Festivals diary: Where does a magician get his rope and a case of mistaken identity

From a demonstration from Unfair Advantage performer Harry Milas, a card magician who has been kicked out of the world’s best casinos, to the Remarkable Ben Hart, who got me to assist him with a rope trick, my cynical hack’s mind has been blown.

Ben got me to hold a piece of one length rope, which he proceeded to cut and join together again while they were still in my hands.

However, poor Ben has a problem: his rope supplier has shut down. A chandlers near London’s Covent Garden, it actually called the product - a standard issue boat rope - “magicians’ rope” due to his long history with customers including not only Ben, but some of his colleagues.

Any suggestions for a new magic rope supplier for Ben, do let me know.

The Bonnie Bonnie Banks

Performer Frisky, aka Laura Corcoran, had a couple of culturally awkward moments in her fabulous show Frisky’s Reshuffle on Sunday night, when an audience member requested a Scottish classic.

Having already performed Bohemian Rhapsody in the style of folk and Like a Virgin in the genre of thrash metal and also reggae - when she was forced to explain that she did not feel her own cultural heritage qualified her to perform in the required accent - the incredibly talented “matriarch of twisted cabaret” asked for a suggestion of another song.

“Loch Lomond,” shouted an audience member, as the genre of rave was selected on stage.

“I’m very aware I’m in the land of the Scottish ancestral people and may get chased out with pitchforks,” she said, before requesting that the audience sing her a quick chorus to get her in the mood.

Doppelganger

It has been a week of mistaken identity for festivals PR Matthew Shelley, who has a terrifyingly identical doppelganger performing a show at the Fringe.

I have twice mistaken said gentleman for Matt in the past week, the first time thinking he was intentionally blanking me as I waved enthusiastically at him across a Fringe bar. On the second occasion, I actually spoke directly to him and he spoke back - but with an American accent, which revealed to me immediately that it was most definitely not Matthew. The doppelganger still somehow responded to the name of Matthew, however, resulting in a lengthy chat where I had to pretend that I knew who he actually was. Awkward.

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Matthew tells me he has also doubled for Liam Gallagher in a series of press shots this week, confusing things even further - the latest installation in what turns out to be an even more colourful modelling career than I had realised.

“There's a lot more to being a PR than writing press releases,” he insists. “I have appeared in newspapers as a Roman soldier, a dinosaur (easy mistake), a large fluffy children's character, a six foot dog, a crocodile and many other things over the years. On one occasion I had to be the crash test dummy to see how close we could get a fire breather to an MSP without singeing them.”