Theatre of Magic

A tall, narrow wood-grain playfield shot through a dirty, heavily scratched and finger-smudged plastic lock-down cover, which throws grey haze and white scuff streaks across the whole art. The palette is dominated by deep crimson red, gold/brass yellow, black and cream white. At the top is a theatrical red-curtain and stage-proscenium scene with a spinning platform, a central yellow-gold glow, chrome posts and ball-guiding rails. Down the centre runs a cream-coloured bordered panel carrying eight brightly coloured rectangular inserts reading TIGER SAW, LEVITATING WOMAN, DRUNK ESCAPE, SPIRIT CARDS, HEADLESS HORROR, SNAKE FATHER, HAIL MAGIC and a blue card insert whose lettering is unreadable. Above that panel a curved red theatre-marquee ribbon spells THEATRE in big white capitals, and a moustachioed magician's face in a top hat peers out from a golden starburst just above it, flanked by two rearing white horses and a hell-red devil face. Two grey-haired comic-profile men in hats sit left and right of the panel. Lower down, two mirrored LANE CHANGE aprons in gold-trimmed black frames flank a red SHOOT AGAIN disc, with CHRISTMAS and other inserts above, and a cream instruction card carrying a limerick sits on the lower left. Two flippers and two red rubber-ringed slingshots complete the lower playfield.

Painted, airbrushed fantasy-horror scene framed by a gilded scrollwork border on a dark navy ground. A huge arched title banner spans the top, its oversized block letters filled with a red-to-yellow flame gradient, cream and white inline highlights and heavy black drop shadows. Behind everything is a theatre stage: deep red velvet curtain across the middle, a dark bookshelf of gilt-edged books at upper left with a lit candle lamp, and a small magenta star, a birdcage and a small chest on the shelves. At right stands a full-height woman in a skin-tight dark blue-purple catsuit with a plunging neckline, long black hair, pale skin and a furious open-mouthed expression; her right arm is thrown up with splayed fingers and her left hand reaches straight out of the frame, thumb and fingers foreshortened. At centre a horned red demon with a snarling fanged face grips a wooden cabinet from which a crystal ball glows orange. A striped tiger leaps left-to-right across a swirling blue-and-white portal, with a large roaring black panther head below it, playing cards tumbling in the lower left foreground and a brass telescope pointing up-right. A white rabbit sits on the right of the title and a white dove flies beneath it.