How Get Your Own Back host Dave Benson Phillips went from nostalgic 1990s presenter to wrestling superstar, in one of the strangest wrestling matches ever.
Performing as Li Ho Chang in the 1920s. Supporting artists included dancer Joanna Claire and the Hollywood Ballet, and assorted “ghosts and spooks”. Prices were two shillings to five shillings (half-price for children) with a matinee on the Tuesday. “Producing a guinea-pig seemingly out of thin air, Chang, the master magician . performed a long series of illusions, which in the end the audience ceased to fathom, and took as a matter of course. “From then onwards until the grand finale, when he himself appeared out of an apparently impregnable metal box, Chang kept his audience in a constant state of mystification. The next trick was to produce an egg from a small ball of fluff, which gradually grew bigger and bigger until he plucked it off a fan – and lo and behold it was an egg – to prove it he cracked it on a saucer.”