TRIBUTE TO TREVOR YATES

Adi Paxton (aka Cherry the Magical Clown) pays this tribute to long-term friend and colleague.

Adi Paxton (aka Cherry the Magical Clown) pays this tribute to long-term friend and colleague Trevor Yates who died yesterday after a long and successful career in the entertainment business.

Trevor Yates aka Joeco the clown, or the unpractical magician.

It is a shock to realise that someone who has been a part of my life for 20 years, since May 1990, in fact, is no longer with us. We have been colleagues and friends as Magical Clowns and shared much magical knowledge, enjoyed puppetry, ventriloquism, set and prop making and many, many cups of tea.

When we met, Trevor was working at the old Playhouse workshops while I was in the chorus of Romeo & Juliet. I was honing my magic skills at the time. Trevor, as was so usual with him, invited me round to meet his wife Duille and to discuss magic. We ended up working on acts together: from magic and clowning to his and Duille's first appearances in Dinner for One..

There was much laughter during early rehearsals when we were on all-fours as I shared voice exercises. A lasting impression is of him encouraging those new to magic: lending props or a hand. He hosted many of us on regular Wednesday meetings to share and work on our tricks together. We often spent time critting one another’s acts. He was always willing to talk magic or to help out with props or by taking photos or filming.

As a guest at my wedding, he was one of the friends who took photographs and presented me with a pile of them as a present. He encouraged me to join the South African Magic Society, where he preceded me as its librarian, and later assisted me to audition for the Magic Lodge of South Africa in the interest of encouraging the Durban societies to get closer together. I was also called on to help him with make-up backstage at one of the Passion plays, which he took part in so many times.

Trevor was always one to get involved and was, like myself, chairman of his body corporates at both Cressington and lately, Essendene Lodge. Like so many I will miss the laughter and song as part of Joeco the Clown's shows or his gleefully setting up clues and red herrings for Murder Mystery Weekends in the Midlands. - Adi Paxton.