Vic Taylor: Reminiscences of a showman
A shorter article this time, retelling a few stories from Vic Taylor's wartime experiences as a magician and showman... When World War Two came, thousands of magicians and other performers across the United Kingdom and other nations joined the armed forces. Some did so voluntarily. Others were conscripted, or else were forced to sign-up due to reduced levels of theatrical work during the war years. Vic Taylor, an Englishman born in 1900, had experienced this before. As a youngster, he'd learned magic from his father, a travelling magician. Young Vic suffered for the sake of art, cramped into a little box as the working parts of 'Zeedah, the Mysterious Talking Hindu Head,' (a fake automata) until he progressed to learning tricks and developing his own act. With his father, Vic spent m ost of his teenage years touring the south of England, working at fairs and seafronts. A natural showman, Vic's act embraced magic, hypnotism, ventriloquism and Punch and Judy. Vic Ta...