Ian Saville is a magician and a lecturer in Performing Arts at Middlesex University London. He is best known for his "Socialist Magic" cabaret act, but since 1985 has also developed and toured a number of shows incorporating ideas from the act: Brecht on Magic (1985), Getting Nowhere Again (1987) Left Luggage(1990) Lotok at it this Way (With Leon Rosselson, 1997) That Old Red Magic (2004), and Free Money Magic Show (2013). He has written and performed shows for children using magic, puppetry and ventriloquism. He has directed theatre productions on a freelance basis, and written for various publications includingRed Pepper, New Statesman, Jewish Socialist, Cabinet, Live Art Almanac, Blackwell's Encyclopaedia of Twentieth Century Theatre.
He has acted in various productions, including Waiting for Godot at the Wycombe Swan Theatre (Estragon), Nigel Williams's Harry and Me at The Warehouse Theatre, Croydon (Ray), updated TIE project Pow Wow at Queens Theatre, Hornchurch and Philip Barry's Here Come the Clowns at the Kings Head, Islington (Jim Marble). In 1990 Saville attended a two-week intensive course with Augusto Boal on his techniques of Theatre of the Oppressed, Cop-in-the-Head and Rainbow of Desires and subsequently worked on a freelance basis with Arc Theatre Company, performing in, and helping devise Forum Theatre presentations on a variety of topics. Saville received a new writing bursary from the Arts Council, enabling him to write the play Honourable Flags, which follows the fortunes of an East End theatre group in the 1930s, counterposed with the experiences of a group of squatters in the early years of this century.
