An afternoon Christmas celebration for members including festive refreshments - now fully booked
Our entertainment this year will feature a talk by AS lecturer and professional magician Ian Keable on ‘Charles Dickens, conjurer: A playbill of his most famous show’
Charles Dickens was an amateur conjurer for several years, from the time he wrote A Christmas Carol to David Copperfield. His best known show was in 1849, when he produced a special playbill to promote his appearance, calling himself the 'Unparalleled Necromancer'. This talk by Ian Keable follows this playbill to explore how Dickens was inspired to take up magic, whether he was any good as a conjurer and how he wrote about magic in his books, articles and letters. The talk will include some Dickensian tricks performed by Ian!
Ian Keable
Ian Keable gained a First Class degree from Oxford University, qualified as a Chartered Accountant and then became a Professional Magician. In 2014 he published Charles Dickens Magician: Conjuring in Life, Letters & Literature. His latest book is The Century of Deception: The Birth of the Hoax in Eighteenth-Century England.
He now divides his time between performing magic, giving talks and researching and writing. He is a Member of The Inner Magic Circle and in 2024 was appointed the Archivist of The Magic Circle. He is presently writing a biography of David Devant, the first President of The Magic Circle and considered to be England's greatest ever magician.
Website: http://www.iankeable.co.uk/talks
GALLERY 
OTHER EVENTS
Society
Sarah Ciacci
18 Nov 2026 - 10:30
The Hawthorne Theatre
Campus West
Campus West
Online Event
In this talk, Sarah will look at how food and feasting is depicted in paintings