"The worlds fastest magician" - Bollocks!

Here is a newsflash - Jadugar anand is not a very good magician. He is however, absolutely hilairous. Just look at him on that billboard. That face....he keeps staring at the audience and pulling that face and it constantly made me laugh throughout the 2 hour show.

The indian audience was a strange one, they are not big clappers for example. I was expecting anand's entrance to be greated with a big cheer and raptuous applause - what he got was the odd clap and a cough from someone sitting at the back. Shamelessly though, anand simply stares at the audience in silience, pulling a stupid face until a few more of us clap. A little bit.

He had a fairly big audience in the bloody old theatre, a fair few hundred I would say, and a few of the tricks were pretty good I suppose. Birds appearing out of nowhere and people dissappearing pretty quickly were all quite good, and even though I know how the elephant vanish trick works, it was still pretty good. However, there were too many people coming out of boxes and far too many times when we worked out how he'd done it. Although anand has been touring his show for over 40 years, I dont think any of his tricks would take any real skill or practice. For example, I think I could perform his whole show within a week of practice. All I would need to know is how to work his "Magic" props - Job done.

I did thoroghly enjoy myself though and for comedy moments, the value was through the roof. At the start of each new trick he would give a little speech, and on the last word of each introduction he would pull that face and the sound guy would make the last word echo. So he would say something like, *slow mysterious voice* "Haaaave youuuu evverrrrr, seeeen a mummy appeeaaaar then vaaanniisssh? - Weeeelll my friends, leeet usss goooo tooo......EGYPT, EGYPT, egypt....egypt..." Then he'd pull the face, walk off, curtain would raise and there we were. In egypt. Or, there we were. In an old theatre. With someone wrapped up in bandages on stage.

Bizarrely, the chief of police and some government official came on stage half way through the show to thank anand for the delightful wonderment that we had been shown. Anand magicked them some flowers out of a box in return.

Anand claims to be the holder of three world records - doubtful. The records themselves are a bit hazy though. First off he claims to hold the record for making an elephant vanish the quickest. Hmmm. Then he claims to have driven 300kms blindfolded on a motorbike - a stunt he perfromed to promote road safety. And last but certainly not least he claims to hold the record for longest transmission of a telepathic message, stating that he has sent someone a message using telepathy over 200 kms away, ok anand - we'll take your word for it. But this is what I love about the bloke, these rediculous claims and funny faces! Pure entertainment for sure.

I dont want to be seen as taking the piss out of the guy too much though. I think he really does love his profession and he's keen to keep the magic industry alive. He also makes the best of the limited resources he has and it was quite humbling to watch him and his team perform with equipment and props which must have been 20 years old or more. Also, I'm convinced anand is in on the joke, sometimes I saw him nearly burst out laughing whilst pulling one of his trademark silly faces and at one point I almost thought he was being ironic in his delivery. According to the event programme, his shows are "very rare" yet in the same programme, it states he holds the record for the most amount of shows, 26,000 in all apparently!

Anyway, despite my cynicism and mick taking, it was great and obiviously I bought a T shirt with his face on it. To give you an idea of how seriously the guy takes his magic, click here for a link to a recent news article about the great one.

If he ever does come to a town near you - check him out! Seeing is believing...