In the 1990’s Simon Drake managed to further magic on television by breaking with the Rabbits from hats image of the magician to bring a darker and more shocking type of magic into peoples homes. The Secret Cabaret ran for two series of six episodes each on Channel 4.
Simon was praised by the magic world and reviews for giving a new and shocking twist to the presentation of illusions. Each show featured sideshow acts and vintage archive footage, including freak show material, and various mini stories and presentations on fraud and confidence tricks.
The Secret Cabaret reflected heavy gothic, punk and heavy metal influences, almost all the illusions and tricks having a very shocking side to them, including being embellished with realistic blood and gore, similar to Richiardi Jr’s presentations in the 1970’s that involved often gruesome presentations of effects such as sawing a lady in half.
The show had major input from the cream of magic, Ricky Jay had a major hand in the show, as well as performing on it, as well as name such as Jim Steinmeyer. Other notable appearance were by James Randi, Max Maven and David Berglas.
The show became a cult icon, and it’s a shame it only did two series, Simon has for a long time been asked when he would release The Secret Cabaret on some sort of media, as there has never been any official release of the program. Thankfully now Simon Drake has released The Secret Cabaret- The Directors Cut, due to copyright it only contains Simons Performances from the show, not the many linking features by Randi, Berglas and others. He has however added additional linking material that he says continues the feel of the show
I remember the show from my youth, in fact I still have some episodes on tape in my loft, and loved it, it was again one of my early influencers in magic. So it’s great to see that the official DVD is now available directly from Simon Drake. And for fans of the original show, Simon Drake also runs The House of Magic a show in the style of the Secret Cabaret at a secret location in London. Housed in a permanently themed 4,000 square foot Victorian residence, it’s open to the public on a once a month basis for shows by Simon Drake, drinks and dancing, as well as being available for private hire..
The Secret Cabaret is only available directly from Simon Drakes site - www.secretcabaret.com priced £24.99 plus postage and packing, it’s shippable worldwide.
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