Hey presto! Women magicians teaching men a trick or two!

With a swish of a wand, these women are making sexism vanish from the ruthless world of magicians (just don’t ask if they’re the glamorous assistant)

HEY presto! Mysterious things are going on in the world of magic. It’s been more than 25 years since the Magic Circle admitted women, and after years of sexism, often as the bikini-clad ‘glamorous assistant’ who’s sawn in half, women are making their names as professional magicians. Fewer than 100 of the Magic Circle’s 1,500 members are female. But have they made old traditions vanish into thin air? SAMANTHA BRICK spoke to five wand-erful women!