The North Wales Magic Circle Hall of Fame
Mark Raffles, inducted 01-02-2022
100 year old Mark Raffles
Members can watch a video of the interview recorded at our meeting on 01-02-2022 by clicking below
Below is an excerpt from an article about Mark taken from the February 2022 Griffin Magazine.
The full article is available for members by clicking below.
Mark Raffles, President of The British Ring 2005/6, entered this world at 2 o’clock on the morning of 22 January 1922, and so recently celebrated his 100th birthday.
Mark has an impressive show-business pedigree. His mother, Amelia, began playing the piano in her stepfather’s pub at the age of eight, and made her last appearance in a television interview on her 100th birthday. She died in 1989, at the age of 101.
Mark’s great uncle was Frank Verity St Clair, the Human Song Machine, who wrote and performed over 2,000 topical songs and monologues.
The greatest influence on young Mark, however, was his uncle Chris, a semi-professional magician in Manchester who reversed his name to become Rolyat.
Like Mark, Chris always looked distinguished and dapper. He helped Mark to develop his first act, which consisted of the card in sand frame, the sliding die-box, the egg bag, ropes through coat, coil streamers from opera hat and a goldfish bowl production, concluding with a goodnight banner. It was this act which won him the first prize of ten shillings in a talent competition at the age of twelve, and helped to keep bullies at bay in the school playground.
Mark began his professional career in 1938, at the age of sixteen, with an act inspired by Cardini.
Mark toured with ENSA during the war years, performing for both troops and civilians.
In December 1945, Mark was appearing near the bottom of the bill at the Grand Theatre in Bolton, describing himself as ‘Mayfair’s Mystery Man’. Little more than six years later, in May 1952, he was topping the bill at the same theatre, hailed as ‘Mark Raffles – The Fabulous International Pickpocket’. Audiences were warned: ‘Watch your pockets! Come and be amazed . . . but leave your valuables at home.’
While appearing in what amounted to a glamorous drag show at the Theatre Royal in Bilston in 1948, Mark first set eyes upon a dancer called Joan Cleare, who ‘swayed smilingly down the staircase sheathed in a fabulous sequined creation.’ They were married six months later, and eventually Joan joined Mark on stage as part of the famous Wychwoods act, involving a dozen toy poodles.
Mark has continued to innovate, appearing at the age of nearly seventy in the cutting-edge Secret Cabaret on television, pickpocketing to the soundtrack of ‘You’ve Got To Pick A Pocket Or Two’ from Oliver! He performed his hilarious but meticulously choreographed linking rings routine at FISM 2012, at the age of ninety, and as a nonagenarian has appeared with great success at the Tyne Theatre with Chris Cross.
Recently, the talented Vanni Pulé has painted Mark’s portrait (calling him ‘extremely versatile, charming, funny and always so elegant’), and a full-length picture is to be exhibited at the eagerly awaited Museum of Blackpool, the place he thinks of as home, having lived there for many years and having performed in every theatre in the resort. With his typical sense of humour, Mark has already predicted the headline: PICKPOCKET HUNG IN BLACKPOOL!
Excerpts reproduced from Key Ring magazine with permission of the Editor Geoffrey Newton and Author Brian Lead