of the cabinet. They have seen that no one
was clinging to the back of the cabinet, and now they can satisfy themselves that no one
may be secreted beneath it. When I fling open the door to reveal the interior, then step
inside to release the catch that holds the rear panel in place, the audience can see right
through from front to back. They see me pass through, likewise from front to back, and
close the back wall once more. The door hangs open, and while I am apparently busy behind
the cabinet they take their chance to peer more intently at the interior. There is nothing
for them to see, though: the cabinet is, must be, completely empty. Quickly, then, I slam
the front door closed, rotate the cabinet on its castors, and throw open the door. Inside,
large, beautiful, bulkily dressed, smiling and waving her arms, entirely filling the
cramped interior of the cabinet, is a young woman. She steps down, takes her bow to
thunderous applause and leaves the stage.
I roll the cabinet to the side of the stage, whence it is quietly retrieved by Thomas
Elbourne.
So to the next. This is less spectacular, but involves two or three members of the
audience. Every magic act includes a few moments with a pack of cards. The magician must
show his skill with sleight of hand, otherwise he runs the risk of being thought by his
professional colleagues merely to be an operator of self-working machinery. I walk to the
footlights, and the curtains close behind me. This is partly to create a closed, intimate
atmosphere for the card tricks, but mainly so that behind them Thomas may set up the
apparatus for The New Transported Man.
With the cards finished, I need to break the feeling of quiet concentration, so I move
swiftly into a series of colourful productions. Flags, streamers, fans, balloons and silk
scarves stream out unstoppably from my hands, sleeves and pockets, creating a bright and
chaotic display all around me. My female assistant walks on stage behind me, apparently to
clear away some of the streamers, but in reality to slip me more of the compressed
materials for release. By the end, the brightly coloured papers and silks are inches deep
around my feet. I acknowledge the applause.
While the audience is still clapping the curtains open behind me, and in semi-darkness my
apparatus for The New Transported Man may be seen. My assistants move quickly on to the
stage and deftly clear away the coloured streamers.
I return to the footlights, face the audience and address them directly, in my fractured,
French-accented English. I explain that what I am about to perform has become possible
only since the discovery of electricity. The performance draws power from the bowels of
the Earth. Unimaginable forces are at work, that even I do not fully comprehend. I explain
that they are about to witness a veritable miracle, one in which life and death are
chanced with, as in the game of dice my ancestors played to avoid the tumbril.
While I speak the stage lights brighten, and catch the polished metal supports, the golden
coils of wire, the glistening globes of glass. The apparatus is a thing of beauty, but it
is a menacing beauty because everyone by now has heard for themselves of some of the
deadly power of the electrical current. Newspapers have carried accounts of horrible
deaths and burns caused by the new force already available in many cities.
The apparatus of The New Transported Man is designed to remind them of these appalling
accounts. It carries numerous incandescent electric lamps, some of which come alight even
as I speak. At one side is a large glass globe, inside which a brilliant arc of
electricity fizzes and crackles excitingly. The main part of the apparatus appears, to the
audience, to be a long wooden bench, three feet above the floor of the stage. They can see
past it, around it, underneath it. At one end, by the
was clinging to the back of the cabinet, and now they can satisfy themselves that no one
may be secreted beneath it. When I fling open the door to reveal the interior, then step
inside to release the catch that holds the rear panel in place, the audience can see right
through from front to back. They see me pass through, likewise from front to back, and
close the back wall once more. The door hangs open, and while I am apparently busy behind
the cabinet they take their chance to peer more intently at the interior. There is nothing
for them to see, though: the cabinet is, must be, completely empty. Quickly, then, I slam
the front door closed, rotate the cabinet on its castors, and throw open the door. Inside,
large, beautiful, bulkily dressed, smiling and waving her arms, entirely filling the
cramped interior of the cabinet, is a young woman. She steps down, takes her bow to
thunderous applause and leaves the stage.
I roll the cabinet to the side of the stage, whence it is quietly retrieved by Thomas
Elbourne.
So to the next. This is less spectacular, but involves two or three members of the
audience. Every magic act includes a few moments with a pack of cards. The magician must
show his skill with sleight of hand, otherwise he runs the risk of being thought by his
professional colleagues merely to be an operator of self-working machinery. I walk to the
footlights, and the curtains close behind me. This is partly to create a closed, intimate
atmosphere for the card tricks, but mainly so that behind them Thomas may set up the
apparatus for The New Transported Man.
With the cards finished, I need to break the feeling of quiet concentration, so I move
swiftly into a series of colourful productions. Flags, streamers, fans, balloons and silk
scarves stream out unstoppably from my hands, sleeves and pockets, creating a bright and
chaotic display all around me. My female assistant walks on stage behind me, apparently to
clear away some of the streamers, but in reality to slip me more of the compressed
materials for release. By the end, the brightly coloured papers and silks are inches deep
around my feet. I acknowledge the applause.
While the audience is still clapping the curtains open behind me, and in semi-darkness my
apparatus for The New Transported Man may be seen. My assistants move quickly on to the
stage and deftly clear away the coloured streamers.
I return to the footlights, face the audience and address them directly, in my fractured,
French-accented English. I explain that what I am about to perform has become possible
only since the discovery of electricity. The performance draws power from the bowels of
the Earth. Unimaginable forces are at work, that even I do not fully comprehend. I explain
that they are about to witness a veritable miracle, one in which life and death are
chanced with, as in the game of dice my ancestors played to avoid the tumbril.
While I speak the stage lights brighten, and catch the polished metal supports, the golden
coils of wire, the glistening globes of glass. The apparatus is a thing of beauty, but it
is a menacing beauty because everyone by now has heard for themselves of some of the
deadly power of the electrical current. Newspapers have carried accounts of horrible
deaths and burns caused by the new force already available in many cities.
The apparatus of The New Transported Man is designed to remind them of these appalling
accounts. It carries numerous incandescent electric lamps, some of which come alight even
as I speak. At one side is a large glass globe, inside which a brilliant arc of
electricity fizzes and crackles excitingly. The main part of the apparatus appears, to the
audience, to be a long wooden bench, three feet above the floor of the stage. They can see
past it, around it, underneath it. At one end, by the
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