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Paul Dabek - winner of the Magic Circle Young Magician of the Year. Really impressive sounding, eh?

That's what I thought!

Context: Mrs Seige and myself - both overworked of late, take a last-minute long weekend (Fri-Tues) to (don't laugh) Blackpool.

A lovely little park called Marton Mere–tucked away just a couple of miles from Blackpool itself. Nice 'static' caravan to stay in, onsite entertainment - what some may call a 'dirty weekend'. (And perhaps those of you who would insinuate this may indeed know me too well...)

So, we arrive, get settled and get down to the bar. A small poster in the Entertainment's suite mentions: "Friday - Barney the Bear (or somesuch creature of children's entertainment) followed by Illusionist, followed by singing duo"

Illusionist, eh? Intriguing.

After plying Mrs Seige with several more vodka's, I popped the question: "Do you fancy going along to the show bar later to see an illusionist?"

Usually, the mention of anything magical on the agenda causes a sort of silent deep-sigh to eminate from her lips. But owing to the fact it was only 6pm, and she'd already imbibed four industrial strength vodkas, she was surprisingly keen to go along (shock).

So, we walked (staggered) back to our 'home', had a wash and brush up, had some nosh and got down to the show bar for the 9pm performance.

Introduced as 'A very exciting magical illusion act by Paul Dabek', two and two suddenly became four when I realised that this was Paul Dabek - Young Magician of the Year.

So, I now eagerly anticipated the show's start... and what a great start it was.

Choreographed to a rather jazzy but definately magical score, the action began almost instantly. A few silk, cane and dove effects - plus a VERY nice professor's nightmare sequence - done without any words whatsoever. The ropes were actually around Paul's neck, worn like a tie!

Then, the appearance of his very lovely and nimble assistant coupled with the on-stage presence of a zig-zag cabinet could signal only one thing!!! Great! I love these big-stage effects!

In she goes, and without further ado - she was in three pieces. Looking around at the audience, there were some VERY slack jaws at this point. Brilliant! Even a comedy moment, where the boxes didn't quite re-mesh, at which point the slightly flummoxed Paul tugged his collar and gave a very nice 'phew' mime.

Paul is tall, dark and YOUNG! Very young. This performance was already great... and I could see there were more props around, giving the impression this had only just begun!

His charisma carried us through this first-half of the set, totally to music, no words whatsoever.

The highlight for me was NOT the fabled 'Phantom of the Opera' routine, whereby a mask and three doves 'melt' together to form a 'feathered mask'... my highlight of this first part was his card manipulation - with some VERY sweet fans, backpalms and flourishes - finale'd with a tumultuous one-handed card flinging marathon, whereby a whole deck was spun into the audience one by one... and they loved it!

The second half was a bit of a let-down for me. Paul spoke.

This wasn't too bad, but all the energy and fizz which we'd seen in the first segment had gone, and he went headlong into very rhetoric number divination routine.

The audience member who participated was invited onto the stage, and then was subjected to a rather embarrassing 'do as I do' routine, the one where the magi drinks down a glass of fluid, and 'saves a mouthful'. It was comedy - at the speccy's expense. Not my cup of tea. Then, a rather pointless 'Healed and Sealed' effect, with 'the can he just poured the drink from'... which could not really be seen that clearly from such a distance. It worked well, and those on the front rows were applauding, so I guess it worked for them. And why on earth he gave the speccy the 'healed' can as an inspectable souvenir was very odd indeed...

The show must go on - as they say! So straight down to the other 'highlight' of the set...

Paul announces "To finish are two very special things to me... the first trick I ever learned, and the Metamorphosis effect, made famous by Houdini. Many people have done this before, and managed to do it in 6 seconds. Tonight, ladies and gents, I will attempt to perform this illusion in half a second."

Wow. Sounds great!

So, his 'first ever' effect was Linking Rings. He produces 3 silver rings, and does a rather special and invigorating show with them. Very entertaining. His lovely assistant, at the peak of this performance, then hands him three more rings. What followed was a fluid and fluent performance - a six-ring manipulation... linking, unlinking, sculpting. This was great stuff.

And then... the moment we'd all been waiting for. The BIG STAGE illusion - Metamorphosis. We've seen Pendragon's version, and now we'd see Dabek's.

He is shackled, bagged and sealed in an impossible box-prison. How on earth will he escape? His lovely assistant stands atop the box. She holds the 'curtain' at her waist...

STOP: I have seen this illusion performed two or three times before... and each time I have marvelled. Obviously, as magi, we know how this effect is done. It's very simple. But one thing which I felt very nervous about on this occasion was the open angles of the stage, and the fact that the whole thing seemed to be back-lit.

...and so it continued...

And flopped.

As soon as the curtain was raised above his assistant's head, we see Paul's feet emerge behind the box. Even worse, his assistant made a right pig's ear of swapping places with him.

The audience were all pointing and laughing. The whole thing seemed like a joke. I felt so sorry for this guy. And worst of all - I don't think he knew.

The audience who were dead square-on to him would have seen a marvellous illusion. Those of us at the front and to the sides saw what could have been deemed as a rather embarrasing 'Tommy Cooper' moment.

BUT... on the whole, this guy deserved his accolade. Aside from these minor criticisms, the whole thing was brilliant entertainment, and a really enjoyable magic bundle. There was a bit of everything in there, and it was a pleasure to behold.

Keep your eyes peeled for the name: Paul Dabek... he'll certainly be coming to a stage near you...

Oh, and on the subject of Tommy Cooper, I paid a couple of visits to Tommy Cooper's shop on the Blackpool prom... and as usual, the old sunbleached items for sale at prices which would make most of us cry. And what an insult, I felt, to see fake dog turds on the same display as a Raven...?

seige wrote:So, we arrive, get settled and get down to the bar. A small poster in the Entertainment's suite mentions: "Friday - Barney the Bear (or somesuch creature of children's entertainment)...

For the record, his name is Bradley Bear.



I used to be one of the people you saw at the park wearing purple shirts in the evening, dancing with guests and keeping kids off the stage while cabarets were on.

Not at this park though.

Hey, nice one!

Yeah, the kids were insane - and as you rightly say it was BRADLEY.

There was some unfeasibly scary pigtailed girl prancing on stage with him too. Very much something of nightmares!

The lad and lass who were flicking the kids off the side of the stage were brilliant, actually. The whole thing was well controlled. They even managed to clear the stage before Dabek arrived... not so bad!

Following Dabek was an AWFUL 'karaoke' style band called Picture That (I think) which was a guy/girl duo... ouch. Ear and soul destroying... especially the guy's rather odd speech impediment in the 'Can you Feel It' cover - which he seemed to be over-annunciating the 'It' - so it sounded more like "Can you feeeeeel Itsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss" - very odd!

Aw man I miss it so much.

I ran the kids club last season. Bradley Bear was a guest on a Monday Night - the rest of the week I would chat to Rory the Tiger.

Rory could kick Bradley's a** any day...

Anyway...

Back to the magic...

I took my wife and the in-laws to see Paul Dabek's night of magic in Chester last Weekend - 15th Feb - My mother in law kept saying "How did he do that?" and judging by her reaction she relly enjoyed the performance. As indeed I did - he has a good personality and did many standard effects.

He opened with a very clever "fishing effect" with an improvised magic wand and produced a live goldfish into a large brandy style class.

He did sucker silk which was extremely clean. He turned a blue silk into a pink one and led us up the garden path to show no silk.

He did the tossed out decked with Wayne Dobson's handling at the end with the three chosen people sitting down when they heard there card chosen. He used two elastic bands which I thought was an improvement on the handing and I will use this myself in my future performances. I use this as part of my mental epic routine ala Whit Hayden.

He did the professor's nightmare very well with some nice subtelties.

He did a version of Alan Shaxon or is it Ken Brooke's or Paul Stone's conflabulation? This was a great routine obviously adapted for cruise ships with the change in the pocket being a deposit for a holiday by the sea - unlike Alan's version of the new car that is to be purchased.

He then did a sort of cmime lown sequence to music which broke up the evening a bit and explored more artistically a kind of Charlie Chaplin character that started with appearing cane and dove from change bag. The dove ammusingly went to the top of the roof and stayed there dropping a few presents of its own.

He vanished a signed £5 note that turned up somewhere after doing healed and sealed with a Coke can. This got gasps from the audience- strong effect. He finished with linking rings done to a fast pace.

He has a very good image for a magician and should go far although I have to agree with some comments previously that his humour was too aggressive at times for the friendly audience he had.

Great show!!!!