Unmasked: The woman who tricked her way into the Magic Circle by disguising herself as a man...then was thrown out for being female and vanished for 34 years
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A woman who vanished after masquerading as a schoolboy to gain entry to the Magic Circle has miraculously reappeared after 34 years.
When she pulled off the cunning deception, Sophie Lloyd hoped the illustrious club would have been impressed by her brilliant sleight of hand.
Posing in a wig as ‘Raymond’ had seemed a suitably spellbinding way to join the fabled magicians’ society which at the time was men-only.
Unfortunately, when they discovered her real-life trickery, the outraged club threw her out – entirely skipping the irony of ejecting a magician for being too good at deception – with the words ‘you will never work again in this business’ ringing in her pitiful ears.
Now, more than three decades later, the Magic Circle is delighted to announce - hey presto! - that Ms Lloyd has reappeared.
And tonight she will be formally re-admitted to its hallowed ranks at a special event at the club’s London headquarters to ‘right a wrong’ and say sorry.
Ms Lloyd told the Mail: ‘I honestly feel really emotional. It’s lovely. I’ve got a certificate with my real name on it this time.
'After all these years, it has come as a wonderful surprise to be re-admitted.'
She revealed to the Mail that after being cast out by the club, she spent time running her own travelling theatre and later retired early to Spain.
Tonight’s festivities promise to be far jovial than the dark day in September 1991 when the penny dropped among the menfolk of the best known magical private member’s club in the world that they had been infiltrated…by a woman.
Ms Lloyd had managed to join the Magic Circle the previous year – posing as schoolboy wonder Raymond Lloyd, purveyor of the finest magical illusions.
A talented actress, Ms Lloyd, then aged around 30, had fooled them all with Raymond’s mesmerising rope and fire tricks, during a nerve-wracking ‘entrance exam’ on the club’s stage.
Thanks to her 5ft2in frame, a wig, a set of special braces to ‘plump’ out her cheeks, Harry Potter-style glasses to hide behind and white gloves to conceal her ladylike hands - along with some exceptional acting skills - Ms Lloyd successfully passed herself off as 18-year-old Raymond. She thus became the first woman to join the Magic Circle in the organisation’s then 85-year history – except, without them actually realising it.
Formed in 1905 by 23 amateur and professional magicians, the Magic Circle has counted stars such as Paul Daniels and his wife Debbie McGee among its illustrious members, who include King Charles after he performed the famed cups and balls trick back in 1975.
In 1990, Ms Lloyd joined with the help of her friend Jenny Winstanley, a fellow entertainer who had aspired to be a member and was aggrieved that women couldn’t be.
She was too well-known to consider her own stroll into the magician’s bastion, but when she met talented young actress Sophie, in 1987, they hatched their plot which took two years to perfect.
As well as a wig and ‘plumpers’ to fill out her face, Ms Lloyd’s elaborate disguise involved a foam body harness to give her the build of a young male. She meticulously studied how teenage boys walked, talked, carried themselves, used their eyes, ate, drank, and leant against walls. All that remained was to affect a low voice and summon up nerves of steel during a performance of a lifetime before three Magic Circle examiners. Ms Winstanley was there too – dressed up as Raymond’s ‘agent’.
Ms Lloyd recalled yesterday: ‘During the exam, I was really, really nervous. But then the adrenalin kicked in, and they loved all my tricks which involved big dramatic fireballs.’
She had to keep up her act for an agonising further 90 minutes because one of the examiners insisted on taking ‘Raymond’ and his ‘agent’ for a drink to discuss magic.
Ms Lloyd said: ‘It was desperate. Jenny told him I had laryngitis, and kept saying to me “rest your voice” while I rasped my way through. But it worked.’
Over the next year, the Magic Circle’s celebrated boy star performed across London and went on tour as far as Great Yarmouth.
But as with all great illusions, it eventually came crashing down - ironically at the exact moment in September 1991 when the society announced it was changing its rules to allow women members. The two women came clean. Ms Lloyd said: ‘Jenny phoned the Magic Circle and said “You’ve already got a woman”.
‘We really thought they would find it hilarious. We found it hilarious. Jenny couldn’t wait to tell them. And then we got a letter – expelled - almost the next day. We couldn’t believe it.
‘I think their reaction at the time was pathetic. Jenny was hurt. I was more angry.’
After a late night phone call announcing: ‘You will never work again in this business’, the pair gave up. ‘Jenny went back to her home in Norfolk. I did other things,’ said Ms Lloyd, now in her late sixties. Ms Winstanley, who later told how they had ‘only wanted to prove that women are as good as men’, died in 2004.
Last year, the Magic Circle’s new chair – a woman – heard about the extraordinary story, and Laura London knew they had to make amends and find Ms Lloyd to say sorry. However she needed to conjure up a miracle of her own because Ms Lloyd had performed her best trick yet and seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth. Numerous public appeals failed to locate her. It was only thanks to journalists from the Daily Mail tracking down her relatives that she was alerted to the quest and came forward.
Yesterday Ms Lloyd revealed that after her ignominious expusion from the Magic Circle in 1991, she spent 11 years touring schools with her own educational theatre show tackling bullying. After that, she retired early to Spain with her husband, where the couple have devoted themselves to offering sanctuary to rescue cats and dogs.
Only about five per cent of the Magic Circle’s 1,700 members are women, although the figure is now rising. Ms London said: ‘It’s changing now, which is great. I think not only was Sophie pioneering, her statement was a really important one to make. That’s why we wanted to find her, to say thank you for doing something so extraordinary.
‘Sophie is amazing, and her story is inspirational. We have become good friends. To have her back in the society where she belongs is the most incredible thing.’
