Magician Claude Chandlers puppets speaks after a 100 years silence!
- Jack Wise
- May 3
- 3 min read
It's not a huge surprise that many magicians in the past have added ventriloquism to their performances. It is essentially a magic trick.. as magic fools the eyes, ventriloquism fools the ears.
A (very) brief explanation of how ventriloquism works...
As hunter gatherers, evolution refined our brains to associate sound with movement which is essentially the secret of ventriloquism.
The performer keeps his lips perfectly still while moving the puppet's mouth in synchronisation to the words and the audience associates the source of the sound as coming from the puppet. Done well, it's a perfect illusion!
Conversely, without an associated movement, the human ear struggles to easily locate the source of any sound. It's for this reason that ambulances have flashing lights. When we hear the siren the first thing we do is look around to locate the direction from where the sound is coming. The flashing blue lights provide that source.
The Vaudeville Era!
Before the advent of cinema, Vaudeville was booming in North America from the 1880s through to the 1930s,
Vaudeville included every manner of performer from singers,jugglers, magicians, comedians and of course ventriloquists.
The acts were normally short, anything from 8 - 15 minutes and with stages in every major city and traveling circuits that brought acts to even the smallest towns, performers literally spent their entire career refining their acts to perfection.
Ventriloquism in vaudeville was unique in its blending of technical skill with comedy, character work, and social commentary. Performers created elaborate back-and-forth dialogues between themselves and their dummies, developing fully realized characters with their own personalities and quirks. Often, the dummy was the smart ass sidekick, able to say outrageous things the ventriloquist could not.
And given the endless supply of venues many of the performers honed ncredible and often very unusual performance pieces. These hold a particular fascination for me and one of which, you will see below.
Becoming a Ventriloquist ...
Quentin Reynolds, is a fantastic Magician based in Dublin Ireland..
Besides being one of my best friends, I also have been lucky enough to have him as a Mentor. Quentin taught me my first Magic show and he also taught me ventriloquism.
Quentin's Ventriloquism teacher was the hilarious Terri Rogers -
While enjoying a (properly made) cup of tea in Quentin's apartment a couple of months ago, I spotted a copy of The Magic Circular ( The Magic Circle's monthly magazine) with an intriguing paper puppet on the cover.
It was the creation of Claude Chandler and an excellent Magician and Ventriloquist who lived from 1896 - 1977.
The puppet has been silent for over a 100 years since his demise on display in The Magic Circle Headquarters in London.
That was, until the ingenious Origami expert couple Steve & Megumi Biddle backwards engineered the puppet!
Now, I'm no hotshot at origami but I am known for a measure of tenacity so I sat down with a bottle of wine (which didn't help) and made the puppet from the designs the Biddles so kindly published.
It took a while but here it is ...
Magician Claude Chandlers puppets speaks after a 100 years silence!
I can imagine the delight for young and old alike, as it came to life in the talented creative hands of Mr.Chandler a century ago.
Thank you Mr. & Mrs. Biddle for your work which has allowed us to enjoy it once more.
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