James Phelan, star of Britain’s Got Talent continues unprecedented five star show. Dare to believe in magic.
There’s a lovely kind of hush when an entire theatre realises it’s just seen something it can’t explain. James Phelan brings The Man Who Was Magic to Taunton’s Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre at 7.30pm on Saturday 21st November 2026.
Phelan is best known for jamming the BBC switchboard when he revealed his lottery prediction live on air. He’d tweeted the winning numbers the day before. He was also the first magician to sell out a two-week solo run at The Magic Circle.
His uncle, Paul Daniels, taught him one trick and told him to learn the rest from books. So he did. Somewhere on those shelves he found Paul Gallico’s novel The Man Who Was Magic and thought, “One day.”
When James was four, a teacher told him he’d never make anything of himself doing magic. This year, Phelan has had success on Britain’s Got Talent, the biggest magic show at the Edinburgh Fringe for the third year running and played 203 sold-out shows in theatres around the world.
That teacher bought a ticket to his sold-out West End debut (Sep 2025) at the Adelphi Theatre and waited afterwards to apologise.
The Man Who Was Magic follows Phelan’s 2024–25 tour, The Dreamer, in which he told the story of his parents’ twelve-year journey through IVF. Before James had a dream of his own, his parents had spent years dreaming of him. Now, every night, he asks a child from the audience to tell him what they dream of becoming.
We aren’t going to tell you exactly what happens next. That would spoil it. But the child gets to see something they’ve only ever imagined become real enough to hold in their hand. Irrefutable evidence that those who believe in magic will always be the ones who find it.
Booking – https://www.tacchi-morris.com/james-phelan/
