Geoffrey Durham was the first magician in the UK to perform a solo magic show – no assistants, no musicians, just one man entertaining an audience for two hours using nothing but sleight of hand. In all, he produced three shows over a period of twelve years, each one touring extensively all over the UK.

The first show, One Man’s Intrepid Journey Up His Own Sleeve, opened at the King’s Head Theatre in Islington, London in 1994. The theme was Geoffrey himself: a boy’s obsession with magic, the first magic set, the first stage show, finding a stage persona, the first magic lesson. It was a good theme, because it enabled him to do magic of a kind that you just don’t see any more. The Rice Bowls were there – an ancient trick in which rice turns mysteriously into water – and the great Razor Blade Swallowing Mystery was featured. It was also the first outing for a trick which later became one of Geoffrey’s signatures, the Selbit Blocks, a famous 1920s trick in which blocks of wood inexplicably turn when trapped in a tube. And there were dozens more tricks in the show, which the Independent called “a triumph”.

One Man’s Intrepid Journey Up His Sleeve went into two editions and achieved 127 performances in 72 theatres.

The first show, One Man’s Intrepid Journey Up His Own Sleeve. 1994

The second show, Geoffrey Durham’s Little Miracles, started touring just two months after the first show finally closed. It took stage magic as its theme, and explored the five basic magic tricks (there really are only five…) and showed the different ways in which they can be presented. This involved the actual levitation of a member of the audience (no stooges, even though the press speculated that there were!) as well as classic manipulations, table-top magic and mind-reading. An innovation was that Geoffrey performed close-up magic in the auditorium during the interval.

Geoffrey Durham’s Little Miracles toured to 57 theatres and achieved 65 performances in the two years of its run.

Geoffrey Durham's Little Miracles, 2002

Finally, Geoffrey’s last and most successful one man show, Geoffrey Durham No Hat No Rabbit, took close-up magic as its theme for the whole evening. It was the first time a magician had presented the essence of close-up in a stage show. Coins mysteriously entered bottles, borrowed wedding rings were suddenly found to be linked together and members of the audience got to plunge their hands into Geoffrey’s pockets while the tricks were actually happening. In an extension of the techniques pioneered in the previous show, Geoffrey spent the whole of the interval in the theatre bar doing tricks for the audience, ensuring that he was “on” solidly for two hours. The show was yet another new departure for Geoffrey and marked a high point in his career. The Evening Standard described him as “brilliant”.

Geoffrey Durham No Hat No Rabbit, 2006

Geoffrey Durham No Hat No Rabbit did forty-two performances in thirty-four theatres before Geoffrey decided to close the show. It was shorter run than the other two, because of the need for the theatres to be intimate enough for such a close-quarters magical experience. But no doubt there will be more one man shows...

John Thaw in Peter Pan • .Jesus Christ Superstar, Lyceum Theatre • Jim Dale as Fagin, London Palladium

And Geoffrey continues to work in the theatre as a magic advisor for stage shows. His first foray into the field was for a production of Macbeth directed by Roger Michell (later to direct Notting Hill) at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton, in which ghosts appeared, witches vanished and astonishing apparitions floated out of the ground and all over the stage. He has since created a unique “Tinkerbell” for Peter Pan at the Royal Festival Hall; devised a whole 1950s magic act for Privates on Parade at the Donmar Warehouse; helped with a hanging in Jesus Christ Superstar; acted as pick-pocketing advisor to Fagin at the London Palladium. Simon Callow asked him to help produce fire and sparks from his hands in The Mystery of Charles Dickens; The League of Gentlemen commissioned a blood-soaked magic act in their Drury Lane season; and the Fast Show/Reeves and Mortimer double bill saw Geoffrey devising a method for setting Vic Reeves’ head on fire.

Geoffrey’s most extensive job as a magic consultant was for the Tommy Cooper tribute Jus’ Like That at the Garrick Theatre and later on two nationwide tours. He taught Jerome Flynn over an hour’s worth of Tommy Cooper tricks and stunts, always going back to the original tapes of the great man and in some cases re-inventing the methods from scratch. It was a labour of love, made so much easier by Jerome’s extraordinary ability to inhabit Tommy Cooper’s soul.