The world's first-ever singing hypnotist will soon be casting a spell on a Deptford audience.

The highly-acclaimed Christopher Green will combine stage hypnosis and original song at the world premiere of The Singing Hypnotist at The Albany from May 13 to 16.

Christopher has previously toured as characters Ida Barr, an OAP hip hop artist, and Tina C., a country singer, but he turned to showbiz history and hypnosis after spending time as Artist in Residence at the British Library 'plundering and plucking shiny objects that grab my attention'.

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Christopher said: "It's the first time song has been used with hypnosis on the stage. I had expected that all the way through the 19th century people had been using it, but aparently it never happened, so I had to invent a character that did."

The Singing Hypnotist promises to heal its audience with a mysterious spell, Christopher said it's all about feeling good: “I'm a bit of a hippie really so it's actually a feel-good show, I studied a lot of cognitive behavioural therapy, it's using a lot of those techniques in a theatrical way, in a showbizzy way."


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Hypnosis may be a mystery to theatre-goers, but to Christopher its transformative powers lie in playfulness.

He said: "There's a lot of mystery around conventional stage hypnotism. It's about uncovering what really might be going on.

“I think you can strip it all the way back to an invitation to say ‘How would it be if...’"

 "It can be useful to say, if you're afraid of dogs how would it be if you weren't afraid of dogs. So it takes away from the pain that people feel.

"How would you behave if you weren't afraid of singing in public? It's very playful, very fun, the change can be quite profound, so it's quite effective."

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The show is the first and only one of its kind, but obscure elements of British showbiz history lie at the heart of Christopher's new performance.

He said: "It's very much influenced by research. As a resident of the British Library, I spent a year picking out old books, I thought let’s take the best of those hypnosis techniques and cognitive behavioural therapy and make a really feel good show."

Christopher said it was a female mesmerist who worked in the 1850s to 1870s that most fascinated him.

He said: "It was very rare that a women would be doing this at that time, she had a big following, she was 46 when she died I did a lot of research and discovered a lot about her that was really thrilling."

The play may be studded with show biz history but above all, Christopher says, The Singing Hypnotist is ‘really good fun’.

He said: “It's quite silly, it's playful.  It's very in-the-moment, the audience is invited to join in as much as they want, it's interactive."

The Singing Hypnotist is at The Albany in Deptford from May 13 to 16. Go to thealbany.org.uk