TISDALE — Ted Outerbridge’s interest in magic started when a magician performed a trick on him when he was a kid. Now he hopes to do the same in Tisdale.
He and his partner, Marion Outerbridge, are coming to the Maurice Taylor Performing Arts Theatre in February to perform their show, Pure Illusion. It's hosted by the Tisdale Arts Council
It was when he was seven years old and living in Montreal when Tom Auburn, a local magician with his own television show approached him in a restaurant and pilled an egg out from his ear.
Ted was amazed by Auburn’s trick and began researching magic at his local libraries, reading every book on performing magic from front to back.
“He became my hero and I wanted to acquire super powers just like him, so I found a book at the local library and I started learning tricks,” Ted said.
These tricks paid off and by the time he was 12 he called himself “Magic Ted” and performed birthday parties. By the time he was 19 he was able to make a living off of his performances.
“So that’s where it all began, then 20 years ago I met Marion.”
Marion was a professional dancer who travelled across the world with her shows. She studied ballet in Moscow and jazz in Chicago. She eventually found herself in Montreal with a character dance company where Ted met her.
Ted hired her to perform in his show, but that quickly changed to partners, and partners on the stage quickly became partners off it as well.
“Marion is a dancer so we started performing together as a team and Marion’s background in dance, ballet, jazz dance and character dance got incorporated into our show, so we actually tell some stories with our magic,” Ted said. “Marion is a dancer who performs magic and I’m a magician who can’t dance, so that’s who we are now.”
Together they began to perform in theatres all over Canada and the United States and occasionally other countries such as China.
The Tisdale show will be about celebrating special times with their audience.
“We have a time machine in the show, and Marion climbs into the time machine and she travels back to 1960, so she’s gone from the theatre and she travels back to 1960 and she returns back to the present and reappears in the theatre with us.”
The two will predict the contents of a Tisdale time capsule that the audience will decide.
“We also have Greta the Mindreading Goose. She’ll be reading people’s minds during the show, and we travel back to magic you would see on the streets in India where Marion is in a basket and she disappears and reappears.”
Greta the Goose is not a living goose, but Ted’s own childhood stuffed animal who became a part of his routine.
“She was my best friend, but she has psychic powers and she does a bit of mindreading in the show,” Ted said. “I gave her a spot in the show because she knows what other people were thinking.”
This act will also have a performance straight out of Alice in Wonderland.
“Marion is able to have a little tiny sip of this potion and shrink so she is under a foot tall and we’ll be performing that in the show as well. That’s one of our latest creations. We’re really excited about it.”
For those looking to get into magic he will have a trick on sale at the end of the show, but also encourages people to do what he did by just going to the library and reading through the books they have on magic.
“That was the secret to my career, that’s where I started.”
In the show he will also be performing a rope trick he learned when he was seven years old.
“Then I pass on this secret to one random youngster in the audience,” he said. “When Marion and I leave town this young person will be able to perform this magic trick and hopefully it’ll lead to lots of fun. It certainly did that for me.”
Ted considers performing magic the “best buzz in the world”.
February’s Tisdale Arts Council event will be at the Maurice Taylor Performing Arts Theatre on Feb. 16 at 7:30 pm. Tickets can be purchased at Northeast Appliance Plus.
