Scottish magician Harry Marvello was largely a local performer when he worked in the early 1900s. In the Edinburgh suburb, Portobello, he did seaside shows and owned a theater there. He also, however, toured Britain with The Silver Hat act, where he magically produced an innumerable number of objects from an apparently empty top hat.
Today, however, Marvello is largely unremembered in Edinburgh, and Richard Wiseman sought to rectify that. “I decided to bring him back into the spotlight,” he told THE EYE via email. “I gave a talk on his life at Portobello Library and worked with a local art space—known as The Porty Light Box—to stage a special exhibition based around his act. This unusual space is housed in a classic British telephone box, and it hosts exhibitions and even lights up at night to illuminate the images.”
Marvello images courtesy of Peter Lane
Wiseman worked with The Porty Light Box creators to create a display on the telephone box based on a poster Wiseman owns promoting Marvello’s Silver Hat act. It will be up until the end of July. “Now hundreds of people in Portobello will see the exhibition and hopefully become curious about this aspect of their local history,” Wiseman said. “It was a fun project, and I would encourage others to discover more about the forgotten magicians in their own communities and to develop new ways of getting them back into the spotlight.”