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In a world where the lines between reality and illusion blur, magic has always held a profound fascination for humanity. From ancient mystics to modern-day illusionists, the art of magic has captivated audiences with its enigmatic allure.

However, as technology continues to advance, magic finds itself in a new realm of possibilities with the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI). Enter ChatGPT, a cutting-edge language model developed by OpenAI, poised to revolutionise the way magic and magicians are portrayed and discussed in the digital age. Continue reading “AI – Revolutionising Magical Content Creation?”

Over the years I have been fortunate enough to be interviewed on many occasions for articles or video programmes, and one of the questions that often gets asked is, who inspired you when you first started out?

It’s a natural enough query to make as most of us get into magic after seeing a magician who excites us and who we want to be able to emulate. However, after that initial burst of inspiration, more often than not that first individual melts into the background, and continued enthusiasm and impetus needs to come from somewhere, or someone, else. Continue reading “The Importance Of Ongoing Magical Influences”

A friend pointed me in the direction of a Facebook video in which the ‘magician’ (I almost hesitate to call him that actually!) presents what feels like an endless stream of very quick magical illusions, after each of which he immediately exposes the gimmick or method.

Apparently there are quite a few different people offering very similar magic performances, although personally I feel life is too short to bother investigating them all. Continue reading “Magical Ignoramuses”

Getting older is an inescapable factor that affects every single human being on the planet, even magicians! And for each of us, that ageing process can manifest itself in different ways and to different degrees.

Putting aside the vagaries of potential major health issues, ‘getting on a bit’ will usually become gradually evident in our magic performances. Little things such as discovering your hands have become a bit too stiff to perform certain moves smoothly or efficiently, finding your eyesight is no longer sharp enough to read the secret lettering on the back of the cards in your marked deck, or enduring a back pain that sets in when you work a 3hr close up gig. Continue reading “Nothing Stays The Same, So Embrace The Changes”

I am part of a local business group called The Business Network which meets in a hotel once a month for two hours during which members eat a meal and discuss their businesses and commerce in general. I’ve been a part of this particular group for almost 30 years and I have found it interesting to hear what other business owners are going through, and useful in the bookings that it has produced. Continue reading “Being ‘Busy’ Is Not Everything”

I think it is highly laudable that magicians should strive to be the very best version of themselves as performers. It’s all too easy to present under-rehearsed magic and to be happy with a standard of performance that is at best adequate, simply because you can’t be bothered to put in the effort to make it any better.

However, I think you can also fall into a trap of going too far with self-analysis too. There are magicians who feel driven to strive for perfection and who are rarely, if ever, satisfied with what they are currently doing, but instead are forever looking to make those incremental changes in pursuit of another level. Continue reading “Perfection Is Overrated”

This time in Chatter I thought I would do something a bit different and pose a few rhetorical questions based on the premise of ‘is there any point…?’ Read on to see what I mean.

Is there any point in learning a trick if you never actually perform it? Magic is basically a performance art and so you could argue that learning magical secrets is a complete waste of time if you don’t then take that knowledge and translate it into a performance of some sort. Continue reading “Is There Any Point….?”

When you are a commercial close up magician and you want to introduce a new effect or routine into your working repertoire, you would no doubt look to practise it for some time at home before taking it out ‘on the road’.

There may be technical aspects of the trick that need to be mastered, such as moves which you are unfamiliar with, and the general handling and mechanics of presenting the effect must be rendered as smooth as possible. Continue reading “When Live Show Practising Is Unavoidable”

Are you a magical risk taker? By this I mean, when you perform do you always opt for the low risk approach in terms of method, or are you prepared to put your skills on the line and stretch your capabilities in front of an audience?

When you think about it, any presentation of magic brings with it some measure of risk. Standing up in front of a group of people in order to fool and entertain them naturally opens all performers up to scrutiny and evaluation. Whether we like it or not, spectators will always, to a greater or lesser extent, be judging us and their viewpoint is entirely coloured by how well we perform.

So there’s a huge amount of pressure on magicians to deliver a presentation that not only engages the audience but which hopefully also fools them. Magic is virtually unique in its use of covert methods, and it’s natural for performers to worry that their modus operandi will be rumbled and that they will therefore be exposed.

If you think about all this logically, therefore, you would imagine that selecting low risk methods would be the default approach for any magician. Yet you see many performers attempting high risk methods, and you are left to wonder whether they are a bit mad or simply haven’t thought through the potential calamities that could befall them.

The actual answer is probably far more nuanced. Levels of risk can not be set out in a consistent graduated scale, because the skill sets of individual magicians vary so widely. A card magician who can perform a perfect top change every time would not consider performing a routine that required one as a risk, whereas someone who struggles to master the move might get very tense when trying to present an effect that required one.

Performance nerves can present an extra level of difficulty to any show, and so a sleight that in practice you are perfectly able to achieve can become much more hit and miss under the pressure of a performance in front of an audience. So, when assessing a trick’s level of risk for you personally, you really need to understand how your capabilities may be compromised in a live presentation.

Judging your own risk levels can be quite tricky, because your assessment can be very different before a show compared to how you feel during it. One way to test this is to note how you feel when you are about to perform a routine in front of an audience. If you chicken out and revert instead to something you feel more relaxed about, it means there must be something about the first effect which feels more risky.

I think risk can also be defined by the performing circumstances. A trick that has some sleights in it might feel fine to use at the local magic club where the pressure is off and if you mess up a bit, it won’t really matter. But if you are taking part in a magic competition, or you are presenting your act at a prestigious event for which you are being well paid, you will probably be more risk averse because the stakes are perceived as being much higher.

Assessing magical risks is a very personal process and the outcomes will vary hugely from one performer to the next, so where does your level lie?

Over the last few years, magic on UK TV has become very polarised. Whereas in the  second half of the last millennium magic on the box seemed to be restricted mainly to shows or series featuring individual magicians (David Nixon, Tommy Cooper, Paul Daniels, David Copperfield, David Blaine, Wayne Dobson amongst others), now a whole succession of wannabe stars are simply funnelled into either Britain’s Got Talent (BGT) or Penn and Teller: Fool Us (FU).

The advantage of the TV magic model in the last century for those who actually made it, was that they were able to dominate and for a time become the de facto television magician. The trouble was, there was little or no time on the TV schedules for many others to make an appearance, and even if they did, this rarely led to anything more than a fleeting moment in the spotlight.

Now in theory, the current formats of FU and BGT do seem to offer a much wider range of magicians the chance to strut their stuff. In the case of BGT, there’s an opportunity for a good performer to appear two or three times over a number of weeks and therefore become a bit more known to the general public nationwide.

Certainly, for any magician getting to the final, the exposure can lead afterwards to some lucrative work perhaps, even if the act doesn’t actually win. In fact there has only ever been one magician winner and that was Richard Jones in 2016, but there have been several magicians claiming 2nd and 3rd places over the years too.

Of course BGT pits magicians against all manner of other types of act, and sometimes novelty can top quality when it comes to the viewers’ votes, and the knockout format of the series inevitably means that some very good performers can be discarded by the jaded judging panel.

FU feels more like a proper magic show. Each magician is given a good amount of air time to perform and the underlying ethos of the show is arranged to help the acts do their best and look good rather than pitting them against other magicians. This feels to me a better balance than BGT where they are constantly looking to find reasons to get rid of acts.

The concept on FU of Penn and Teller apparently trying to work out how the tricks are done and then proving to the performer, usually by  way of somewhat coded revelations which seek to protect the actual secrets from the lay audience, is a bit strange, and in many ways it is reducing the performance right down to its method, stripping away all other elements, which is a pity.

However, over the years the accolade of having won the Fool Us award has been used by the recipients to create a validation for them as performers, and it is a prize that is far more recognised and which has far greater importance than any of the cups and trophies awarded within the magic world itself.

It is perhaps a mute point as to how many of those who achieve success in either FU or BGT go on to sustained success, but they do both offer far more acts the chance to show what they can do on mainstream television in a way that just simply wasn’t possible previously.