Hair raising magic from the Great Baldini
Posted on 1st November 2025
I can honestly say I’ve waited years for the Great Baldini to visit Diss – he knows why – and his show at the Corn Hall certainly delivered on the promise of jolly, knockabout fun for the family. Notwithstanding his fine oratory skills, Baldini is closer to Tommy Cooper than David Copperfield, though neither of them mastered the art of balloon swallowing, and nor did they regurgitate said balloon from, let’s just say, an unexpected place.
The balloon trick was the first of many in an unapologetically children’s show, with few concessions made to the adults in the room. Granted, he got four grown-up blokes on stage using the sink plunger method to form an impromptu support group (you had to be there) but it was Baldwin the dog that got all the best laughs. Nina Conti need not worry she has a puppetry rival – the shambolic nature of Baldwin’s contribution was part of the act’s charm – but the kids loved him. Audience participation featured heavily, whether that was Taylor helping out with a card trick, or the last man standing rolling the dice – sorry, Baldini, I mean die – in the hope of a hug. Participants were rewarded with a lollipop and, in a sweet touch, were encouraged to take extras for their family.
Very occasionally, Baldini pulled a really impressive trick out of the hat. His variation on the classic Card on Ceiling was genuinely thrilling, though it was telling that the children were far more animated by the Cups of Doom. They weren’t the only doom orientated props, most notably the Curtain of Doom which, coupled with the Shackles of Time, closed the show with a whimsical salute to Harry Houdini. It is surely significant that Baldini takes the escapologist’s name as inspiration. Certainly, during his impassioned homage to the great showman the comedic mask slipped, revealing the magician beneath and his respect for the live performance of illusion that he has honourably inherited. As David Hoare, amanuensis to the Great Baldini, once said “We who have the gift must carry the torch for low maintenance hairlines.”