NextBackMy first memory of visiting the theatre was in 1937 when as a very small child my dad took me to see the Great Levante, real name Leslie Cole. He was an Australian and was internationally famous magician and illusionist and had just returned to this country from a world tour. He had a spectacular supporting programme.
I can remember some of the tricks he performed including the coin snatch, the sixpenny Woolworths tin kettle trick which involved pouring a wide selection of drinks from an empty kettle and giving the to the audience to drink afterwards, and throwing the kettle away for anyone to take home. I remember going home and trying to do the tricks exactly as shown, none worked. He concluded the show with a spectacular firing a girl from a cannon situated at the rear left hand corner of the stage into a net on the front right hand corner. A short time afterwards, he was doing this trick in a northern theatre and when the girl landed in the net she was struck on the temple by a supporting post, and she died. It was hushed up for obvious reasons, but a short time afterwards he has another girl performing the same thing.
Although the poster shown is a very much later one from a theatre in Margate, it shows a similar bill to that which appeared at the Palace Theatre in Redditch so many years earlier.
