Just a note to say on behalf of the Vicar the Rev Q. Bellamy and the Parish Church, a big thank you to you for coming along and doing Table Magic at the Church fundraising event last week. After all the months of planning it’s hard to believe it’s all over!! Your show went down very well with everyone judging by all the positive comments and feedback we received afterwards.
Once again thank you and will keep an eye out for future events that you are in.
We always get to see such wonderful places when we’re performing, and Bodwleyddan Castle is no exception. Set in 260 acres of parkland in Denbighshire, Bodelwyddan Castle is also a partner of the National Portrait Gallery and houses portraits from their 19th century collection, as well as sculpture from the Royal Academy of Arts, and furniture from the Victoria and Albert Museum.
For the past two weekends, we’ve been performing shows in the Dining Room. Working in such a wonderful room, in full Victorian costume, felt like stepping back in time. The Dining Room may well have seen magic shows before, as parlour magic was a very popular entertainment form back in the Victorian Era. Some of the most famous names in magical history, such as Maskelyne and Devant were at their height during this time.
The first weekend was Bodelwyddan Castle’s Victorian Birthday Party, to celebrate 25 years of the castle and park. The second was a family fun day themed around Knights and Princesses. There were all sorts of fun things to do, including a bouncy castle, a juggler, a stilt walker, a dancing statue, and lots of traditional games.
Our magic shows were very popular with the guests at both weekends – and our audiences almost completely filled the Dining Room! The adults and the children both enjoyed seeing our tricks and illusions.
While we were at the Castle, we took some time to explore the building. One one of the upper floors, we came across a room full of toys and games from the Victorian Era. We also found something a little unexpected, but which we were absolutely delighted to see…
The Egyptian Hall in London first showed this effect on the 16th of October 1865, after weeks of cryptic announcements in the newspapers. Queen Victoria herself summoned the magician to Windsor Castle for a private performance of the illusion that had taken London by storm.
Seeing such a classic magical effect was the perfect end to a wonderful weekend!
The weather was extremely hot and sunny all week, and there was an amazing atmosphere on the Eisteddfod field.
But that’s enough talk, time for the photographs!
As you can see, Jay performed close up magic for lots of people, mainly groups of school children. The adults were interested too, and it was very nice to be recognised by some people who had seen us in Seaside Special.
It wasn’t all street magic though. We also performed on all the outside stages; the Lawn Stage, the Amphitheatre, and the S4C Stage.
In fact, the only stage we didn’t perform on was the main Eisteddfod stage…
We took our floating table with us and, as always, it got great reactions from the crowd. Jay also performed a classic magic routine, the linking rings, which was very well received.
Of course, we weren’t the only ones from HTC Entertainment at the Eisteddfodd, and the others were very busy performing too:
Roslyn Walker attempted some dangerous blindfold knife juggling over a volunteer. He also completed a straightjacket escape in less than three minutes.
Lia showed off her agility with her hula hoop routines.
Kaleigh showed us why she’s the world unicycle champion.
Harley the Clown did some crazy balancing stunts, as well as juggling knives and making balloon animals.
In the evenings, we put on a fire show. Kaleigh unicycled as Roslyn and Harley juggled lit torches around her, and Lia used a flaming hula hoop. The most spectacular part of the fire shows was Harley breathing fire.
The weather was amazingly good, in fact it was perhaps a little too hot at times! We were especially grateful to the outside stages team who looked after us so well for the five days.
The Eisteddfod was a brilliant week, and we all had such a great time. We really hope we’ll be back again next year!
From Tuesday the 9th to Saturday the 14th of July, Gatling Magic will be in Llangollen for the 67th International Musical Eisteddfod.
We’ll be part of the Street Theatre events – roaming around the Eisteddfod field, showing close up magic and miracles to the crowds. We’ll also be in the Opening Town Parade on Tuesday.
It’s been a while since I posted anything on the blog, so here’s a quick round up of what we’ve been doing.
We were medieval magicians in July, doing street magic on the quay in Conwy, and we also took part in the Conwy Jester Weekend in August. The lovely face painting was done by Kaleigh from HTC Entertainments.
It hasn’t been all outdoor work though; we were part of the Rachel Silva Show in Rhyl Golf club in July, and of course we’ve been continuing with the summer season. Those Were the Days, the 1940s/wartime show went on the road in August to take part in Penmaenmawr’s Wales at War 1940’s weekend. We performed in the community hall, and it was great to see so many of the audience dressed up, it made a brilliant atmosphere!
We spent a day outside Asda in Llandudno, helping to raise money for their community fund and promoting our show, Illusionary. You can see more photos of the day on the Asda Green Room website.
The show itself took place on the 1st of September in the Orme Suite in Venue Cymru. Featuring High Jinx, Harley and Elemental, together with Dean Raymond and Joe Daly, it was a great night, and we’re very grateful to everyone who helped make it a success.
There’s three more weeks left of our summer season with Happy Faces Children’s Charity in Llandudno town hall. Tickets are still available for both shows, Seaside Special, and Those Were The Days. (Please note, Jay and I won’t be there on the 26th and 27th of September, as we’ll heading off to a magic convention.)
And what will we be doing next? Well, we’re back in the Tynedale Hotel in Llandudno at the beginning of October for another of their Variety Breaks, and we’ve also just started work on a project for a local car dealership. We’ll tell you all about it soon!
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Cookie
Duration
Description
CONSENT
2 years
YouTube sets this cookie via embedded youtube-videos and registers anonymous statistical data.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Cookie
Duration
Description
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
5 months 27 days
A cookie set by YouTube to measure bandwidth that determines whether the user gets the new or old player interface.
YSC
session
YSC cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages.
yt-remote-connected-devices
never
YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video.
yt-remote-device-id
never
YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video.
