NES WON BGT, WE REVEAL THE... Masters of the Magic Circle

oks new fter won 5, a valry, ITV o the ircle. dmits s but xam. magic. It was huge. People weren’t as educated back then as they are today and these performers were bringing wonders to the stage.

“They were showing things from Indian or Middle Eastern culture that had not been seen here before – it really was like magic to people.”

Magic Circle members have performed, and sometimes invented, stage illusions such as levitation and cutting a woman in half.

Chinese magician Chung Ling Soo – actually an American of Scottish descent – even died performing the bullet-catching trick. And of course in a world built on trickery, there were unscrupulous people ready to cheat their way to success. Mr Penrose explained: “It was a cut-throat business. Magicians stole other’s idea for their own career. “It was not uncommon to bribe stage hands or poach staff to find out how things worked.” Among the Magic Circle’s founders were illusionists David Devant, its first president, and John Nevil Maskelyne. One of its earliest members, Will Goldston – a lifelong friend of Harry Houdini – fell out with the Magic Circle and led a breakaway, even setting up a rival club. An author and magic shop owner, Goldston would steal ideas from other performers and reveal their secrets in magazines he published. Goldston also exposed fake mediums who used conjurers’ tricks.

Now the motto of the Magic Circle has a chill warning in Latin that it is a big no-no to give away secrets – Indocilis Privata Loqui.

Among the best known Magic Circle stars was Robert Harbin, inventor of one of the most celebrated tricks of all – the Zig Zag Girl.

Chopped

He moved to London from his native South Africa when he was 20 and began performing in music halls as Ned Williams the Boy Magician in Maskelyne’s Mysteries.

He was one of the first illusionists to move from stage shows to TV – making his first appearance in the show Variety in 1937.

When TV broadcasting resumed after the Second World War, Harbin was one of the first BBC stars.

In his Zig Zag Girl illusion a woman assistant in a box appeared to be chopped into three pieces which could be moved around.

It stunned 1950s audiences and even fooled every member of the Magic Circle. Which is some trick...