Illusionist Granville Taylor still has famed magic touch

But that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t jump back on stage if he was asked.

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Granville Taylor, as he is known back home in Brierfield, appeared this month on C4’s Four Rooms trying to sell Find The Lady – described as the best illusion in the world.

He wanted more than £75,000 for the act which involves huge playing cards and a lovely lady, but no-one could match his price – £30,000 was the best offer. Granville knows it’s worth a lot more and as he owns the sole performing rights, he’s prepared to hang on for the right buyer.

“They were really nice on the show,” he says. “I’d had a terrible time getting there, the handle fell off my suitcase and I fell over in the carriage. When they heard of my ordeal they paid for a taxi all the way home from London.”

One can’t help respect this man who trained and worked as a maths and science teacher, but eventually followed his heart into entertainment.

His eight-year-old imagination was fired by the sleight of hand of an uncle – Arthur Nash – who worked in Nelson as an amateur magician. He would have been a juggler but for getting shrapnel in his arm in the First World War.

His juggling partner went on to become Stetson, the world famous hat juggler.

“I hadn’t wanted to see his act because I preferred to play out, but my mother insisted,” says Granville. “But I was absolutely fascinated.

“At that time Woolworths sold little magic tricks so I went out and bought some. Seeing my obvious interest, Uncle Arthur would spend Sundays teaching me.”

His first gig was at the Salem Methodist Church in Nelson at 14.

“He could have made his debut earlier, but was too shy to get up on stage. But once he’d got over his stage fright he started taking bookings and his uncle insisted he charged a fee.

“I started charging one guinea, then it went up to five and then ten.

“But I bought more magic tricks with most of it.”

Being a clever lad and the son of a headmaster of what is now Bentley Street Junior School, Granville went to Nelson Grammar and his father had high hopes for him as a teacher. He was torn, but a visit to see the illusionist, The Great Lyle, at Burnley Palace Theatre in 1945 sealed the deal.

To please his father he went to Hull University, got a BSC in Science and Maths, and a teaching certificate. But in 1953 while still a student he got to work as an assistant on the Great Lyle’s show in the summer holidays. And after the master illusionist died in 1955, he bought up his illusions from his widow – including Find The Lady – and stored them for future use.

But in 1956 whilst working as a science master at Acton County Boys Grammar School, Granville decided to finally follow his dream. Although he didn’t have any bookings, he handed in his notice.

“I enjoyed teaching, but I went down to London because I wanted to go around the agents. I didn’t have any bookings, but I just knew I’d be a success. I had to do it.”

By this time, he’d met his wife Valerie and she became his glamorous assistant.

They worked together on an act called the Devil’s Bar.

This featured an empty barrel which miraculously produced beer, a magic kettle which would conjure up any alcohol the audience desired and an act which involved pulling his wife through a 3-inch hole in a barrel.

Being a scientist and a mathematician, Granville made a lot of the props himself in his attic workshop at home in Brierfield which is still an Aladdin’s Cave of magic, mystery and illusion.

From London he worked in Paris at Le Sexy nightclub and in order to get the contract Granville learned to do the act in French which won over the promoter.

By this time the couple had two sons Guy and Jamie, so Valerie gave up squeezing her 5ft 6in frame into confined spaces to concentrate on motherhood.

Meanwhile, Faust was in talks with promoters about working in Japan and the Far East. This was his big chance to finally put Find The Lady into action.

He asked that they provide him with six assistants.

“But when I got there, those six assistants were three dwarves, two midgets and a girl who they’d borrowed from a fire-eating act, but at least she was a normal size so I could use her.

“All the little people were pushing equipment around for me.”

But the dwarves came into their own by chance for Faust’s linking rings act.

“The idea was that the rings linked together to form a chain. An assistant would raise their arm and I would throw the stainless steel ring over it. But I had to use one of the dwarves and when I threw it he keeled over. We laughed so much that we decided to keep it in the show and it brought the house down.”

Faust was a huge success in Japan attracting crowds of up to 18,000 who would queue down the streets for a seat.

His adventures are written in an autobiography that he sells through his website faust.i8.com But one that he’ll never forget is when he was performing on the “doomed ship” the MS Achille Lauro to South Africa in 1981.

In the dead of night a fire started in the engine room. Faust was woken by the smell of smoke and went to investigate.

“It had a bad history that ship. But this night I woke up smelling smoke. I opened the cabin door and the corridor was filled with it. I rescued my girl assistant and found our way through the corridor to the top deck.

“Nobody could see anything because it was dark and smokey, but you could hear people falling down the stairs. It was horrendous.

“We found our way to the top but one lady had panicked and jumped overboard and another passenger had a heart attack and died. The boat did a u-turn to try and find her but she’d gone.”

Granville has also had a tour of American magician David Copperfield’s hangar of illusions in LA after selling some of his props to an American heart surgeon who invited him over to the US to see Copperfield’s show and meet the star.

“David spent until 3am showing us around his huge collection. He said to me ‘Can you tell me what Find The Lady looks like from the audience’. I explained to him.

He never mentioned that one of his reps had tried to buy it a few years earlier but hadn’t offered enough. He owns an island in the Caribbean after all.”

Granville knew his career was coming to a close when his Japanese promoter left the entertainment industry and went into politics.

“I knew I’d never find another like him. The UK is nothing compared to Japan. The phone would ring they would say what they could pay and I’d say ‘you must be joking’.

“I do miss it, but I can still do an act if I’m called upon. That’s why I’ve kept some of my stuff.”

We’ve not seen the last of the mighty Faust, particularly as strange coincidences seem to happen to the master of illusion. A London film company hired Pendle Hippodrome Theatre for a week in 2013 to film Find The Lady for a documentary. It never made the TV, but it was sold on and now forms part of a video for the track Showdown by the folk band Cheek Mountain Thief. Granville occasionally likes to watch it on Youtube and chuckle at his celebrity appearance.

“I love the reviews. One said ‘Great song, even better video’ and another says ‘Faust the magician rocks’.”

And rock, he most certainly does.