Ben Cross starred as Charles Dickens in the TV film What the Dickens! (HTV, 1983), about a Christmas party in the novelist’s household. Ben had practised intensely to perfect the magic tricks called for by the script.
I was the stage manager, and heard how, during a flight back to Britain, he devoted his time to card tricks and – not on the aeroplane – to the release of doves from apparently closed hands. And of course, in front of studio cameras, the doves flew from his fists.
