Desert Island Tricks
Each week, host Jamie Daws invites one of the biggest guests in the world of magic to maroon themselves on the Alakazam Magic desert island. They are allowed to take with them 8 tricks, 1 book, 1 banishment and 1 non magic item that they use for magic! They even get a welcome package with a deck of card inside! We discuss their 'can't live without' lists and why those items were chosen.
Episodes are uploaded every Friday and are available via all Podcast service providers!
To find out more about the team behind Desert Island Tricks, please visit: www.alakazam.co.uk
Episodes
153 episodes
Pete Heat
A billionaire builds a Star Wars-shaped house in Portugal, hires a team to stage a “mind-reading” AI, and throws a party so convincing that guests keep asking how to buy the fake technology even after the reveal. That’s where we start with magi...
Stranded with a Stranger: Tim Ambrose
A single moment can reboot your creativity and for Tim Ambrose, it happened in a Las Vegas hotel mall while everyone else went out for the night. He wandered into a magic shop, watched the free demos again and again and felt the same rush he’d ...
Steve Faulkner
Often, it feels like you have total control when performing magic. But what if everything depended on a split second? That’s where Steve Faulkner begins his desert island journey. He’s a British Close-Up Magic Champion, a working performer and ...
Guy Hollingworth
A magic classic finally gets its next chapter and the creator is as thoughtful as you’d hope. We’re joined by magical royalty, Guy Hollingworth to talk about More Drawing Room Deceptions, the highly anticipated follow-up to his legendary Drawin...
Oscar Leonard
A cruise ship theatre looks glamorous from the outside but the work is brutally practical: your show has to reset fast, pack down smaller than you want and still hit like a full-scale stage production. We sit down with Oscar Leonard, resident m...
Michael Vincent
Your magic can be technically flawless and still feel forgettable. This conversation with Michael Vincent hit us like a wake-up call: the real goal is the experience you leave with the spectator, not the applause for your hands. Michael opens u...
Stranded with a Stranger: David Rhodes
A lot of magic advice lives in theory. David Rhodes brings something better: a working performer’s list of eight routines he’d keep if everything else disappeared, plus one book, one non-magic utility item, and one thing he’d banish from the ar...
Jean Luc Bertrand
The magic that stays with you isn’t always the trick you can describe, it’s the feeling you can’t shake. That’s where our conversation with French magician, creator, hypnotist and theatre performer Jean-Luc Bertrand begins: the rare moments tha...
SOS: Harry Nardi
We’re drawing a line in the sand: self-working tricks are not a guilty pleasure. If the audience can’t backtrack the method and the moment feels impossible, it’s real magic where it counts.We bring Harry Nardi back after the Alakazam co...
Marc Lavelle
A great magic set isn’t the one with the fanciest props. It’s the one you can do when the pockets are empty, the room is loud and someone says, “Go on then, show us something” with zero warning. That’s why Marc Lavelle’s return hits so hard: af...
Damien O'Brien
A great magic set isn’t about having the fanciest props. It’s about having material that survives real-world conditions: bad lighting, tough angles, quiet tables, camera pressure, and the sudden moment when someone says, “Do something,” and you...
Stranded with a Stranger: John France
You can learn a lot about a magician by the eight tricks they refuse to live without, and John France’s list is built for the real world: restaurant tables, family events, and close-up sets where you need fast impact, clear plots, and resets th...
End of Season 2 Special with Peter Nardi
355 different tricks. Only six people sharing the single most popular pick. And a top item that only three guests chose. Season two ends with the kind of recap that every magician, mentalist, and close-up worker secretly loves: the real numbers...
SOS: Dean Leavy
If you work gigs for a living, you know the quiet fear: doing the same “sure-fire” routines until you start performing on autopilot. Jamie sits down again with UK magician Dean Leavy to find out what actually makes a trick worth keeping for lif...
Harry Merlin Piper
A 15-year-old magician walks down a street in Los Angeles and strangers pull cars over just to have a photo with him and demand a trick. That’s the level of spotlight Harry Merlin Piper is living in after placing as runner-up on Netflix Star Se...
Rodney James Piper
Magic gets weaker the moment it feels like a “performance mode” you turn on and off. Rodney James Piper joins us with a profound, refreshing belief: if you’re a magician, you live it everywhere you go. That single idea ripples through everythin...
SOS: Adam Dadswell
This week Adam Dadswell returns to rebuild his list years after his first visit to the island. Some picks stay because they still hit hard in real shows, others get replaced by newer pieces that fit the way Adam performs now, with clearer premi...
Stranded with a Stranger: Jim Aitken
This week we sit down with Jim Aitken, an Aberdeen magician, longtime club member, and retired paramedic, to explore eight effects that balance practicality, heart, and lasting impact. From a self-working “last two cards match” that crushes in ...
Chris Webb
A brass cap on a table. A ring hovering between hands. A deck that turns to glass. From a childhood trip to Hamleys to late‑night jams at Blackpool, we sit down with Chris Webb to map the eight routines he’d keep for life and the trend he’d bur...
Vince Wilson
What makes a trick live past the applause? We say it’s story, meaning that travels with people when real life hits them in the face outside the venue. With Vince Wilson, we unpack the craft of bizarre magic as a storytelling engine that any per...
Erik Tait
What makes a close-up set survive bars, restaurants, conventions, and The Magic Castle without breaking stride? We chase that answer with Erik Tait, who lays out eight pieces that hit fast, reset instantly, and leave images people actually reme...
Stranded with a Stranger: Mark Piazza
Eight tricks, one book, one banishment and a lifetime of lessons packed into a single, fast-moving session with performer and author Mark Piazza. We trace his arc from 25 years of kids’ shows to a sharp mentalism repertoire, pulling apart the c...
Craig Petty
If you’ve ever been told to perfect five tricks and repeat them forever, prepare to toss that rule out. Craig Petty joins us to make a fearless case for evolving your set, testing ideas in the wild, and embracing marketing as part of the craft....