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Interesting listening...

Saturday 16th October BBC Radio 4

15:30 The Indian Rope Trick
Generations of western magicians have been baffled and transfixed by the story of the Indian Rope Trick. According to travellers returning from the East, Indian fakirs were could perform an apparently miraculous feat: they would throw a rope up into the air and make it stand up straight without any visible means of support. A boy would then climb up the rope and vanish. Then the rope would fall to the ground and the boy would magically reappear.

Geoffrey Durham, one of Britain's top magicians, is among those intrigued by the story and sets out to investigate the truth of the legend. He witnesses, for the first time on British radio, a live performance of the Indian Rope Trick in a remote Indian village.

Magic illusion on the radio.


I can do that -

You have just got to HEAR my girl to saturn rocket.


LOL


I will be listening - sounds interesting.

Thanks for posting.

The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick: How a Spectacular Hoax Became History by Peter Lamont will soon be available from amazon at £7.99 and this explains how the Indian Rope Trick never actually existed in the form which we all imagine it to be.

PS Paul Daniels did card tricks on the radio yonks ago - all self workers and done by the listeners with their own cards at home.

PS Paul Daniels did card tricks on the radio yonks ago - all self workers and done by the listeners with their own cards at home.

That's nothing.

I'm too young to remember it myself but I'm reliably informed that venrtriloquist Peter Brough "appeared" on radio with Archie Andrews in the early 50s (I think he moved to television near the end of the 50s).



AndyG

Not only was 'Educating Archie' exactly as you describe, when Peter Brough moved to TV it was obvious he wasn't a very good vent at all - lips moving very obviously and so on. The thinking behind all this was, following the austere war years, almost anything would be welcomed as entertainment. The audiences disagreed and the TV programs soon finished. Mind you, the original radio series gave many well know comedians their first chance at performing to the public so it did some good.

PS My Grandfather told me all this - honest, guv!

I remember reading( in the 1990's) that Anthony Owen went to India and that a young Indian Magician performed the Rope Trick( except for the boy vanishing & being chopped up) in the middle of a field. There were some pics. Anthony apparently did a filmed documentary on it but since then I've never heard a thing about it. Was it ever shown on TV?
And for the moderator..as I've requested today, we do need a forum page on Vents. if only to stop some magicians thinking that Educating Archie belongs with the Indian Rope Trick.!! I thought i might have read that Archie climbed the rope!
Allen Tipton
Update 17 Sept 2007
Anthony O did send a letter to Abra, earlier this year,( I'd asked about the IRT in my last series on Illusions) It appears 2 quick clips were shown in the History Of magic prog. & one other. he's hoping the full thing will be shown..can't remember when. Will search Abras again for details.
AT

And on this topic.....
Courtesy of www.magicweek.co.uk:

The Man Who Walked Across The World
9pm on Thursday 20th September (1 hour) on BBC 4.
Magicians and Mystics. "In an effort to smash the West's monolithic view of Islam, Tim Mackintosh-Smith follows in the footsteps of 14th Century Moroccan scholar Ibn Battutah, who covered 75,000 miles, 40 countries and three continents in a 30-year odyssey. In Turkey, Tim watches an illegal whirling dervish ceremony, and in the Taurus mountains he meets the last of the Turkoman nomads. He chats to Tatars in Crimea, while in Delhi he watches a Muslim magician performing the Indian rope trick."

Hello Mandrake. Thank you for the Indian Rope trick note.
Have a great Alhoa time. While you are there you can do the Dancing Tie trick with a lei. Or will you be leing about all day. Ouch.
See if you can locate Michael Ching. He wrote the book on the Dancing Handkerchief. Corresponed with him about 18 months ago, mainly on The Floating Ball. I sent him the full Okito Routine which he had been searching for, for years.
Alhoa again. Pack your surf board & sarong!
Allen
ps look out for Dorothy Lamour.!

OK cheers, will do!!

UPDATE. Anthony Owen replied to my query in Abra 3205, 30th. June 2007 saying:
'The footage of Issamudin's 1997 performance of the IRT from my documentary, 'Routes of Magic', has never had a terrestrial showing. I was able to include extracts of the trick in 50 Greatest Magic Tricks(Channel 4 2002) & Greatest Magic Tricks in the Universe (Channel 5 2003), I'll also be sharing some of the never seen footage, amongst the clips I'll be showing during my lecture at the Cambridge Pentacle Club on July 3rd. 2007.'
I hope Anrthony is going to put it out on dvd. Priceless material for collectors, students and all who are interested in Magic's History.

It amazes me that Anthony's footage of this topmost legendary illusion of Magic's Art has never been eagerly sought after by magicians. When you think of everything that has been writtena about it why have magicians never followed it up at a frenetic gallop? Me included.
Allen Tipton

I was told that the mystic "Sufis" gained knowledge of this and other "tricks" from another organization in the middle ages. (could be the other way round?) This secret knowledge has remained "unexposed" even today!