When a New Trick Comes Out, I Do an Old One

‘I’ve got press tickets to the magic spectacular at the Clinkskell Playhouse. You can’t buy them for love nor money. They’re like gold dust.’

Jonny’s distinctively plummy tones crackle through the static of a poor telephone connection.

‘I’m alright, thanks’ you reply.

Why would you want to review that? The editor of Theatrical Magic sighs,

‘Look, I know you’ve retired from reviews, moved on to bigger and theoretically better things, but this is right up your street. Nobody I employ here has your knowledge, your flair, your style, or can brutally manhandle a typewriter in the way you can.’

His patter is mildly amusing from a nostalgic perspective, but it isn’t very persuasive. You are about to definitively refuse, when he casually mentions

’Mademoiselle Marionette is topping the bill.’

Mademoiselle Marionette. You haven’t heard that name in years. In all your time reviewing stage magic and theatrical shows you never saw her perform. Almost nobody had. And the few who had witnessed her only spoke of it in distant, whispering tones. Amelia Fulford, an old dear who was almost geriatric when you were starting out, was not one for sentimentality. But you never forgot the eerie, far-away look that came over her when the name of Mademoiselle Marionette was once mentioned at a staff Christmas party.

You are driving too quickly through pouring rain, lost somewhere in Northern England, when the carphone rings. Cursing, you pull into a lay-by and pick it up. It’s Jonny.

‘There’s been a bit of an issue with the latest issue…’

‘Go on,’ you reply with closed eyes.

‘…if you can get the purple prose churned out overnight I think we can get into the Sunday Supplements! No need to thank me.’

‘I wasn’t planning to,’ you sigh down the receiver.

‘Check in at the Playhouse lobby when you get there, they know you’re going to be arriving with flawless punctuality and a sunny disposition! They sound a fine selection of miscreants on the phone, took so long to-’

the line cuts dead. You listen to the rain hammering upon the roof of the hire car, and unfold a crumpled road-map on the passenger seat.

‘Where the hell is this Clinkskell supposed to be…’ you mutter to yourself.

Waiting by the lobby ticket office, you glance at your cheap wristwatch. You’ve already missed more than half the performances. Can you live with yourself after missing an act called See-Saw Feet? Yes, you can. The lobby receptionist returns holding a thick ledger. An elegant lady in her fifties, if she was displeased by your late arrival she certainly didn’t let it show.

‘Yes, I have all of your details dear’ she points to an entry in the ledger with a well-manicured purple fingernail,

‘just sign your name… here, and you can go right in love.’

You quickly scrawl an illegible signature in green ink, smile fleetingly and hurry through the theatre doors as quietly as possible.

You gingerly take your seat at the end of the front row. Considering that You can’t buy tickets for love nor money the place is half-empty. You glance around. An immaculately dressed young lady is sitting two seats to your right. Her arms are full of stylish wooden bangles and her haircut is straight out of the 1920s. Above her in one of the boxes you can see members of the local aristocracy, all flamboyantly togged-out and faintly grotesque in appearance. Looking down at your own evening attire, you feel slightly underdressed. Turning your attention to the stage, it seems as if the current act is about to end. A thin, odd, bendy harlequin running around in circles at high speed. His long limbs gangling about as he leaps through the frame of an old mirror.

After the Harlequin finally leaps off-stage to a gentle round of applause, there is a distinct lull in the proceedings and you suspect Mademoiselle Marionette will be a no-show. You lean back in your chair and sigh. Then the house lights dim, and there she is. Quite a small lady with short purple hair, topped off with a fancy hat and wearing the immaculately tailored green suit of a stage magician. Although her first known performance was over fifty years ago, she doesn’t look a day over twenty-five.

‘Mesdames et Messieurs’ she purrs in a possibly affected accent

‘what you are about to witness, shall be remembered here’ she taps her forehead ‘for as long as you shall all live.’

The act is, quite frankly, okay. Several tricks you’ve seen performed before. Not necessarily performed with such finesse, but certainly equally as well from a technical perspective. Pretty much run-of-the-mill stuff. It’s always the same, you think to yourself, whenever the heavyweights inevitably return for their come-back performance, it’s a mediocre let-down. You’ve almost formulated the entire review in your head when a single spotlight brightly illuminates the magician, and she gestures to a burgundy sheet draped beside her. Whisking the sheet into the air it promptly vanishes, revealing a large ornate mahogany cupboard, inlaid with delicate pink flowers.

‘Now,’ she exclaims, ‘I would like a volunteer from the audience…’

Despite squirming down in your seat so much that you are practically lying on the floor, it is with crushing inevitability that the spotlight illuminates your slumped form, and you are eventually coaxed on stage.

‘I’m physically going to murder Jonny for this’ you smile through gritted teeth.

‘Mesdames et Messieurs…’ the magician taps the cabinet with the tip of a long staff and it slowly opens.

‘it is time for my brave and willing volunteer,’ (slight pause for laughter) ‘to enter into a new dimension of wonderful and frightening experiences. This dimension will allow all of their potential to shine through, but, alas, it will take ten years.’ More laughter. Then you grudgingly step into the cupboard, and the door closes...

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