There has been some discussion among magicians recently
about the similarities in performance between the new winner of Britain’s Got
Talent, Richard Jones, and previous contestants in America’s Got Talent. One of
the effects in question concerns the cutting of a celebrity silhouette from a
piece of paper.
The trick was marketed by Oz Pearlman, one of the AGT
contestants, as 21st Century Phantom in 2008. Credit was given to
Annemann and Percy Naldrett for the original effect. A review by W. S. Duncan in M-U-M magazine said, ‘While it would be easy to
accuse Mr Pearlman of grave robbing in his production of this effect, I think a
more honest assessment would call it resurrecting.’ The trick was a close-up
version of The Phantom Artist published by Annemann in The Jinx (Summer 1937
Extra) and later in Annemann’s Practical Mental Effects (1944). And in fact it was Annemann who was
doing the resurrecting, pointing out that the trick had previously been published by
Percy Naldrett as The Celebrity Trick. Which actually wasn't quite true.
The trick was the work of H C Mole, a magician from Aintree
in Liverpool with several books to his name. Like Richard Jones he also had a
connection to the military in that he organised hundreds of shows for troops in
the Boehr War (Mole was born in the 1870s) as well as the first and second
World Wars. He wrote about this aspect of his work in magic articles and
pamphlets. But he also had another skill and one that might show why he came up
with an effect in which a portrait was cut into a sheet of paper. He was a
pioneer in the performance of rag pictures.
In this curious art the performer would create a picture
from bits of cloth on an easel. Patter, rhyme and music were added to make it
entertaining but perhaps what made it interesting to audiences is that the pictures were
astonishingly good. You can get an glimpse of the kind of pictures H C Mole
made in Abracadabra magazine (28th February 1948). In an article he wrote entitled Rag Picture Wrinkles there is a photograph of a tourist
postcard set alongside a photograph of his wife putting the finishing touches
to their rag rendition of the postcard. The similarity is amazing.
H C Mole didn’t read The Jinx. And it wasn’t until he read
the Potter’s Bar series in The Budget, in which Jack Potter listed published
tricks, that Mole realised his trick had been reprinted by Annemann. Mole wrote
an article for Abracadabra magazine (24th June, 1950) entitled
Piracy. He complained that Annemann had lifted his copyrighted material, saying,
Is it not time, though, that such bare-faced robbery should be stopped, for I
am not the only sufferer in this respect?’
H C Mole died in 1952 leaving a legacy of interesting books
and articles including Those Entertaining Years (1950, a reminiscence of his
magical life. The profits went to Benevolent Funds of the IBM. In one story he
recalls his wife’s reaction to the Biblical tale in which Aaron cast down his
rod and it became a serpent. This prompted the Egyptian magicians to do the
same. ‘It’s funny,’ said Mrs Mole, that they all knew the same conjuring trick!’
There is one more thing to mention about H C Mole and The
Celebrity Trick. It was published in 1919 by Percy Naldrett in a book called
The Magic of To-Morrow. Meaning that the trick that helped Richard Jones win
Britain’s Got Talent was almost 100 years old. How very prescient of Mr Mole.
