Oh What A Time... - #128 Magic (Part 1)

Episode Date: August 3, 2025

This week we’re talking about the great illusionists and conjurors of our times. We’ve got the man that pretty much invented the genre Jean-Eugene Robert, we’ve got the much-loved icon of British children’s TV Sooty and we’ve got the main man himself, Harry Houdini.Plus, is trying to work out who won the dad’s race via mobile phone footage basically the same as trying to work out who killed JFK from a single camera shot? The answer is yes. But you can email us anyway: [e-mail] you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wanderi Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time early and ad free. Join Wanderi Plus in the Wanderi app or on Apple podcasts. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time, the history podcast that asks before camera phones, smartphones and the ability to capture video, how did we remember anything? Not just how did we remember anything, how did we glory in things that we were proud of? Yeah. You know, children's assemblies for instance, or in my case, I don't know, I'm just plucking an example out of the air, I don't know where this has come from. Maybe me yesterday

winning the dad's race at my son's sports day. You know, maybe that. Because it is captured on video and yeah, I can get hold of the video hauntingly quickly actually, because I've got access to it on my phone and yeah, it is in myites. And yeah, I do look at it all the time. How did we survive before camera phones? Before we get on to that deeper question, what is the angle like on the finish line? And how confident can we be in it being an actual victory? Is it up for doubt in any way? Well, Tom, on that point, I've got something very undignified to share. I ran in the dad's race at the sports day and I've come over the finish line.

I came back to my wife's sofa and I said, I was like, look, that's not too bad. Is it second? That's kind of like, you don't really wanna win. I'm quite pleased with second. She was like, you were fifth, what are you talking about? I said, I finished second, I clearly finished second. She got the recording out, she's on the finish line.

The angle is very difficult to tell what's happened here. And it had such an undignified... It was an argument. I'll be honest, it was just an argument about whether I finished second or not. Looking at the angles, trying to work out where I was in like, wherever I was second with 10 meters to go. And then as the camera swings around trying to track where I finished, she uploaded it into ChatGPT, which unhelpfully said I was like sixth. Do you know what? It's like trying to work out the identity of the gunman with JFK's assassination. You're looking at angles, you're doing the maps. Where are the shadows falling? Is it possible? In my experience, partners don't care enough.

No, they don't. They don't get it. So I did it a couple of years ago and it was very tight. And I said to Izzy, did I win? And she said, I don't know. I was talking to Hazel about the prices at Go Ape. And I thought, come on, man. This is my big day. Now I'm going 8 busy.

I'm livid. Absolutely livid. Well, if anything captures the difference between you guys and me, and this is obviously a running theme on this show, I missed the dad's race at the last sports day because I'd gone to get something from my bag. So I went to go and get a cold drink because it was a bit hot. And during that 30 second window the daz race started and I completely missed it. It's the only thing my son respects. Naked pace.

He thinks I'm a complete loser. Apart from for about 10 seconds once a year. It was a genuine question though. Are you confident in the victory? Is this like a skull situation where you think you've won but actually future angles will show? Yeah maybe I can show you a video. Maybe I can put it in our chat that will make you weep with pride. Maybe I could show you a video that will make you go, wow. How are we going to feel Tom, when we look at the video where we see Ellis wearing spikes, bicycle shorts, and he's brought his own

blocks to the start line. These parents exist, right? I just, I my next-door neighbour, her kid goes to a different school. And at their school, one of the dads was going up to teachers going, the dad's race, that is happening, isn't it? Parents race, that is happening. Really? Because obviously the kids, that's great, but there is a parents race. Just to make sure, that is definitely happening. And they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, this time. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no with the quality of the field. Because he thought, yeah, I'm actually kind of, you know, if we're going to separate it via sort of talent, then I probably should have been in the second race. That was a bit easy. So then he sprinted back to take part in the second race and he didn't win. Oh my gosh. Fantastic. Oh my gosh. Fantastic.

And is there any danger he'll listen to any of your podcasts and this will become awkward at the school gates? He goes to a different school, so I don't know who this person is. Oh, different school. Okay, just fine. This was just told to me by my next door neighbour. Okay, fine. Yeah. Plus he sounds like a Jake Humphreys high performance podcast listener. Yeah, yeah. He sounds like someone who tries to optimise his life. He'll be diary of a CEO. He will not be Oara Time. In fact, if he listens to this, I will be staggered. Well, congratulations, I guess. Is that what you're looking for? Yeah, it is actually.

Well, it's actually a bit more sort of far-reaching than that. Congratulations, general respect. Just part of you think you could have gone pro. Were you not given the backing in Kamar? Then people don't realise quite how quick you were you think you could have gone pro. Were you not given the backing in Kamath and people not realise quite how quick you were and what you could have done for your nation on an Olympic stage? Someone said that in the race that came after me. He or she or they said, because I don't want them to be listening, I could have gone pro but dad held me back and she won the Barons race as a canter.

You know, I would just love you to communicate it amongst your networks, Alice is fast. If you need a fast podcaster. When I'm next writing at the Olympics, Al, the Channel 4, do you want me to mention it to any of the Team GB squad that might be there? That there's a guy I know who's pretty quick. I'd say it's up to you. I would certainly have it in mind. And when you say, oh, I know a guy who's pretty fast, that doesn't mean I write jokes quickly. In fact, to the contrary, it's far, far from it. But if, yeah, just if they need a sort of a guy

who can maybe get from event to event quickly. To answer your earlier question though about documenting things, was it a better time pre-iPhones and how did we document things? That's interesting isn't it? Like early cave paintings and stuff like that. I suppose it's like creative expression isn't it? That's your main aim. But also, is there an element of people going, remember last Wednesday when we went to that? Look at that picture up there. There we are. That's us hunting that elk. That was good, wasn't it? Is it a way of remembering what you've done? Do you know what I think with cave paintings? You must really want to document something if you're going to paint it on a cave. Such a good point.

if you're going to paint it on a cave. That's such a good point. You're like, right, I've got one canvas and I'm feeling creative. I had better get this right. The pressure on every paint stroke. Every brush stroke. Absolutely, yeah. Because if you're on a night out with your friends

and let's say someone's turned up in a stupid outfit and you've taken a photo, you thought, oh, that's quite funny. I'll quickly take a photo of that. Yeah. It would be quite an extra step to get your paints out and a sort of, you know, let's commit this. Fight a brown bear for ownership of a cave. Exactly, yeah. Win.

And then get the Crayola set out in the cave. Yeah, win and then begin to paint. If you were just told, right, you're basically allowed four photos in your life. They're pressure on those photos. Because you'd have taken the first three by the age of 13 and then you're like, great, okay, I've got, you know, I don't know how long I'm going gonna live for, but I've got one photograph left. Because my phone has got, I don't know, 20,000 photos on it or something. Yeah.

So what are your four photos gonna be? I think there's one that documents your school days. So it's probably you in your school uniform with your friends. So you can remember what that was like in primary school. So you've got that. Number one. Hunting the elk, number two.

That's middle age. Okay, yeah. Oh, you're talking about cavemen as a caveman, what are you documenting? I'm talking about now. Okay, right, yeah. Well, no, I'm talking about a stag door when we hunted elks. Yeah. Okay, you got the elk. Number three, it's going to be surely whales away. And then, oh, God, yeah. Well, you want to probably include your wedding day and children, maybe, if you are married or if you have kids. Maybe have children first and then you can do them all in a bundle.

But then the day after that you bump into Ronaldo or Messi and you've used it up. Why? Why did I do that? I bumped into David Dickinson. It's an interesting point, isn't it? Because a hundred years ago, if you wanted to have a photo taken, you basically had to like book it in. Yep. You couldn't take it. You're not going out, going, well, it's way, I was away today.

I'll take a few snaps in the away end. You're like, no, I've got to call a guy. I've got to go there and I've got to sit still for like an hour while in my best clothes, not smile. And then that's my one photo. And that's my one photo for the next eight years. I tell you what's quite an interesting thing. So my family, my dad's side were Irish and there was, this might have been the thing beyond Ireland, I'm sure it was, but there was a thing in the early days of photography

where people in Ireland, at least this is this, as I say, this story has come from Ireland. I know this to be the case in the early 20th century in Ireland, whether it happened elsewhere, I don't know. But you would pay, you'd go to a place, you'd have your photograph taken, is what my great-great-great-grandfather did. He's in his Sunday best, he's incredibly smartly dressed. You would then send that photo to other family members elsewhere to show how you were doing. Now what is quite poignant about it is it looks like he's in sort of a well-to-do, laid-out, stately home room. You'd think he's a man of means.

He's sort of, you know, he's wealthy. You look at the bottom of the picture and you can see actually whether the background meets the floor. It's really frayed and dirtied and you only then realise it's a backdrop. It's a fake backdrop of where he stood. So people would go and have their photographs taken, they'd dress up in their finery and they would fake the background in the way that people doctor photos now, I suppose, to suggest that they were doing better than they were. I suppose it's in the same world of your filters and all these sort of things, really, isn't it? That photo then would go out to other family members. They'd go, oh, look, he's doing well. He's a man of means, et cetera, et cetera.

What's the backdrop? Scrooge McDuck's like swing pool full of found coins. It's a long table with silverware and food and all this other stuff on it. Which wasn't, that wasn't the state of my family. My family, they were not wealthy in that way at all. So I found that quite poignant. There's something quite poignant about that, isn't there? And also very human, that idea of you want to show how you're doing and you're hoping other people will assume you're doing better than you actually are.

A bit like, I'm sure your schools did this as well. We used to have a professional photo taken in year seven and year ten. Right. And they would come to the school and they would take our photos, right? And the backdrop they used in my school in the early 1990s was, it was a pull down, like a banner stand backdrop. But on the photo it looked like you were having your photo taken in front of a Victorian drawing room full of books.

What? But actually we were just in the assembly hall. Like Hogwarts? Like it is proper Hogwarts but that wasn't the school. It was in the gymnasium. That is bonkers. It's where I used to play basketball. What was the backdrop for your skull? It was just like a blue with like vaguely cloudy, you know, like blue and white, misty kind of. Very generic. That's good. Ours was the

Maradona's Hand of God goal. It was really weird. I don't know why. And then your face went where the football was. It was a very straight decision. Now we had Blue Pastel, which my son's school still has a Blue Pastel. That seems to be the thing that's stuck. It's really sort of aged. It survived the year, isn't it? It's stuck. It's stuck through Blue Pastel. Will Barron Yeah, I've got the... I found my year 10 one the other day. It's just funny. It just implies that I'm having a very different experience to the experience I had. And it does make school look like Hogwarts. Will Barron Yeah, absolutely. Family members popping

in and seeing that on the wall thinking, oh wow, you've sent it, El, off to private school have you? Neil Milliken Actually, having said that, El, in year one, they have a second school photo and Charlie was given one where they've given him a massive book like The Scythe of War and Peace and it looks like he's reading it despite the fact he's obviously five or whatever. It's a huge book. That's very funny. Leg crossed reading it. Yeah that's very funny. So today's episode, should we get into what we're talking about before we plunge into the correspondence? Should we talk about that? Today's episode, it's kind of an interesting one, this, isn't it?

It's the world of magic. That's what we're talking about today. Yes, yes, please. I am going to be talking about the man who, well, he's been described as the father of modern magic for quite an interesting reason. Not the... Paul Daniels. Paul Daniels, yeah.

Paul Daniels. Paul Daniels, yeah. Paul Daniels. For not the reason you'd expect, but a fascinating guy who had a huge influence on the way magic is performed today. I'll be talking about the OG, I'm gonna be talking about Houdini. Yeah, classic. And I'm talking about someone who I think

is the first person we've discussed on this podcast as a topic that I've actually met. Oh, that of course is Sooty. Oh, wow. And Matthew Corbett. Oh, yeah. Because Sooty used to do regional tours in like theatres. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And there I was at the Queen's Theatre in Horn Church meeting my hero, Matthew Corbett. I've performed at the Queen's Theatre Horn Church. We're in the foyer. Why? Because we've answered very many tickets. But who is in the front row? Sooty. Absolutely loving it. Before we get into that though,

should we do a little bit of correspondence? Then we will dive into the world of music. Oh yes, please. Our email I want to pick out today is from Kenny Adam. Kenny Adam has emailed with the exciting title Animal Museums. Kenny has said just listen to number 125 part 1 and the reference to the Gopher Museum. Now we got actually more than one email about a Gopher Museum in America where they have loads of stuffed Gophers sort of playing golf and doing a variety of things that gophers wouldn't normally do,

that people go and visit. And we ask you to send in further unexpected animal or weird attractions, and Kenny has done just that. Kenny says, this reminded me of the place we visited in Split, Croatia, which was called Froggyland. Yes, stuffed frogs. It's as barmy as you'd expect. Check out the pics on TripAdvisor. I'm going to send you some pictures now from Froggyland. Here's the first one. Have you gone on our group WhatsApp? There we are.

There's some stuffed frogs playing tennis on a clay court. Oh my goodness me. The next one is stuffed frogs behind desks in what seems to be a Victorian school. That is absolutely bonkers. Now just to confirm guys, there's a lot of stuffed frogs in these images. It's not like one frog in a little classroom. It's a 30 strong class of stuffed frogs. These are incredibly vivid and detailed scenes with real stuffed frogs in.

It's a classroom. I would love to know what Ofsted made of this classroom. Because there's loads of these stuffed frogs. There's a big, there's a map on the wall. They've all got individual desks. They've all got individual books and pencils. Well, El... They're all staring ahead at the teacher. This is crazy. Let me tell you, El, it's obviously a good school because you'll see from this next photo they all went on to work in a court of law. There you go, there's stuffed frogs in a court of law.

There you are. There's the judge. A jury of stuffed frogs. It goes on. There's hundreds of these different situations. Can I just share something from these pictures? Yeah. Like, the anatomy of a frog is such that they don't have very bendy necks, and a lot of

these frogs are standing up or sitting down, so they're all just looking at the ceiling all the time. Yes. Yeah, they're all looking up. This is the fundamental problem with the exhibit. That's crazy. A court of law, Chris, is all about listening. It's not about looking.

So actually, they may be looking at the ceiling, but their ears are open. They're taking the facts at times, and that's why they're so good at their job. There's loads of these images of Froggyland in Split in Croatia, which Kenny has visited says all the best chaps, keep up the good work. Once again, let's be honest, sort of place I'd love to go to. Absolutely my bag. Thoughts? That's unbelievable. Well, astonishingly, you've sent some pictures from TripAdvisor where it's the number 15

thing to do in Split out of 191 things. Is it? And it's actually quite well-reviewed. It's got 814 reviews for an average of 4.2 out of 5. Yeah. This is an astonishingly good attraction. But I don't know how you couldn't like it, because if you know what it is, it's Froggyland and you're going there expecting stuffed frogs in human

situations and you get there and there's hundreds of those things, it's met what you were expecting, surely, so you're going to give it a good review. I don't know how you can get there and go, well, this isn't what I was hoping for. You knew what it was. It says on the front, it's Froggyland. You get it in what you asked for. It's very Ron-Syl. It's a hard thing to be disappointed by, isn't it? Exactly, yeah. I think you've only got yourself to blame in that case.

I've got an idea. We're going to have a listener who this summer is going to split on holiday, and given it's such a top tourist attraction, if you want to go and give us a voice note review of what you've seen, we would be delighted to play that review out on the show. That's a great show. I love that. Surely that's going to happen.

So there you go. That's Froggyland. To be honest, I'm so impressed. That might be me. The voice note might be coming from... Cancelling plans. Exactly. I recognise that guy.

It's quite haunting. It is, isn't it? I can't take my eyes off, especially the frogs in the school. They're all doing maths? Oh god. They are doing maths. They're holding pens. It looks like a good school, to be fair. It does look like it.

It looks quite old-fashioned, I would say. It's fully attended. There's no truancy. Every desk is full. That suggests that the level of education is exciting and good. Must be nice engaged frog teachers. Exactly, yeah. They're just glad it's not in France, where their life would be much worse.

So it's a, yeah, there you go. That's Froggyland in Split. If you have any other mad museums you want to send our way, do email, do DM, whatever feels best. And here's how. Alright you horrible lot, here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at earlwatertime.com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Oh What A Time, Pud. Now clear off. Okay, so on to the history. Today's show, as we say, is all about magic.

Mind us what you'll be talking about later. I'll be talking about Houdini. Sooty, Matthew Corbett, Harry Corbett, and of course the first TV magician ever, Eric Cardy. Perfect. Well, to kick things off, I'm going to be telling you about the father of modern magic. Now, when you sort of picture a magician today, what do you see? What are they looking like and what's the vibe? How do you imagine modern magicians? And I don't mean, you know, David Blaine, that sort of magician. The traditional modern magician.

Traditional. Top hat, cape. Waistcoat. Yes, exactly. Bow tie. Correct. White gloves? Exactly, yeah.

Quite weird. Don't really want to be in a room on my own with them. Shiny shoes. Like, smart, very smart. Often quite a sort of fun slash terrible waistcoat as well. Yes, maybe a tash. Yep, that's a magician's own choice, but sometimes it's actually a tash. That's not a prerequisite, but it can be there. You're correct, that is the classic image of the modern magician, but it hasn't always been this way. Before telling you the story about this father of modern magic, I'm going

to take you back before that look of magician, before the top hat, before all that sort of stuff, to the 1700s and even earlier. When conjuring was a popular form of entertainment, but it was only performed by itinerant conjurers who made a living at fairs, at carnivals and music halls. So you go to a country fair and you might see a magician in a tent doing tricks. They'd be dressed sort of like a wizard, that sort of thing. Often it was quite mystical in the way they sort of presented themselves. That was the only place that you could encounter magic.

It was popular, but it would only be in those country fairs and things like that you'd ever see magic. Until a man called Jean-Eugène Robert came along and he made this popular form of entertainment, at last, a pleasure for the well to do and royalty. Okay, so Robert, he's born in France in 1805. His father is a watchmaker and initially he follows in his footsteps too. It feels like the beginning of an old Disney cartoon that, doesn't it? Son of a watchmaker goes on to be a magician who always wants to be a magician. It's really sort of Pinocchio-esque. And he's got a lovely workshop. Yeah, exactly.

I don't think I want to spend my days in a workshop. But the workshop itself has a strange magical quality to it. That's nice, absolutely. The cuckoo clocks, how do they conceal themselves and then appear and surprise? The ideas of magic are playing on his mind. Exactly. And maybe it's an electrical cuckoo clock and then years later you discover it's never been plugged in yet it's still worked.

I like that. Sold. So his father's a watchmaker and initially Robert starts following his footsteps too. And it's a perfect job for him, okay. He's always been obsessed with mechanisms and mechanical devices. As a young student he'd made all manner of snares, mousetraps. A snares?

A snares. What are you doing? He'd made a snares of game gear. That would be impressive. He'd made snares for catching animals, mousetraps, and I'll give you this final one, and I want to get your reaction to this. If this guy was in your halls at uni,

are you avoiding him? He'd made a miniature gymnasium for all the rats and mice he'd captured using his snares, okay? Thoughts on that? You move in, it's freshers week, the room next door to you is a guy who's caught loads of mice and made a gymnasium for them. You do want to sit next to him on a school trip, do you? Isn't this the kind of behaviour of a proto serial killer? Well, he's actually just capturing them and not healing them. But he is making them perform in his gymnasium.

So I think it's probably not ideal. It's worse, isn't it? Yeah. I think I'm going to whatever HR is at university, I don't know where you go for that, whatever you call it, student resources. And I'd say the guy next door has got a menagerie in his bedroom. Can I please move?

The other thing is when you're, you know, you've just moved away from home, you're standing on your own two feet for the first time. You don't want rats in your halls of accommodation, your halls of residence. What you certainly don't want is fit rats who go to the gym. Really ripped rats. Who can deadlift you. Rats who lift. Ripped rats. Really ripped rats. Who can deadlift you. Rats who lift. Ripped rats.

Ripped rats. Well, you might not want it, Al, but in the early 19th century, it turns out people did like it, and the other students, remarkably, couldn't get enough of it. It became incredibly popular, and students would flock to watch these rats and mice perform in his little gymnasium. And it turned out to be quite an unexpected catalyst for Dear Robert as it kind of gave him this first taste of performance and entertaining others. Okay. He just... Well, it was the pre-alcohol pop age, wasn't it? There was less stuff to do. Drink the bar dry wasn't a thing. Yeah. Exactly. So he's doing these performances with the mice. He's really enjoying it, okay. And he thinks, okay, maybe show

business is a way forward for me. However, at this point, any idea of a genuine career in it was a long way off, okay. He thinks, okay, it's a dream but to make it a reality, a financial reality, is probably unlikely. So he focuses on his studies and to help pay for these he continues a sideline in clockmaking using the same tricks and skills his father taught him when he was growing up. He soon sends off for a book that he hoped would teach him more about the art of clockmaking. However, in a fortuitous mix-up, the bookshop ends up sending him a book called Scientific Amusements, a Guide to Magic Tricks.

So there's a mix-up at the bookshop. It's so random, this. And he sent this book on magic instead. To give you a sense of the book, here's three of the chapters. I want you to tell me which of these you're reading first. Are you reading Ways of Performing Tricks with Cards? Are you reading How to Guess a Person's Thoughts? Or are you reading the chapter How to Cut off a Pigeon's Head, Replace It and Restore Its Life? Which of those is

sort of drawing you most? That sounds incredible. It's the most entertaining. It reminds me of when Josh Whiddicombe had a little thing for his wedding in London and I took my youngest Charlie. Remember this Chris? But we all had to chop off the pigeon's head and reattach it. Oh no, Charlie was getting a bit restless. So I took him to the little park opposite and there was a pigeon in the middle of the green. I said, Oh look, Charlie, look at that pigeon. Let's go and have a look at the pigeon. We walked across there and the pigeon was missing its head. Yeah. And I had to sort of like quickly, as how you backtrack from that.

Quickly, quickly reattach it. Exactly. So I turned to chapter four of scientific amusement to guide to magic tricks and I found out how to reattach his head. Will Barron God, they say that the step up from like the championship to the Premier League is big. But from going from basic card tricks to decapitating pigeon and bringing it back to life, all in the space of one book. Will Barron Absolutely. You're such a good point. I think that has to be in a dedicated second book, which makes it clear on the front cover things have really gone up to upper level.

It can't be a beginner's book, surely. Sorry to go back to something you've already said, Tom, but I just can't shake this thought. So the rats are getting ripped, they're doing the gym, everyone's just loving the scene. What is the scene? Like, the rats literally lifting little dumbbells. What are they like on benches? I need the mental image of this. I imagine it's more sort of climbing across monkey bars and that sort of stuff and going

through tubes and jumping off things. It's got to be that. It's not deadlifting, is it? They're not squatting. It's got to be. Surely. The rats are working out. Yeah.

That's not... If I went to the gym and there was like a long perspex cylinder and everyone was just climbing through it, I'd go, what is this? Rob Ayer's not reminding them to not skip leg day. It's not that, is it? Do you know what? Rats all do skip leg day. When you actually look at their legs, they've got massive shoulders and chests. Their legs are rubbish. So Rob Ayer thinks about things. He thinks, should I send this book back? Should I learn more about clocks? No, he decides. I'm going to read this. I'm going to devour it. And

he absolutely loves it. And once he's gained the confidence from this book about early magic tricks, he starts to perform to his friends. And these performances cause such an excitement for him. He just loves it. He says, I had learned how to make any object I held in my hand disappear with the greatest ease, and for the practice of card tricks they were only child's play to me. I could produce some delightful illusions. I confessed to feeling a degree of pride in my humble power of amusing them,

and I neglected no occasion on displaying it. And he's gripped by this new passion. And Robert adds to his knowledge by frequenting the shows of travelling actors, much like the troupe shown in the film, the magician. And as his skills grow, word begins to spread and then he makes a key decision which sets him apart from all those who have come before him and why he's left such a mark today. Do you want to guess the decision he makes and why he makes that decision? And this is crucial and why he's left such a mark today. Do you want to guess the decision he makes and why he makes that decision?

And this is crucial and why he's such an important figure. I cannot imagine. What do you think he does as a magician that sets him apart from all the other magicians? Not killing animals and reanimating them? Nope, nothing to do with tricks. It's a very simple thing. Previously, magicians, as I'd mentioned,

at country fairs and stuff like that, they dress up as mystics, wizards, fortune tellers, all that sort of stuff. Robert, however, he makes a simple decision to dress as a society gent, so he wears a formal evening suit, a tailcoat, white gloves, bow tie, polished shoes, all these things we recognise now. Essentially, the classic modern magicians look. This is how he explained. He said, I abstained from any eccentric costume.

I never thought of making any change in the entire civilized society and agreed to accept for evening dress. If I always was of the opinion that bizarre Coutremont, far from giving the wearer any consideration, on the contrary, cast disfavour upon him. And it was a brilliant decision that meant the well-to-do in Parisian society

saw his specific performances as the stuff of skill and intelligence, not superstition. Okay. So, and they loved that because they were able to enjoy it. The previously the stuff in country fair stuff like that was associated with kind of backward thinking superstition, all these sort of things that seem to be ideas of the past. But in France, in Parisian society, it wanted to see itself as forward thinking, you know, intelligent trickery, sophisticated trickery, which what he was seen to be doing now that he was dressed appropriately meant they loved it. And so in turn, he was soon

performing at all the most lavish parties in Paris. Okay. He's getting paid lots of money to perform to all these very wealthy people simply really because of the way he presents himself. In fact, it was at one of these parties he meets his wife Joseph Cecile Houdin and the pair decide to share a double barrel surname so he'd go on to become Robert Houdin. And being based in Paris bought him into contact with a range of French magicians, some of whom were already active on the international circuit. And the more he absorbed magic and the work of all these brilliant magicians he was encountering, the more attention he

paid to all the aspects of his act. And soon, and this is where it's interesting how his past came to play, he was using his skills as a clockmaker as well and his early love for mechanisms to build mechanical automata for use on stage. For example, he had a magic peacock and a harlequin among some of the things he'd bring out on stage. And in a further attempt to distance himself from the sort of drapes and smoky crystal balls of travelling conjurers, he decided his act would be played straight so there'd be no use of dazzling lights, no long tablecloths, no curtains. He said, I wish to offer new experiments divested of all charlatanism, he wrote. This was a complete regeneration in the art of conjuring. So he was completely changing it from what it was previously to

what we see today. And soon he was a huge deal. In May 1848 he comes to Britain on tour. He plays at St James's Theatre in London, a series of evening entertainments that were advertised as Soirée Fantastique before moving on to Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Worcester, Cheltenham, Bristol and Exeter. The Evening Standard said he is a wonderful fellow. Others went even further. He is the very chief of sorcerers, declared another London pressman. Would you like to guess where his biggest gig was in the UK? This is how popular this guy became. Did you do the Albert Hall? No. It's not actually a venue. What was the most prestigious thing he performed at?

Royal Family, Mr Dunne, Queen Victoria. Exactly. At Buckingham Palace in front of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He said, I felt a noble pride, he wrote, and time passed so rapidly. And the Queen, Queen Victoria, was said to have loved it. She clapped enthusiastically at the various tricks he did. Not least the bouquet à la Reine. Check yourself for a trick and I'll sort of end things with this. This is what he performed for the Queen especially and she absolutely loved it. Her magistrate, having lent her glove to M Robert Houdin, the latter immediately produced from it a bouquet which soon grew so large that it could be scarcely held in both hands.

Finally, this bouquet, after being placed into a vase, bedewed with magic water, was transformed into a garland in which the flowers formed the word Victoria. There you are. Nice little trick there. Oh wow. And she absolutely loved it. Get him on the Royal Royalty performance. The guy's going places. And that is why Robert Houdin is the father of modern magic because he transformed the way magicians looked and he completely changed the way they performed, moved it away from mysticism and all these things that the French public were now starting to move away from.

He captured the imaginations of a wealthy elite and he is the reason that magicians and their top hats are as they are today. Have either of you ever had a magic phase? Yeah, have I ever been into magic? But like, as kids, did you ever have a book of magic tricks and try and learn? I think I had the Paul Daniels magic set, yeah, I had that. But you never progressed beyond that. Have you? No, it always seemed like too much of a commitment.

And I was also scared. There was a lot of stuff when we were kids, like, oh yeah, if you're in the magic circle and you give secrets of magic away, you're in big trouble. You're dead. You're dead. The magic circle, you're dead. Okay? So I always remember feeling slightly perturbed by the idea of the magic circle coming to get me because I told my friend Mark how to do a cant trick. I haven't, but my son is obsessed and absolutely loves it. Is he?

Yeah, he just adores it and it's so great. He's just in wonder. There's so many things you can learn and you really do develop in your sight of hand, all this sort of stuff. He can genuinely hide a coin very quickly. It's amazing. It's a real skill that if you spend time doing it, it has real benefits. Can he do tricks now that you actually can't work out?

Completely. Yeah, he absolutely can. Oh my god, that is good. Yeah. But I would say, your son Tom has what I would say is a cruel sense of magic, because I think he came around my house and put me in a finger trap once. Is that true? Yes. And you're still in it today, aren't you? My one piece of advice is don't let him get out of control.

But I think, just on the magician thing, I think as an occupation, it's possibly one of the safest occupations through history. You can turn up to Caligula, you could turn up to any dangerous time through history. You're able to do a magic trick. They're going to love you. That's a great point. I think you could go anywhere, anytime. You'll be fine. You could go back to the most bloodthirsty maniacal king ever. If you've got a couple of card tricks that like this guy said. If you've got a rabbit and a top hat and you're meeting Stalin. He is okay. The guy in the waistcoat with a cane is with me, okay? Let me present a counter-argument. There is a danger you'd be burned at the stake as a wizard or a witch.

That is a slight worry, isn't it? Medieval Britain, you're incredibly confident as you're pulling wild animals out of your hat. This guy just read my mind, let's kill him. There's a chance you're now on a dipping stool, they call it, a dunking stool, exactly. I used to love Penn and Teller. Yeah, absolutely. The fact that they explain how they did it as well. I remember they drove a L'Oreal for Teller once.

Do you remember The Masked Magician? That guy. No, what was that? That was a show in the 90s. If anything, this show shows you the weakness of the Magic Circle. Because he just gave away all the tricks. He showed how all these big tricks were done. And he wore a mask.

That's what Penn and Telly used to do. Yeah, exactly. And it was really, well, like the Secret Footballer, the columnist in the Guardian. The Dave Kitson of Magic, or whoever that person might have been. Or maybe it was someone else. So that's the end of part one. If you want to get part two right now, you can become a subscriber. Go to owhatatime.com and you can subscribe and get bonus episodes.

Two every month. You can get episodes earlier than everyone else, ad free, loads of benefits. And there's a whole back catalog of Owototime subscriber classics to be enjoyed. Head over to owototime.com otherwise we'll see you tomorrow for part two. Bye. Follow Oh What A Time on the Wondry app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts and you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or the world.