I’m a close up magician and I perform at events all over the world. I’ve been lucky enough to travel to many beautiful locations around the world to perform over the last ten years of my career but nothing compares to the trip a few years ago to Saudi Arabia.
Myself and my colleague Sav were booked by a couple of Saudi Princes to entertain at a huge function in Riyadh and although we had both been flown to the Middle East several times we had no idea what to expect and we were more than a little concerned about the details of the visit.
Our job as magicians is to use sleight of hand, misdirection, illusion and magic to entertain smart audiences who know we are doing tricks but in Saudi Arabia magic is banned. In fact in 2009 they set up an Anti-Witchcraft Unit to catch “sorcerers”. Tragically, there have been several cases of people charged with “real magic” that have been whipped and even beheaded. In the ultra conservative kingdom mentioning that you are a magician is a very stupid thing to do.
On the ten hour flight over from the UK we had joked a lot about what we had let ourselves in for. We knew we had been booked by members of the royal family so how bad could things be? Well, on the green card we had to sign before entering the country it had a whole section on “sorcery/witchcraft/magicians” and outlined the punishments. The one I remember most clearly was 49 lashes for those even considered to be using magic. As an entertainer in the western world I come across sceptics all the time who say “I don’t believe magic is real” which seems crazy. I don’t believe it’s real either, it’s just tricks, great tricks but tricks nonetheless. What terrible turn of fortune would allow anybody to think I was a real magician and in turn make me face terrible punishment.
On arrival we were driven to a 7 star hotel to meet the princes and ushered into a private dining room for a meal. Now we thought we’d be enjoying world class food and having a casual chat about the upcoming event but oh no. We were asked to perform our entire acts for this tiny, regal group. They wanted to us to use the exact phrasing we would on the night and perform exactly as we planned to. Through an interpreter we were advised to drop any mention of being a magician, magic tricks, conjurer etc and replace them with vague suggestions that we had “quick hands”. As strolling entertainers we have to introduce ourselves to unknowing audiences all the time and it’s incredibly difficult to do that without mentioning your occupation! The room we ate in was surrounded with armed guards with rifles so that really helps to concentrate the mind. Normally if I screw up a trick people at worst could boo but the thought of machine guns kept us performing at the top of our game.
The actual performance was great fun and the Saudi audience lapped up the magic although we couldn’t actually call it that! I’m very used to performing for mixed audiences but due to the strong Islamic rules in Saudi no women were allowed and of course there was no alcohol allowed so they drank hugely elaborate fruit cocktails in huge glasses. Another odd visual sight was everywhere in the venue was decked out with castles of cigarettes; literally every table had a thousand or so cigarettes in ornate designs of ever decreasing circles.
It might have only been a flying visit to Saudi Arabia but I’ll never forget the experience and I’m grateful these days to be able to perform without any armed guards in sight.
[box]Noel Qualter is a UK based wedding magician who performs at a host of different type of events worldwide.[/box]
