My friend Hugh Lennon, who has died aged 77, was a magician, mentalist, daredevil and master of “the world’s only hypnotic dogs”.
When I met him at the Edinburgh festival in the mid-1990s, where he performed several sell-out shows and gained a cult following, Hugh was all over the tabloids. Oscar the “Hypnodog” had escaped their flat and was now roaming the streets of Edinburgh. Hugh told journalists he was terrified the dog, a black labrador retriever, would start randomly hypnotising people. Of course, as only to be expected from a master publicist and keen practical joker, this was not quite true. Oscar was back at the flat watching television. But Hugh’s story ran for days.
