Dying to meet you - the medium with real spirit
Crowds flock to see TV's Colin Fry do his stuff
Life on the other side... lifting the veil... voices from another world.
They're all such fascinating concepts that people flock to the show when a medium comes to town.
And when it's Colin Fry of TV fame booked in at St Albans, demand was so hot that Alban Arena hastily put on an extra date after tickets for the original show sold out within days.
I was one of the lucky ones who arrived at the theatre last night, (April 1), armed with precious tickets and to find out just what the supernatural world is all about and trusting the April Fool's Day jokes really had run out at lunchtime.
Would I get a message from the other side? Is Colin Fry genuine? Would there be stooges in the audience?
Right from the off, the expectant,capacity audience was told: "This demonstration is for the purposes of entertainment and education only."
What!Entertainment,? I thought I'd come to see a medium at work here and a reputedly darn good one at that, so what had that to do with entertainment and what on earth was I going to learn from it?
Firstly, there is plenty to respect about Colin Fry, well thought-of spiritualist, medium, healer and also psychic detective.
He is a TV regular and you could fill a bookshelf with his writing.
And so he should. After all, next month he celebrates 30 years as a working medium.
But that's all stuff you can read anywhere.What you can't do by watching TV is absorb the feeling of the man himself when he's appearing live.
And there's nothing very strange about him, either in dress or manner. He isn't wild haired, doesn't wave his arms about or go off into melodramatic trances, eyeballs rolling.
Fry is an ordinary looking, normally dressed, everyday kind of guy, the sort of person your mum would have liked you to bring home to tea.
Well spoken, a sense of humour and an almost non-stop flow of conversation.
The only difference here is that Fry has most of his conversations with people you and I cannot see, because they supposedly live on "the other side".
Spirit people, relatives of the living. Your mum, maybe, great aunt or your grandad.
There are also no special effects – no eerie on-stage smoke, no shadowy lighting. House lights are kept on and Fry operates from a very plain stage.
A large centre screen which dominates is for the audience's benefit, not only to see Fry better but also to watch a close-up of who is receiving a message.
If your gran comes through and you are identified as the positive recipient, then a microphone is handed to you and the camera pans round to put you centre stage. Slightly frightening but the audience does get a fantastic feeling of a shared experience.
Nothing is hidden and emotions run high at times.Of course you don't have to accept any messages or be "screened" but then there really isn't much point in being there, in that case.
As Fry points out, if you don't accept the link and he passes over to the next one, it's gone.People have come up to him after shows and often said that the untaken link was their relative but they were too shy and could they have a word now –it just doesn't work like that, Fry explains.
He also advises on how to behave (is this the education part?). Apparently, if you sit with your arms across your solar plexus, you will be blocking the main energy channel receptors in your body – it is also a defensive action, which in body language says you are not open to anyone.
An upbeat atmosphere is requested – plenty of smiles and welcoming faces, please – after all, when relatives come to visit (and that's apparently what will happen) you don't want to be looking grumpy.
They're expecting to find you well and happy and the purposes of their visit are to let you know that they feel that way, too.
"Share, please," Fry implores. "Be happy for the person who is receiving their message – just because it's not you, don't moan!"
And: "Please turn off those Nokias, if there's anything you need to know, I can tell you!"
Sceptics were politely asked to leave – actually it wasn't that polite, after all what was the point of being there if you weren't at least interested enough to take part? No-one moved, so we were set to go.
He started by saying that he had an impression of music – the record Johnny Reggae and a name which was claimed immediately by a woman on the balcony.
Fry went on to illuminate this link with some amazingly detailed but trivial facts, revealing that this woman's daughter had caught an eye infection from using someone else's mascara and that their spirit relative was so pleased that the incident with the 5 note had been cleared and that her grand-daughter in this world had been proved to be innocent.
Small details that it would be impossible to know without some help from somewhere.
We were all impressed (and I'm not easily impressed) but he immediately moved on, having closed in his usual way: "I leave your grandmother's love with you and God bless."
Then it was straight on to the next one: "It's granny night," he told us. "I've got another elderly lady here."
And he proceeded to take some time placing his link. There were many people who put their hands up but Fry wasn't satisfied until he'd found the right one.
He passed on messages of total accuracy so many times that there were gasps of oohs and aahs from the audience, along with a few tears here and there.
When it got a little heavy, Fry would bring us all back with some humour, tasteful and at times funny. A great party atmosphere developed.
He then changed the tempo a little by telling us about his physic detective work.
Fry said he couldn't reveal this before because a trial had been still going on. But it was now complete and he had been involved with the Sally Anne Bowman case.Apparently Sally Anne, herself physic, had predicted that she would not live beyond 21 and that if anything was to happen to her, Sally Anne's mother should contact Fry.
This is exactly how it was and Fry was able to find out many unknown facts which the police then verified and so the murderer was caught.
Fry said it was not in his nature to be vindictive but after hearing some of the details of the murder, he truly hoped that the man never came out of jail. Some of his work, it transpires, is really not very nice at all.
Fry then introduced a surprise guest colleague, a medium who has been working with him on his new TV series about physic detection, Physic Private Eyes – one T.J. Hicks.
TJ bounces onto the stage in killer heels and attired in pink shouting: "Frank, Frank!"
I wanted to say no, his name's Colin, dear, but there's no break in TJ's chatter and she talks like a train, very fast and very loud.
No offence TJ, perhaps it was nerves, but it was hard to keep up with.
She placed a few links before moving to do some "double linking" with Fry.
It's a system that physic colleagues who are very tuned to each other can use to link with the same spirit person but from different aspects.
It was tricky and lengthy, deep and complicated but always fascinating, involving the name Melissa, some French nursery rhymes, jungle characters and a young death.
Both TJ and Fry worked extremely hard – they were going to place this if it killed them (pardon the pun) and place it they did.
It's far too complex to explain but the ending was positive and predictive and highly impressive.
There was a question time, too, but surprisingly, few people had any questions.
One woman wanted to know if the spirit world looks in on your "private" time.
"Do you mean rudies, dear?" asked Fry putting his hand on his hip and waving the other one in camp fashion.
The answer, by the way, is no – they have a healthy respect, apparently, for other people's privacy on this side of things.
And Fry is quick to point out that on the other side, no such feelings exist – no shame, no embarrassment, and no baggage. Obviously they don't have newspapers on the other side, then.
We ended with a spirit called Bridie, who had come to speak to her son.
Bridie, unseen to all but Fry, was apparently hilarious. She could talk the hind leg off the proverbial donkey and her son was obviously entranced by all the facts coming his way.
Mouth wide with amazement and a smile playing round his lips, he listened while Fry relayed fact after fact after fact...it went on and on and Fry just couldn't stop Bridie at all.
Her son stood there, Fry stood there and somewhere unseen, Bridie stood there telling her stories with no thought of time restrictions until she had to be politely cut off – although Fry suspected he might be talking to this one all the way home.
With one last message, Fry left the stage along with TJ with the parting message: "Whatever your beliefs are, and I am not here to change them, remember one thing, if you keep the memories of your loved ones alive by thinking about them, then they will be alive in your heart and so they have never really departed – there is no death, only change."
I left knowing I had been entertained, but had I learnt anything?
I think I did – certainly I discovered a bit about body language and sharing but most of all that keeping an open mind is imperative.
As I drove away I caught a glimpse of Fry outside the stage door having a crafty fag. As an ex-smoker, Colin, I should tell you that is not good at all and you should give that up immediately. But then I expect you know that already...don't you?
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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