RIP Wayne Dobson

[culnara]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Dobson

[George 1978]

Wayne Dobson always seemed to me as a supporting act rather than a star himself - I know that he had his own series on Saturday night ITV in around April 1991 called "A Kind of Magic" but I also remember him as being the resident act during The Joe Longthorne Show (who I started his obituary on here), where he did card tricks usually with a female assistant. He never received the same status as magicians such as Paul Daniels but he was very much part of those entertainers born in the 1950s such as Bobby Davro, Les Dennis and Gary Wilmot.

Another part of his act was the way his guests taking part in magic tricks suddenly developed a different "deeper" or "lighter" voice which he was responsible for - usually the female participant had the deeper voice and vice-versa. I am not sure how he managed that (another magic secret, perhaps?) , but it reminded me of when Jim Davidson was a guest on Des O'Connor Tonight and after drinking a glass of what looked like water, his voice changed in a hilarious way. One example of this happening was when Dobson made a guest appearance on Happy Birthday Coronation Street in 1990 - (Cilla Black mentioned on the show that he was just three years old when the Corrie started). His spot on the show involved Thelma "Mavis" Barlow and Peter "Derek" Baldwin taking part in a magic trick and mentioning the then recent Madera storyline and Harriet the Budgie, and all of a sudden, Baldwin had developed a camp voice and Barlow the deep one. A Tyne Tees region off-air was on YouTube not long ago.

Dobson was born in 1957 and passed on two days after his 68th birthday - I knew he had MS but I was impressed that he survived for so long with the condition - he seemed to be someone who tried to carry on with life for as long as he could. I also think that he could have made it even bigger in showbusiness in a Paul Daniels-sort-of-way if he had a more prominent vehicle in the TV schedules. A Kind of Magic sadly seems to be forgotten about by the public compared to Daniels' magic shows in comparison which ran for a lot longer.