Sudbury entertainer Paul Pleasants on finding his calling as an award-winning magician
Paul Pleasants has come a long way since the days when he and his bandmates played in a youth club for free cola and crisps.
A career that began with music has expanded to include magic, Punch and Judy shows and much, much more.
Paul is equally at home entertaining children, baffling an audience with close-up and stage magic, or creating new adventures for Mr Punch as he is with singing and playing keyboards and guitar.
And he now has a regular partner in his entertainment ventures - his wife Theresa who switches roles between singing, magician’s assistant, and helping with all his other shows.
The award-winning magician, who grew up in Sudbury, is a familiar face all over Suffolk performing at indoor and outdoor events.
He discovered his gift for music in a school assembly. “A teacher stood up and said is there anyone who would like to play the guitar .. we’re not going to do normal school music lessons, we’re going to do chart stuff,” he says.
The idea appealed, he volunteered, and his flair for playing was soon apparent. “The teacher said ‘you should carry on because you have a bit of a talent for it’.”
He and friends then started to play together leading to his early public performances. “We used to play in the youth club, and got a free bag of crisps and a Coke.”
It wasn’t long before he added another set of instruments to his repertoire, something he instinctively felt he could succeed with.
“My mate bought some drums and he couldn’t get on with them. Somehow I knew in the back of my mind I could play the drums.
“I tried it and people said how long have you been playing - the answer was I never had.
“I was in a band called Country Law. Then I went back on guitar for a band called Triple X for about 20 years.
Meanwhile, another influential character came into his life and stayed there. Mr Punch.
“One day I was walking along the front at Clacton and could hear the Punch and Judy show,” he says. “And whenever we went to a carnival there was Punch and Judy.”
Was this a new opportunity, he wondered. He was working as a cabinet maker at the time, so he made himself a booth.
Today, finding someone who makes the traditional puppets would take seconds online. But in those days the internet was not widely available.
When he did manage to contact a renowned maker and performer, the response was not what he was expecting.
He found the number of Bryan Clark who lives in Kessingland.
“I said I wanted to be a Punch and Judy man and he said ‘no you don’t’. I was puzzled but realised later that he knew it was far from easy, and he wanted to be sure I was serious. He said prove it.”
Bryan told Paul to come to Covent Garden - where the first Punch and Judy show in England was recorded in 1662 - on a day when a lot of people were performing, and watch all the shows.
“Some were very dark, some were funny and had you in fits of laughter,” he recalls.
Convinced that Paul was not a time-waster, Bryan gave him a Mr Punch puppet, and a swazzle - the gadget used to create Punch’s distinctive voice - and said: “Send me a cheque tomorrow.”
“The swazzle is two pieces of aluminium bound together with linen tape. It’s a bit like a saxophone reed” - he also plays the sax - “and you talk through it to produce the Mr Punch voice,” says Paul.
The design was once a secret guarded by the professors, as performers are also known, and only taught to those with a genuine respect for learning the performance of Punch and Judy puppetry.
But it is notoriously tricky to use. It sits at the back of the mouth and because it has to be moved around with the tongue swallowing it is always a risk - although Paul never has.
“Bryan became my mentor .... and another Punch and Judy man, Peter Batty.
“I also asked Bryan to make a Judy puppet for me. I went out and about for a year doing shows. Because I was doing it for free at first I learned as I went along.”
His then mother-in-law made him another puppet, and a friend at work created a crocodile and a policeman from papier mache.
“Then I got a call from Babergh Council saying would you be interested in performing in Belle Vue Park.”
He is still a regular at the Sudbury Party in the Park. Now he also has a proper booth, made from canvas, by Miraiker - a leading puppet carver and puppeteer.
As time went by more skills were added. “People started saying do you do balloon animals, so I learned balloon modelling. He also perfected some circus skills.
“Then they said did I do magic. There was a shop in Colchester that sold a lot of magic tricks, and my friend worked at Pleasurewood Hills and I bought tricks off him secondhand.”
He joined Ipswich Magical Society and in 2003 won the title of Magician of the Year.
“By that time I was going round doing loads of children’s parties. I couldn’t put a foot wrong, because wherever I went I would come home with lots more bookings ... parties, balloons, circus skills.”
For his magic, he likes to mix amazement with amusement. “Children’s magic is comedy. Stage magic is comedy as well,” he says.
On stage and for children’s shows, Theresa is his assistant. A lot of the adult tricks are ‘self-working’ like the sword through the neck for which he requires a volunteer from the audience.
Paul also specialises in the art of close-up magic, performing tricks sometimes inches away from people seated at tables at private dinners or in restaurants.
He engages them in conversation ... he genuinely loves to chat - but while they’re talking some skilful sleight of hand goes on.
“I use magic like music - everything to a beat. I ask their name, and while they’re saying their name I’ve done something.”
Even the most eagle-eyed, determined to spot the method, will find they’re looking in the wrong place.
That includes Theresa, who has had plenty of chance to practice. “When he learns a new trick I watch and see if I can work it out, usually I can’t,” she admits.
If there are children at the table he likes to involve them, and get them taking part in tricks. “I also like tricks where they appear to go slightly wrong. I like people to laugh,” he says, adding: “With magic you’re dealing with the public and anything can happen.”
A puppet called Charlie the Monkey is the latest addition to their act and has proved incredibly popular especially when he interferes with tricks.
That started when Theresa did an off the cuff move and made Charlie grab a banana-coloured scarf Paul was using. Some of the best ideas can happen by chance, he says.
Paul and Theresa, who married in 2016, met over ten years ago while she was working as an activities organiser at Mellish House care home in Great Cornard.
“We wanted to do a seaside day, so wanted a Punch and Judy show,” she says.
“I was in Melford British Legion Club and someone said Paul’s here, he does Punch and Judy ... the rest is history, We’ve been together ever since.”
Theresa’s husband had passed away and Paul’s marriage had broken up. She began working at Mellish House while her late husband was receiving care there towards the end of his life, and did the job for 11years.
Theresa said: “When Paul and I got together I started almost straight away taking part in the shows. kids parties, setting things out, doing magic shows and balloon modelling.”
The couple, who live in Great Cornard, now script the Punch and Judy shows themselves. “Some people go back to the original scripts, others write their own. Every time it is different,” he says.
Music meanwhile has never gone away. He learned to play keyboards and now performs either with a full range of instrumental sounds courtesy of his state of the art keyboard, or with electric or acoustic guitar. He also composes, writing songs and background ‘library’ music.
More recently Theresa has begun singing with Paul. She started just singing along when he was rehearsing upstairs.
“Every evening I’d lose him - he’d be upstairs in the music room singing and I’d be downstairs reading, and I was joining in with him.
“I suppose my confidence to perform started when I worked at Mellish. We use to put music on and I would sing along and they would join in.
“But I was terrified of the microphone at first. Now I have got over that I sing and even talk now.”
They performed online during Covid, and still take part in the Online Country Music Club, a group on Facebook, for an hour every Wednesday evening.
Other regular gigs include entertaining residents in care homes, including Mellish House, Glastonbury Court in Bury and Chilton Meadows in Stowmarket.
Whatever other strings he has added to his bow, music is Paul’s true love and what he hopes to concentrate on in the future.
“It’s the music that I really want to do. It’s the one thing that’s the closest to me really. I’d love to do more with the guitar,” he says.
He recently raised more than £500 for cancer care charity Hope For Tomorrow by releasing a CD and performing a set at the Horse and Groom in Sudbury. The money will help the charity run its mobile cancer care units.
They knew about it from family connections. “My daughter Mandy had breast cancer years ago, although she wasn’t treated on the bus,” said Theresa. “But she heard about it from her friend Lynsey Davies, who was.
“And Mandy’s daugher Gemma is an oncology sister at the West Suffolk Hospital who occasionally works on the Suffolk mobile unit.”
To contact Paul and Theresa phone 01787 370825 or email paulmagic19@btinternet.com.
