talkmagic.co.uk

Get it while it's hot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_8I8EV703o

The master!

This brings back memories. I am terribly amused that nowadays magicians are agog over Chan Canasta but in days when this was being televised all the magicians were criticising him. I was always a fan. He was very long winded. He would do three tricks in half an hour, two of which would go wrong and the public raved over him. The even more remarkable thing was that he would do the same tricks week after week disguising them slightly and nobody noticed the difference. It shows how much you can bluff with a small repertoire. I loved the time a Goya painting was stolen from the National Art Gallery and he went on TV challenging the thief to put it back in a subtle way. Naturally that trick went wrong too since after the show Chan was taken into custody by Scotland Yard who thought he might be the thief himself!

All live in those days, of course. And it's interesting to see John Freeman in front of the camera; in his famous "Face to Face" series he was never seen (except when he interviewed Jung).

Barry