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| The Famous London Palladium Theatre |
This year is the 100th anniversary of the famous London Palladium Theater and producer Paul Stone has organized a one night event called "100 Years of Magic at the Palladium" to benefit his magic charity. My friends Jack and Mary Kodell have been invited to participate at "Living Legends" as they both played the Palladium during their performing careers. I'm tagging along to help them out and generally make myself useful. I get to experience the whole adventure and meet some great performers in the greatest variety theater in the world.
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| Jack & Mary Kodell |
Met my friends Jack and Mary Kodell for the first step in our Big London Adventure. Got them all installed at the gate and left them knowing we'd be seeing each other in a couple of days in Old Londontown.
Day 1
Arrived at Heathrow a few minutes early after a very nice and uneventful flight.
Good thing we were early because I've never in my life seen such a queue for immigration. Must've been literally in the thousands of passengers, the queue went way out of the immigration area, into the airport itself, down long hallways and around corners.
A nice train ride from the airport to downtown London, my luggage and I got off at Paddington Station only a few blocks from the hotel. I did grab my first London Taxi to take me to the very nice Hilton London Metropole hotel.
As I'm walking through the lobby, who do I run smack into but my friends the Kodell's! The room is great and I got myself all installed.
Spent a quiet day around the hotel mostly, but we were very keen to check out the area so we took a little walk down Edgware Road which is now a mostly Muslim neighborhood but filled with wonderful family restaurants, shops, etc. as well as more traditional grocery stores and pharmacies.
For weeks Mary has been going on about the wonderful little "pork pies" that are supposedly popular here. To hear the story, all British children eat nothing but pork pies and pork pies won the war and on and on how delicious they are. She explained that it's made from a lump of cooked pork, wrapped in brown pork gelatin, and the whole thing baked in a very heavy pastry made mostly from lard. The real clincher is that the entire lump is eaten cold and ONLY cold.
How could anyone resist it?
We found some of these "delicacies" on our little walk down Edgware in a very nice market. The kind manager assured me that the one's we bought were best, so I'd have a good first impression. Well, it wasn't as horrific as I had feared, but probably not something I'd rush out to buy. Mary ate the remaining pie and wasn't very impressed either. Now I'm supposed to try some other brand!
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| mmmmmm.... cold pork and lard wrapped in heavy pastry! |
Ran some errands with Paul (the producer) and we stopped at famous Davenport's Magic Shop. It's been a London fixture for about 200 years and I met the lovely owner, Betty Davenport.
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| with Betty Davenport |
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| With "Living Legends" Jack Kodell & John Calvert |
MOVING ALONG…….
Ok folks; it's now Tuesday and the Big Events are over and have been deemed a huge success.
Finally found some free internet that's not too far away so apologies for not being able to keep in better touch while away.
Sunday afternoon was the "Meet the Legends" event organized so that the VIP's and sponsors, etc. could meet some of the performers and Legends and get a special feel for the event.
It was held at a hotel right behind the Palladium (where the show was to be held) in what used to be the courthouse. They had a little reception and also a small movie theater where we held the event.
It was really great; Mary had a ton of her friends and family from the good old days and I enjoyed visiting with some greats of magic that I've always admired. One of the main Legends is a great guy named John Calvert who toured the world with a huge show, was an aviator, movie star, etc. He's now 100 years old and still getting around a bit.
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| With some performers from the show posing with Jack & Mary Kodell, Tammy & John Calvert, Ruth & David Berglas |
The magicians reading this will also recognize the wonderful Wayne Dobson and his lovely family as well as the great British Dean of Magic, David Berglas. A few of the performers for the show were also in attendance like Mac King and Paul Zenon among others.
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| With Legendary John Calvert and one of my heros, Wayne Dobson |
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| Jack and Mary Kodell; telling it like it is! |
The Kodell's and I then grabbed a taxi to visit the Water Rats, a prestigious club of variety performers to which both Jack and Mary have been members for over 50 years.
The Water Rats have their own building that's under rehab at the moment, but the street level is an old closed pub where we met the Rats and the Kodell's got to visit with some very friendly but undeniable characters.
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| The Grand Order of Water Rats |
Paul arranged for us to visit the Palladium mid-day while the show was in rehearsal and we had a chance to wander the old theater and really enjoy ourselves. It's an amazing theater, huge and ornate, but designed especially for variety shows (unlike most Broadway or West End theaters).
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| Little Mary Naylor, home again at the Palladium! |
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| The Legendary London Palladium Theater |
We had to go back to the hotel to get all pretty in our best duds, then back to the theater late afternoon in preparation for the evening show.
It's all pretty much a whirlwind; Jack and Mary had a phalanx of friends and performers around them most of the evening.The theater was really packed which was great and the energy was terrific. What a wonderful audience.
Paul emcee'd the show which started with a big musical dance number by a terrific dance troupe who supported the show show.
Gotta say, I wasn't sure how well all the acts would go over, but there wasn't a bad act in the whole bill and everyone was fantastic. Proud to say that our American magicians did us very proud and rocked the house; of course, I'm most partial to the comedy acts and they had everyone in tears (not the way I do; in the good way).
I won't go into a review of each act but here's the bill:
First Half
- Erix Logan (illusion show)
- Yelena Larkina (dancer w/ hula hoops)
- Michael Finney (comedy magic)
- Silvan (Italian magic star did some card manipulation)
- Mikael Szanyiel (very unusual, European comedy silent act)
- Mac King (our own Vegas comedy guy)
- Nathalie Enterline (fantastic movement I can't explain, but amazing)
- Marko Karvo (best bird act I've seen in decades… awesome!)
During the interval (intermission) we all kibitzed and visited. All the lay people were so impressed with the first have they wondered how they could ever top it. I couldn't get to my seat w/ Jack and Mary, so I watched most of the 2nd half seated in the Royal Box, sitting next to Jeff Hobson and a gorgeous (really!) drag queen from Germany. It was all very surreal to be sure!
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| View of the Royal Box taken earlier in the day |
Second Half
- Opened with the "Magic Dancers" and introduction of the Legends
- Paul Zenon (very popular British TV comedy magician)
- Kris Kremo (probably the best juggler in the world today)
- Ben Stone (Paul's son sang a theme song for the charity- no magic)
- Jeff Hobson (need I say more???)
- Hans Klok (huge illusion show to close)
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| Las Vegas Star, Jeff Hobson rocked the house! |
Everyone was really blown away and enjoyed the entire show. It was obviously a really long evening but we also had a nice little reception "after party" where everyone could rub elbows, get autographs, etc.
Got back to the hotel around 1 AM…. yikes!
Mary's off on a train to visit her family in Nottingham, Jack's going to be in bed resting from all the fun and I'm at McDonald's in Paddington writing a travel blog. You're now all caught up!
