice but I wanted a new me. I later changed my second name to Romany so I am Romany Romany. I wanted my own name, my own rules.” Gradually the glittering character of Romany Diva of Magic emerged. Romany uses comedy in her act and she says at first it was unintentional. “I am funny but I am not a standup comedian. I wanted to be a magician but the harder I tried, the more people laughed. “I am happy to be described as a mixture of Bette Midler and Mary Poppins. They are my girl heroes. Bette because she is vivacious and funny. And Mary Poppins performs magic.” Despite the paucity of women in the business she insists that she’s never had any problems from the male magicians. “They have always been very helpful and encouraging and delighted to be talking with a woman about magic since their wives aren’t usually interested!” Along the way she met and married another budding entertainer, a German juggler called Martin, and they became street performers before Romany realised that magic was her calling.
She says she heard a voice one day when she was 34 telling her: “Leave your husband and go to Vegas.” So she did.
Vegas proved a turning point. “I had entered a magic competition there with a seven-minute slot but I was told I could not do any material with fire due to health and safety so I added some comedy material instead – and won.”
Her career blossomed from then on and one of her heroes, David Copperfield, invited her on a personal tour to see his “magic museum” in Vegas.
Her favourite gig was performing for Prince Charles and Camilla at St James’s Palace. Charles was quite taken with her.
“I got a call saying, ‘Can you perform for Charles?’ They built a wonderful stage specially for me.
“I wasn’t nervous, I Iike the Prince and we have a mutual love of old radio comedy such as the Goons and Hancock’s Half Hour.
“Afterwards I was told the Prince wanted to meet me and he said he loved it, it was genius, fantastic, but he was rather worried I was going to pick him to go up on stage. I said I wasn’t allowed to!”
SHE also appeared on a Penn & Teller TV series with Jonathan Ross and that led to a regular and lucrative gig performing on “six-star” cruise ships.
But it hasn’t all been plain sailing. It is harder for a woman to be a magician, she feels.
“There have been a few female magicians but there was no one like us, we had to invent women’s magic.
“For example magic was designed for men with baggy male clothing such as jackets and trousers. I didn’t want to wear jackets and trousers. I wanted to wear slinky costumes.
“There was a female magician called Celeste Evans who influenced me. She died aged 90 and was very glamorous in slinky outfits.”
The costumes and heavy make-up take Romany over so she transforms into her alter ago. “I always wanted to be showgirl, a Bluebell girl but I