MAGIC Chichester Festival Theatre

SAD HEARTS AND SHOWBIZ The play begins in a pure music-hall moment: below the stage a hammeringly jolly piano, onto it a capering leg-show chorus and sparklers, ushering in The Great Houdini. Who is Hadley Fraser , debonair and showmanlike. He must, of course, immediately be hung upside down by the ankles in his vest, braces and NYPD handcuffs (the latter previously tested on an alarmed front- row lady) and swiftly wriggle out of them to wild drumbeats and applause. Then we are backstage where the hero greets his own hero, David Haig as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. There’s a session of boxing-chat, sparring and mutual literary admiration while their wives (Claire Price and a drily comic Jenna Augen) look on resignedly. After two acts of thrilling and revealing arguments, director Lucy Bailey keeping the scenes changing with choreographed elegance, the same pair will end on the same vaudevillian stage. But this time the trick will end with a moment of lonely metaphor which might leave you,…