Paul Zerdin, puppets, magic and the art of never growing up - Worthing show

“I'm sitting in my office right now talking to you about my show where I'm going to play with puppets and do some magic. What could be better than that!”

Paul’s latest tour brings him to Worthing’s Pavilion Theatre on Friday, September 8, and it’s a fabulous prospect: “I am so excited to be back on the road and I especially can’t wait to introduce you to my new characters which have really unsettled my existing dysfunctional sponge family, and it’s my most personal show yet.” Part of the fun will be the magic he will be introducing: “I started as a magician. I was doing close-up magic and cabaret-style magic but when I went to see an agent about taking me on she said ‘I have got a lot of magicians. I haven't got any ventriloquists.’ She said ‘Come back when you've got it’ and so I took it on. I had been doing puppetry since I was a kid. I was always playing with muppets as a child so I was doing puppetry from a really early age and I just took to it.

“And I know that I've always been very lucky. I've been able always able to do what I love for living and I've always tried never to take it for granted but in this show there is a big magic section. One of my characters, my old man character, started to do some mind reading that went horribly wrong for comedic effect in the last show and now on this new tour he is recreating one of the most famous illusions where he gets chopped up into three pieces!”

For Paul it is all part of a happy return post-pandemic: “It has been a good couple years for me but I don't think show business has got quite back to normal yet. People say ‘Oh the pandemic, the crazy old days’ but I don't think show business is quite back to normal yet. I think the point is that people's habits have changed. Apparently from what I gather the theatres in London are booming but in the provinces it is not. It seems people are staying at home because they've got used to staying at home and it's so easy for them to stay at home. They can do everything without leaving the house. They can watch Netflix; they can see everything; and everyone's got a dog as well these days so everyone is staying at home.”

So what can Paul do?

“I can come along and entertain you for two hours with my silly puppets and just make you forget about the fact that you've actually managed to leave the house, and at the end of the evening you will be pleased that you've actually left the house and you actually say to yourself ‘Well, actually that was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be.’”

The key is to refind the habit, just as Paul knows he needs to do himself when it comes to going to the theatre – though of course he does have the good excuse that he is more often than not working. But the point is there are great surprises to be had. His partner was in a production of Hairspray and wanted Paul to go along. Paul said he would to support her but remembered he had hated Hairspray in London: “But I went along to see her show and it was just absolutely brilliant. You see things in a different light and it made me realise that I really need to see more shows.”

​