First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on October 31st 2021

Be it ABRACADABRA or HOCUS POCUS, the preposterous worlds of prestidigitation or magic and magicians used to have a big part to play in the television schedules, and despite the objections from certain quarters about these dark arts being used for entertainment purposes, our evenings would once feature such household names as DAVID NIXON, ALI BONGO and PAUL DANIELS to entertain and delight us with their demonstrations of “how did they do that” sleight of hand, trickery, and other chicanery.

And for families up and down the land, they may very well have claimed to have liked it “not a lot” but, until the dawn of the more flamboyant and spectacular stage magicians, these cosy little tricksters and japesters were as big a part of our collective television lives as the Saturday Night Spectaculars are to modern audiences.

Returning guest PAUL CHANDLER - the SHY YETI himself - is back to talk about all kinds of television magic, so, along the way we touch upon what remains of the delightful ACE OF WANDS (and the spin-offs featuring MISTER STABS), the Belor-baffling INTO THE LABYRINTH, CHILDREN OF THE STONES, and THE MAGICIAN amongst others. Paul also touches upon other magical shows such as THE BOX OF DELIGHTS and MOONDIAL before we tiptoe into the strange world of magic as entertainment via the television shows featuring PAUL DANIELS, and we even pause for a moment to consider a whole magical boxful of shows such as CHARMED, SABRINA, JONATHAN STRANGE & MISTER NORRELL, MOON & SON, JONATHAN CREEK, RENTAGHOST and BEWITCHED.

PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.