The whole story about the cutting edge of magic
A century after a magician first sawed a woman in half, Jane Matthews experiences the modern version, and comes out the other side.
As I’m held down on a bench by a metal contraption, Josh Moreland holds up a saw with something missing.
‘‘You guys didn’t bring any hack saw blades did ya?’’ he says, staring into my eyes with a mischievous look as I shake my head. ‘‘Ah, I’ve got just the thing.’’
The purple bow tie-wearing magician reaches into his box of tricks and pulls out a well-used electric saw.
The 35-year-old plugs it into an extension lead and sparks fly.
He screams, I laugh – it’s a nervous laugh – then he asks if I’m ready to be sawed in half.
‘‘Yep, sure,’’ I say, although I’m really not sure.
Moreland, a fulltime magician, took on a modern version of sawing someone in half a while ago and says with a smirk that there have been ‘‘very few’’ injuries.
The trick was first done by magician PT Selbit (born Percy Thomas Tibbles) in Finsbury Park Empire, north London, in January 1921.
The Guardian says the trick has a ‘‘rich and fascinating’’ history, although the reasons for its almost instant popularity during the early era of women’s suffrage may not be the noblest: ‘‘for every person who thought it was great that women were getting the vote, there were other people who thought it great that a woman was being put in a box and sawn in half.’’
Many versions of the trick have come about over the past century, but the same outcome remains – the person (not necessarily a woman) miraculously gets up in one piece.
Moreland jabs me in the hip with the blade and I wince. It’s real.
He holds up a towel ‘‘just to clean up the mess’’ – it’s covered in what looks suspiciously like blood. Moreland then puts the 30-centimetre blade in the metal contraption, flicks it on and it starts up, sounding like an old lawn mower. ‘‘Three, two, one.’’
I hold my hands clenched so tight to my mouth that my fingers turn white.
The magician hysterically screams while he forces the blade across my body, cutting through the two pieces of wood I have laying on my stomach.
All of a sudden I can see the blade on the other side and Moreland lifts it back out.
The magician asks how I’m feeling and hunts down some insulation tape, which I place across my stomach.
‘‘Woohoo,’’ I announce, two thumbs up as I sit in one piece, while Moreland asks if there’s any blood.
He calls himself a comedy magician and remembers the day his fascination turned into a hobby, when as a seven-year-old, he watched a touring magic show. ‘‘The illusions, the lights, the music, it was great.’’
Shortly after he went to his Waikato primary school with a marble and cup trick to show his class, and decided to keep learning more. ‘‘At some point I got enthusiastic and looked up a clown’s number in the phone book.’’
He was put in contact with a magic club and chased his dream for years as he became an early childhood teacher.
‘‘There’s only so many tricks you can do before you have to do real magic. I couldn’t cut someone in half, I couldn’t make a dove appear.’’ Glen Bennett (aka The Great Zucchini)
‘‘Being a magician had always been one of my dreams, but I never really saw how that would be possible.’’
His magic side-hustle spread by word of mouth, and he started performing at parties, even after moving to New Plymouth.
He doesn’t remember if he’d seen someone be sawn in half, but that didn’t stop him buying the tools to do it himself.
Nowadays, he’s known as ‘‘Magic Works with Josh’’. He mostly performs at children’s birthday parties, and also hosts an annual Halloween event for adults. His car number plate is ‘‘Madjik’’.
‘‘It’s my dream,’’ he says.
And while Moreland thinks he’s the only professional magician in Taranaki, he’s not the only one that ever dreamed.
First-term New Plymouth Labour MP Glen Bennett was once known as ‘‘The Great Zucchini’’. Bennett started his magic career at the age of 10, in the 1980s, but says it was his ‘‘past life’’.
‘‘I love magic,’’ he says. ‘‘I think the dream was there early on.’’
It started off with ‘‘silly gags’’ at his nana’s house, and he was later roped into performing at family events.
He had a magic wand, could make scarves disappear, and says his biggest talent was his ability to ‘‘work a crowd’’. Bennett retired at the age of 13. ‘‘Maybe I just wasn’t that magical anymore,’’ he laughs. ‘‘But there’s only so many tricks you can do before you have to do real magic. I couldn’t cut someone in half, I couldn’t make a dove appear.’’
As for Moreland and the other magicians around the world who can saw someone in half, how do they do it, you might ask?
I can’t tell you. A reveals their tricks. magician never