Bolton Council's licensing panel have signed off on the town's first legal hypnotism performance in more than four decades.
Comedian and hypnotist Robert Temple discovered that his show, Red Raw, contravened the Hypnotism Act 1952, which requires council permission for acts which produce ‘induced sleep or trance’ making someone ‘susceptible to suggestion or direction’.
Committee chair Cllr Sean Fielding thanked Mr Temple for approaching the local authority and apologised that he was required to apply for permission from the council.
He added: ‘There was a book I was bought a few years ago called The Strange Laws of Old England and I feel that [the Hypnotism Act 1952] might make it into subsequent editions.’
