He is a skilled magician who can easily make things disappear before your eyes. But now posh prankster Archie Manners is missing a trick himself – after all of his magic equipment was stolen.
Archie, 30, who has performed for everyone from Prince Harry to David Cameron, tells me: ‘All of my props, thousands of pounds of playing cards, vanished from the back of my car, leaving me unable to perform.’
He is now in the process of replacing the equipment, with one item causing him high amusement.
He says: ‘There was a foam sponge penis as part of my act which has also gone missing, so I am in the process of making another one, so to speak.’
Archie has not given up on catching the culprit.
WHAT A CARD: Archie helped to disrupt a Just Stop Oil banquet by setting off alarms
He has checked all the local CCTV from the time of the theft, which happened in Central London last month, and wryly muses that one thief out there must be enjoying their new-found haul of playing cards. Archie, who is 25th in line to the Dukedom of Rutland and went to £48,000-a-year Radley College in Oxfordshire, is also a prankster by trade and runs a YouTube channel with his business partner Josh Pieters.
On Channel 4’s The Last Leg recently, they duped ex-Home Secretary Suella Braverman into unveiling an insulting message, when she thought it was a naming ceremony for a boat.
In the summer, the pair turned their attention to Just Stop Oil, whose members often glue themselves to the road or throw paint over buildings in protest.
Archie and Josh disrupted Just Stop Oil’s 100 per cent plant-based ‘Beyond F***ed Banquet’ in East London when they set off deafening 150-decibel personal rape alarms suspended in helium balloons.
The video has since had millions of views on YouTube. Looks like the thief might be in for a similar prank should they be caught.
Lady Eliza Manners has revealed her romance with investment banker Max Odey is over
Meanwhile, Archie’s distant relative Lady Eliza Manners, left, has revealed her own bad luck – her romance with investment banker Max Odey is over. Keen not to let it get her down, interior designer Eliza booked a one-way ticket to Mexico and has been sharing the snaps of her adventures on Instagram.
It wasn’t an easy year for the pair. In June, Max’s father Crispin was the subject of a Financial Times investigation accusing him of sexual assault. His hedge fund Odey Asset Management is shutting as a result.
Crispin, who denies all the allegations, was all too keen to boast of his son’s relationship with Eliza last year as he told me: ‘She is the most lovely, clever soul, a credit to her parents – and way too good for my son.’
Lady Eliza Manners and Max Odey at Cartier Style et Luxe at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, Goodwood House, West Sussex in June 2022
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