There is a grand banking hall in the heart of the City where the old Midland Bank once counted the nation’s money, and where, for the past eight years, I have spent my Wednesday and Saturday evenings reading minds. The Ned is one of London’s most beautiful rooms – green marble columns, the hum of a dozen restaurants under one roof – and somewhere among the tables most evenings there is a little ripple of disbelief that has nothing to do with the wine list. And that ripple is magic…
When people ask what there is to do at The Ned in the evening, they tend to think first of dinner and a cocktail. Few realise that close-up magic has quietly become part of the furniture. You can find me on most Wednesday and Saturday evenings as I move between the tables across the evening. You do not buy a ticket – you are simply having dinner, and then I may pause beside your table and ask to borrow a moment of your attention.
What happens next is hard to describe… but harder to forget. There are no doves, no boxes, nothing up the sleeve. I work inches from your hands – a borrowed ring, a thought you were certain you had kept to yourself, a card you only imagined choosing… The table is never quite the same afterwards. I have watched seasoned City executives go briefly, delightfully silent, and seen first dates rescued by a shared moment of “how on earth…”. That intimacy is the entire point. Magic at The Ned is not a show you watch; it is something that happens with you.
Eight years is a long residency by any measure, and I am privileged to work with The Ned. Alongside my private events, weddings, corporate parties, The Magician’s Table, and working at The Ned, I have gathered more than 275 consecutive five-star reviews from people who came for supper and left with a story.
None of that is why I keep coming back. I keep coming back because there is no finer testing ground for close-up work than a room full of real people who did not expect you to perform some of the best magic they have ever seen. The Ned, eight years on, truly still feels like the best seat in London.
So if you are planning an evening there, come on a Wednesday or a Saturday, and keep one eye on the room. You may find that the most memorable part of the night is not on the menu at all. What few of my guests realise until afterwards is that the mind reading rests on four decades of work as a performance psychologist – the same understanding of attention and belief I once brought to Olympic medallists, now brought quietly to your dinner table.
Warmly,
Roberto