An Evening of Sorcery and Song - Mel Mellers and Will Allenby at the Barrington Theatre, Ferndown

After a successful presentation, you don't always want to go straight home and after my talk to Southampton East Probus, I set off for Ferndown's Barrington Theatre where comedy magician Mel Mellers was putting on a show with baritone Will Allenby. Both work solidly on cruise liners so it was a rare opportunity to see them on dry land!

I have known Mel for many years and have seen his act probably 50 or 60 times (including one year when I was in charge of cueing the music for each of his shows during a Bournemouth summer season) but I have never seen him on stage as part of a double act but this is what he did some of the time here. As well as each of these performers doing two solo spots, they also mixed the comedy magic with music and it worked well.

Public Speaking Tip #326: Could you team up with another presenter and mix some of your content with theirs? It could throw open entire new markets for you.

Although Mel has appeared many times on national TV and Will has been regularly featured on BBC Radio 2 for 20 years, the venue wasn't full, possibly due to lack of promotion or people simply not wanting to go out on this warm, mid-week, late-Spring evening but the performers' enthusiasm wasn't dampened. I have blogged before about how small audiences can still be extremely responsive and the energy of Mel and Will's performance drew a standing ovation and resulted in this excellent review.

My thanks to Will Allenby for the lift back to Bournemouth after this interesting and entertaining show.