Magic

'Exclude the impossible and what is left, however improbable, must be the truth.'

Harry Houdini is the greatest illusionist the world has ever known. Arthur Conan Doyle is the creator of literature's most brilliant detective, Sherlock Holmes. 

Their mutual admiration blossoms into a profound friendship, even as they discover a shared obsession with spiritualism. Conan Doyle believes fervently in the psychic world and the promise of reunion with his dead son; Houdini is determined to demonstrate it's a cruel fraud. Which of these sparring partners will be proved right: the genius writer of fiction or the infallible magician? 

Based on extraordinary historical events, David Haig's new play Magic asks what we're prepared to believe, and why. 

It is premiered at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2026.