The Magician’s Apprentice

“The magnificent, magical Sally Pomme Clayton wowed us all at Exeter Customs House – storytelling and sheer wonder.” Literature Works

With a top hat from a junk shop and mail-order wand, pioneering storyteller and writer Sally Pomme Clayton explores the secret world of the magician. In this intimate, enchanting performance she mixes fact with fiction, fragments of myth with antique jokes, dazzling fairytales with snippets of science, forgotten folklore with mysterious images on tarot cards. With a song on her mandolin and a spotted handkerchief she casts a shimmer of stories, shifting from humour to horror, romance to rumour searching for real magic.

“Sally Pomme Clayton was truly spellbinding with her show exploring magic  and what it is to be an apprentice. I just didn’t want it to end! But I have a pocket full of stardust and my golden Moebius band to play with!” Storyteller, Katy Cawkwell.

In this bewitching spoken-word performance Pomme uses tiny musical sounds, tarot cards, a magic wand (that isn’t), a suitcases that holds secrets, and a mathematical conundrum that each member of the audience can take home! The performance asks why apprentices have always been depicted as female and magicians male? Then turns magic on its head with the story of the most powerful female magician of all, Elena the Wise. In this slight-of-hand world objects talk, girls become doves, the magician goes mad and you can enter another world! Join Pomme as she opens her suitcase, finds smoke and mirrors, and sets off on a fairytale quest to discover what is real, what’s illusion, who is the apprentice and who’s the teacher? The Magician’s Apprentice has been performed at: Moth Club; Museum of Comedy, Bloomsbury Festival; Omnibus Theatre; Exeter Customs House; Soho Theatre; Cobalt Studios Newcastle; Bakehouse Theatre; Hillcrest Centre Newhaven; Parbold Women’s Institute; The Chapel House, Brecon.

“A richly evoked, magical story of many layers. Transported to so many times and places. A true magician of words.” Bakehouse Theatre

“Mistress of Magic, Speaker of Spells. A storming show from a queen of the spoken word at the height of her powers. A mixing and mingling of worlds, of eras and time-scales, of history and fantasy with consummate ease and the lightest of touches. A subtle meditation on where the real magic truly lies.” Omnibus Theatre

“Sally Pomme Clayton shared memories and stories about magic from around the world. I was not be sure if the memories were real, or fictions created to feed the stories! I lost all sense of time, totally absorbed in her truly wonderful stories.” Audience, Soho Theatre

“An amazing performance. I can’t tell you how inspired and uplifted I felt when I left.” Audience, Soho Theatre