2-798-833 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Monsieur Philippe, at the Strand Theatre, 1845. Magic show on the London stage. 'M. Philippe, the conjuror...has taken the Strand Theatre for a series of "Soirees Mysterieuses," and with every apparent chance of making a more successful entreprise therein than any of the preceding lessees. All the principal tricks of his former entertainments are introduced; and some of them are perfectly inexplicable, resulting from the combination of matchless manual dexterity with mechanical contrivances of the greatest ingenuity. We need not recapitulate them; but we can, with the utmost confidence, recommend all our readers to go and behold M. Philippe's very clever delusions. He is certainly the King of Necromancers...everything is novel and startling; and his last strange tour - that of the gold fish and "grande menagerie" - sends everybody away completely bewildered'. From "Illustrated London News", 1845, Vol VII.