Hidden Room Theatre produce this show from writer-director Beth Burns and writer-magician Patrick Terry, who also stars as Houdini, along with Robert Matney playing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Houdini was famously a debunker of fraudulent mediums, while Conan Doyle, perhaps counterintuitively as the creator of the very rational Sherlock Holmes, was a crusading spiritualist. That the two men were real-life friends feeds the dramatic tension that has fascinated many for a century and is the centre of this show.
The level of research is clear, with lines taken verbatim from the letters and works of Houdini and Conan Doyle. Terry & Matney first originated these roles a decade ago, and their ease in these parts is clear, though Terry’s theatricality, while reasonable for a performer contrasted with a writer, creates a small degree of distance with the audience which we do not have with the more nervy Matney.
The play deals sensitively with Conan Doyle’s grief around his son, highlighting well the massive wound cut by the senseless slaughter of the First World War, and highlights Houdini’s own beliefs in the spiritual, giving colour and nuance to both (though perhaps missing a trick by only alluding to the disastrous seance done for Houdini by Mrs Conan Doyle). The displays of magic are also effective and full of panache, Terry dismissing the seemingly impossible feats of mediums with either a trick or a word. As a former skeptic magician’s assistant myself, Conan Doyle’s desperate belief that his friend was lying about the source of his powers was both ridiculous and all too familiar.
A concise and dedicated exploration of the friendship and philosophical difference between two of the most famous men of the era, this show toes the line between both positions, covering the subject with a sensitivity and flair which should appeal to both fans of history, literature and magic and those whose curiosity was roused by the famous names.
Running August 7th – 22nd (no show 16th) https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/houdini-speaks-to-the-living
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins
Reviewed: 15th August 2026
North West End UK / Theatre Muse UK Rating:
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