Could it be magic?
On set of quasi-supernatural mystery series Houdini And Doyle...
When he signeD UP TO play Harry Houdini, Michael Weston must’ve known what to expect. After all, there’s one illusion that’s pretty much synonymous with the master escapologist: the Chinese Water Torture Cell, which saw Houdini shackled around the ankles then lowered headfirst into a tank of water. But Weston wasn’t prepared for how scary the stunt really was.
“It was truly terrifying,” he admits, talking to Lounge from the comfort of his warm, dry trailer, on set near Liverpool docks. “You’re so completely out of control, and your mind plays tricks on you. I was freaking out.” “Yeah,” deadpans Stephen Mangan, who stars opposite Weston as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. “He does all that sort of thing… And I wear a moustache.”
Developed by House M.D. showrunner David Shore, Houdini And Doyle is a 10-part mystery drama based on the real-life friendship of the two 20th-Century icons. Well, loosely based on it. In the show, the duo become amateur detectives, elbowing their way into a series of weird criminal investigations to debate the existence of the paranormal. That bit isn’t true. But the reality is so irresistibly strange it could have been invented for TV: Houdini, an illusionist so talented people thought he really had supernatural powers, was a sceptic who went around exposing false mediums, while Doyle, creator of uber-logician Sherlock Holmes, was a true believer who regularly hosted séances. And they were friends.
Magical mystery tour
“These two guys were on the forefront of their two worlds,” explains Weston. “Houdini was an international star before there really were international stars, and Doyle was a huge writer. There’s a certain isolation that goes along with that, so they gravitated towards each other. They valued each other’s intellect and insight.”
Mangan concurs. “They’re the biggest prize for each other,” he says. “If I can convince him that there’s an afterlife, then I can convince the world.” You can almost hear Tumblr’s servers groaning at the prospect of hosting hundreds of new gif-heavy blogs analysing their relationship. Bromance aside, there’ll be plenty of other things for viewers to chew over. On the day TF drops by the set, the basement of a mid-terrace Victorian house has been transformed into a police station, where the sleuths are digging through piles of authentic-looking paperwork.
The mystery-of-the-week concerns a missing woman – her husband’s been arrested, and while Doyle’s distracted by reports of an alien creature spotted near the woman’s home, Houdini suspects the police of racial profiling. Chuck in an iPhone or two and it could almost be a scene from a CSI spin-off; belief in fairies aside, the show deals with topics that feel very current.
“I love the comparison of where we were then and where we are now,” smiles Weston. “There are a lot of similarities, but we’re so sure of so many things now. I think there’s something refreshing about being in a place of wonder, where things moved at a different pace. There’s a prevailing innocence to that time, and I think we long for it.” Might be as well to leave the walrus ’tache in the past, though… ET A | 17 March Houdini And Doyle begins on ITV Encore this month.