A new show this week promises to offer something magical for everyone in the family down to the littlest members.

Music & Magic, put on by Bermuda Magic Productions will feature local and visiting magicians, plus a group for toddlers called Splash & Boots on tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday at the City Hall Theatre.

“Based on the response we have had from parents in the past, they were looking for a group that would entertain specifically the three to six-year-old,” said Bermuda Magic Productions O’Brian Roberts. “Splash and Boots was suggested to us by other magicians who had worked with them in the past. They are great children’s entertainers. They do it through music.”

Splash & Boots encourages kids to get up on stage and sing along to group songs, dances and games.

The two-hour show will also have lots to offer for the older crowd including Niagara Falls magician couple Robert and Carol Allen, comedy magician Ray Anderson and local magic group, Vanishing Acts featuring Llewellyn Simons, Astoria Smith, Kourtney Roberts, Kylid Perincheif, Keya Perincheif and Regina Daniels. Students from The Jackson School of Performing Arts will also take part. During intermission Bermudian magicians Mr. Slick and Gary Robinson will be performing close-up magic in the lobby.

“I think we will have a very well-balanced show,” said Mr. Roberts. “Rob and Carol Allen will be the traditional magicians. They provide everything you are expecting magic to be. They will also do some work with doves. The last time we had doves in the show, it was 2001.”

Mr. Roberts said the environment and health regulations make it especially difficult to pull a rabbit out of a hat in Bermuda.

“It is very complicated because you have to go through all the processes that anyone else would have to go through with the Department of Environmental Services,” he said. “The doves have to be checked for certain bird diseases. They have to have certificates and examinations. I just spoke with Mr. Allen last night, and he said he was just going through his last hurdle with the doves.”

A couple of years ago, a quest for extra doves led Mr. Roberts and other magicians to a Bermudian magician named Alcides De Mello. This year, Vanishing Acts will perform a tribute to Mr. De Mello, who passed away last year at the age of 49 after a battle with cancer.

“In 2001, we had our first show with magicians Victor & Diamond,” said Mr. Roberts. “They needed some extra doves to perform a certain act. We were searching all around the Island to find some doves. Someone directed us to Mr. De Mello.”

When the group found Mr. De Mello, they were surprised to find that he was a magician himself, and a lifetime member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

“That chance meeting over these doves blossomed into a friendship,” said Mr. Roberts. “He was quite popular in Bermuda in the 1970s. He took us out to his garage. There were the fattest doves I had ever seen. Then he went over to another section, and there were all these magical props.”

In 2003, Mr. De Mello donated a zig-zag box, which is used to cut a person into three sections. This trick was performed by Roger Moniz. The next year, Mr. De Mello donated another piece of equipment called a ‘sub trunk’.

“Both of these items were very expensive, and they were built just for him,” said Mr. Roberts.

“As a result of his death, we thought the next year we would do a tribute to him. We refurbished all of the apparatus and got it in perfect working order. Vanishing Acts is going to give him the ultimate tribute of performing his apparatus in our show and making recognition of his donation to us throughout the show.”

Some of the funds from the show go toward a Bermuda Magic charity called ‘Specialised Youth Arts’, formed to introduce young people to magic and other arts such as juggling and ventriloquism.

“We were formed three years ago and what we have done consistently is give funds to our magicians who have gone on to school, or who are studying the arts,” said Mr. Roberts.

“In the past we have taken the kids up to magic conventions. We did a magic convention two years ago in Boston. So the money is reinvested into the children, and also keeping the art of magic alive in Bermuda.”

Bermuda Magic Productions is hoping to hold a magic camp this August at the Bermuda Youth Library on Church Street.

“That really came about as a result of the Bermuda Cultural Affairs asking us to put on a magic camp back in 2001,” said Mr. Roberts.

“Since then we have done three camps. As a result we have had over 75 children exposed to learning magic, and out of that about ten kids involved in the actual show. We realise that not everyone is going to want to be a magician or go on stage. We really do the magic show to expose children and families to live theatre.”

Tickets are $22 and available at www.Boxoffice.bm or at City Hall during box office hours until Friday. For more information about Bermuda Magic Productions, go to their website at www.bermudamagic.com .