Review

THE SECRET WORLD OF CHARLES DICKENS
Lauderdale House

by LAUREN GEISLER 

I HATE magic. I want to know how everything is done and want to be able to do it myself. I want to divert people’s attention with my mesmerising patter whilst I use sleight-of-hand to pull rabbits out of hats. But I can’t. 

Fortunately for north London, Inner Magic Circle member and comedy award winner Ian Keable can. Except for the bit about the rabbit. 

The Secret World of Charles Dickens sees Keable combining his competent and amusing skills as a magician with his own fascination with the life and work of the prolific writer. 

Keable lifts the lid on the secret methods of Victorian psychics and Dickens’s own love of uncovering the tricks and tools of spiritualists and conjurers, whilst reading excerpts from novels, poems and correspondence of the 1800s in an authentic parlour-room atmosphere. 

The attic space at the 16th-century Lauderdale House provides the perfect setting for a show which grows darker and chillier as the night outside does (although the broken boiler may have been somewhat to blame). 

Dim lighting, exposed beams and being able to step out of the show into the historic grounds of Waterlow Park all add to an immersive experience. 

Despite being exposed to my two biggest fears – audience participation and a maths challenge – The Secret World of Charles Dickens is enlightening, entertaining and engaging. 

It’s a magic show balanced in educational reveals and mind-bending slight-of-hand mysteries, with a spooky Victorian literary twist. 

And not a single rabbit in sight.