London

The shelves behind the counter of Clerkenwell’s International Magic shop are crammed with playing cards, garish silks, arcane books, lengths of white rope, DVDs and boxes of assorted tricks, props and gimmicks.

Standing in front of them a man taps a wand and three small balls he has placed on top of three upturned stacked cups disappear through the solid bottoms of the cups, then jump from underneath one cup to another.

The cup-and-ball routine is one of the oldest magic tricks in the word, so old it was part of the conjuror's repertoire in ancient Rome. It is also, I'm pleased to say, a trick I can do, though not as well a the man in front of me, Martin MacMillan, 49-year-old owner of International Magic. Feature continues

Having attended MacMillan’s inaugural eight-week beginners magic course this summer I have also been introduced to the mysteries of routines with coins, cards, sleight of hand and misdirection– in short, all the techniques needed to perform a rudimentary close-up magic show (provided I put in plenty of practice first).

Before starting the course, I half-expected to be waving a wand with Derren Brown and David Blaine wannabes, but on my first day I was surprised find a mixed group of all ages, nationalities and professions including psychologists, scientists, graphic designers and children’s entertainers who, like me, had been itching to discover the secrets of the profession.

There is a rich tradition of magical performance in London, at times an immensely popular entertainment that had its heyday in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Many of the key venues have now disappeared, or changed beyond recognition. Egyptian Hall on Piccadilly was built in 1812 as a private museum (it was demolished in 1905 to make way for an office block), but in the 1830s it became ‘England’s Home of Mystery’, run by the founding father of British magic John Nevil Maskelyne, and his partner George Cooke. Shows included vanishing ladies and popular illusions such as ‘Psycho’, the card-playing automaton.

Along with popularity came respect in academic circles and in 1838 The Royal Polytechnic Institution opened at 309 Regent Street with the aim of demonstrating new technologies and inventions. A new theatre was added in 1848, which became world famous for its magic lantern shows and also for the theatrical illusion ‘Pepper’s Ghost’, (named after the Intitution’s Director and popular science lecturer Professor John Pepper), in which ghostly spirits interacted with flesh and blood performers.

And then there were the famous international visitors. The Hippodrome (now Cirque on Leicester Square) was built in 1900 as a public performance space – part circus, part theatre – which proved ideal for illusionists. There in 1904, Harry Houdini famously broke out of a supposedly unbeatable pair of handcuffs – specially built by a Birmingham blacksmith over five years – after being challenged by the Daily Illustrated Mirror. At the same venue, he vanished a fully-grown elephant and its trainer from the stage, built over a swimming pool to prove there was no trapdoor.

But for all its history of razzmatazz and high profile ‘events’ the real appeal of magic in London is its sense of being a family endeavour, a world where people share their ideas and where the famous and the little known rub shoulders as equals. All these attributes converge
at International Magic. The shop was established in 1962 by Martin’s late father Ron, a highly skilled billiard ball and coin manipulator. Ron MacMillan had been introduced to magic back in 1952 (his nurse gave him a magic book when he was hospitalised with TB). Once he recovered Ron worked as a clerk at Albert Docks, but continued practising conjuring and in 1957, after being offered his first two-week booking, he became a full-time magician. His nurse, Teresa, became his wife and still helps run the business. Martin’s sister Georgie is also involved, as is one of his nephews, who works on the website.