Desert Island Tricks
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Desert Island Tricks
Chris Harding
Today we are joined by Chris Harding, Close-up Magician of the Year and Magic Circle Royalty! Chris takes us on a nostalgic journey, reminiscing about the early days of popular hypnosis DVDs and his unique style choices at conventions. He shares hilarious stories and memorable collaborations with legendary magicians like Mike Vincent and Anthony Jacquin, all while teasing his carefully curated list of top eight magic tricks.
Ever wonder how a floating cane or the needles trick can transform a magic performance? Chris provides an insider’s look into the contextual nuances of these tricks. He also delves into his favourite close-up tricks, such as the Ring Flight, and offers insights into the evolution of his routines. From card magic inspirations to ventriloquism, Chris’s extensive background promises a thoroughly engaging experience for both seasoned magicians and hobbyists.
From producing a bill from a kiwi to integrating a ventriloquist doll, Chris’s journey is filled with fascinating anecdotes and valuable lessons. He reflects on significant influences from mentors like Peter Nardi, Etienne Pradier and Pat Page, articulating the importance of presentation and audience interaction. This episode isn’t just about magic tricks; it’s a masterclass in the artistry and psychology behind successful magic routines. Tune in for an enriching exploration that will leave you both entertained and inspired by the enchanting world of Chris Harding.
A podcast about being an artist from a practical perspective. The series will...
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Find out more about the creators of this Podcast at www.alakazam.co.uk
And he maintains I will actually I will use this to correct something, because he maintains so I wrote down Keanu Reeves and it was just on. The matrix had come out. Now, at this time, I had a shaved head Right and I did the whole thing. The badger didn't think of the letter X. I was like what the fuck is going on here? No-transcript. And Paul Zelen started wearing a leather jacket and I had found this leather jacket, but I think, to Peter's credit, I was standing on the other side of the counter. The jacket was just below my waist, so he probably just thinks it went all the way to the floor. It didn't, but his point is he probably didn't even need to use it. He used the wallet because I was wearing a full length of the jacket, I had a shaved head and I thought it couldn't have been more obvious.
Speaker 3:Hello and welcome to another episode of Desert Island Tricks. It's very true that today we have another fantastic guest. In fact, we've got a guest in a weird sort of way Magic Circle Royalty is what I was trying to say there because he is currently the Close-up magician of the year and I was fortunate enough to actually see it live in the Magic Circle Theatre when it was all going off, and he was phenomenal. He's also a former employee of Alakazam Magic and even Sarah, who is a good friend of mine. He was her magician at her wedding and part of the reason that she wanted to get into magic. He is a lovely person. You would have seen him on archive things from Alakazam as well, notably some of the mentalism sorry, the hypnosis releases in which he was very funny to watch indeed. So, that being said, today's guest he's laughing on camera is Mr Chris Harding. Hello, chris.
Speaker 1:Hello, thank you so much for having me and for reminding me about the hypnosis DVDs. They were really good. I think they were the first things back in the day when that kind of stuff became really popular. I can still remember that because I think I went on the hypnosis course that anthony jackman was doing up in derby. I came back and I said to peter I think this would be a really good idea for like a dvd release. I think it's a really good thing, it's really popular. And peter just being like the ever kind of you know, just happy to give anything a go and trust all the people around him, he said, yeah, that's great. I'll get Russ down for college. I'm going to be on holiday at the time. But if you just get the whole thing put together and get it all filmed, that would be great. And we filmed it. It was like four distance, it was amazing, it was really popular.
Speaker 1:But it's intimidating when someone says, yeah, you oversee all that, I won't be here if I come back in this rubbish, then you're in trouble. But I mean, yeah, they were great, fun to do. Keen toy's been good like that actually, with with spotting really good things. It's like when we did the the mike vincent dvds he did. I was kind of a bit of a bit of a card sort of geek and that and said, oh, do you want to be on the million? I was like, yeah, great, and then suddenly felt really nervous about the idea of being on it as well with someone. That's kind of that knowledge, one sort of quite intimidating, but they're brilliant. No, it was, uh amazing. But I avoided conventions for a while after the hypnosis dvds came out because there was lots of people kind of hunting me down, looking to kind of target me as a potential hypnotic subject.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember watching those um I think I specifically remember a genie moment um, from those dvds which stood out, which was very funny.
Speaker 1:Oh god don't it's all coming back now. I think it was my phase where peter will probably remember and sort of take the mic you know rightly say well my phase where I used to wear a tank top all the time and a tie like a tie, tank top and a shirt and I used to model the eccentric kind of look. But yeah, I certainly got my comeuppance on those, but they were great fun.
Speaker 1:Great fun to do and actually still very, very good instruction today. They're really well filmed and um and um, it's not just anthony on, there was, uh, kev, who was anthony's mate, and also amit, brilliant, brilliant magician, amazing, really funny guy. But he's the one to avoid, if you want to avoid anyone kind of doing slightly mischievous. I think he's a bit of a tyrant, but a lovely man as well, so, yes, so I'm really interested to see what your list is like, because you've also been around.
Speaker 3:obviously, because you used to work for a magic shop as well, you've been around an absolute metric ton of magic in your lifetime, so getting eight tricks down would have been, I presume, quite difficult for you.
Speaker 1:It's really tough but it's a really good exercise. And look, it would be really easy to sit and look at what you go out and do commercially and just pick eight of those things. There are some things here, definitely that there are a couple of things here that I uh do. They're more a stand-up. There's one that's something that's probably quite a curve ball, but they will all got kind of. There's a reason why they're all on there. Um, you know, I like the idea. If you put yourself on a desert Island, you're going to be stuck there. What would you do all day? What ones would you actually do? And what this sort of forces you to do is think of tricks, not just the ones that you love, but ones that you could actually envision yourself just being stuck with for such a long period of time. Um, but yeah, I mean there's a range as well because, like you say, I mean I have gone. I've been doing magic as a job, like a gigging job, since 17, 18. So 39 this year, 38, 39. 39, so quite a long time, 20 something years.
Speaker 1:Everything sort of follows a certain pattern in my sort of career where I've gone to with it. You know, I sort of started when I was a kid five, six years old, like everyone, I think when I was early teens. That's when I went and first met Peter, because he'd moved down to Ashford. Then, if I hadn't met Peter, he then introduced me to Etienne, who's a magician a French magician, brilliant who I did lots of work with for years. Etienne introduced me to Simon Drake, where I worked for 10 years at House of Magic as well, and then there I met Pat Page. So everything kind of follows on. It's like a sliding doors moment. If I hadn't thrown up Peter and been such a hassle to him and his wife when I was a kid a kid that was trying to every single weekend or after school then it probably wouldn't have followed that pattern.
Speaker 1:It's. It's interesting. Doing this kind of forces you to trace back where everything comes from, where you found different things. So, yeah, that feels like I'm sort of plugging him a little bit. I don't want to be too nice because you know I'm an ex-employee, I don't have anything nice. Yeah, um, but no, always eternally grateful. I.
Speaker 3:I think it forces you to think about tricks. That Because I don't. Well, I'm guessing different performers think differently, but I always think about it from a audience's point of view. What would an audience like to see? What would they find interesting? But this time, when you're doing this, you have to force yourself to think. Not only you know what would the audience like, but if I could only perform these eight tricks for forever, I need to make sure that I enjoy performing them just as much as the audience enjoys seeing them yeah, absolutely, and there's certain things that are definitely sort of audience, please.
Speaker 1:This is on here and I've tried to kind of give some reasons why I think they're on here, because I suppose, in a weird way, when you make this list, everything has to kind of earn its place on it for a specific reason. And one thing I do find interesting, especially when you looking across different genres of magic, is some routines. Lots of things have got different reasons for being there, so it's not like one specific thing. So, for example, it's not eight routines or tricks that you think they're the only tricks I'll ever do forever, or they're not just eight tricks that you think are real crowd pleasers. They're, they're, they're things that kind of got really interest you as well. Um, I think, I think it's, yeah, I think it's, it's, it's slightly diverse. I think there'll be a couple of things on here that possibly make you go. Really, what surprised you? But you know, um, yeah, I did, it, did the list, looked at what if I'm changing the thing, tried to edit it down, came up with 10 things initially, had to carve it down to eight. So hopefully they're interesting as well.
Speaker 1:Because one thing I do think I mean I love this podcast. I love it. It's. I've sort of came to it slightly later and then binged through everything that was available and now I just wait every week for the next one um. And it's nice, actually, because there's not huge amounts of crossover um in any of the ones that I've listened to. And I think that's the thing as well. You think about when you put this list together. Is you try and go well, ok, if that trick's come up two or three times, that's great and you might love it, but then maybe you could find something that's slightly different to obviously keep it interesting for people listening as well. There might be a couple of crossovers here, but just so many of them. I sort of forget what's been on what's not, but I've got lots of notes. I've just had to decipher through them as we go okay.
Speaker 3:So, with that being said, that's a tease enough. Let's take you to your desert island. So if this is your first episode and you have come to this late, like chris did, um, then the concept is we are going to put chris on his own desert island. When he's there, he's only allowed to take eight tricks, one book and one non-magic item that he uses for magic particulars like how big is the island, what audience is he performing to all of that sort of good stuff? It's absolutely in chris's imagination. It's however chris sees it, so that doesn't really matter. It's really about the tricks that chris couldn't live without. So, that being said, let's whisk you away on a two planes, a ferry and a little rubber dinghy to your island, and when you're there, you're gonna let us know your first item what did you take?
Speaker 1:so the first item is a trick. I've probably spent more time working on, practicing with and rehearsing with, but I've not ever performed in public. But if I was going to be stuck somewhere I would definitely want it there, and and it is a dancing cane. Now, the reason for this is I said briefly before that I kind of went through a trajectory of meeting Peter, then Etienne, then Simon Drake, and the first time I saw Simon Drake do the dancing cane live at his venue, I was completely blown away. It was nothing like I'd ever seen before. It was like it was independent of him. It was moving around with it, he could dance. It was nothing like I'd ever seen before. It was like it was independent of him, it was moving around with it, he could dance, it was moving. And then there's this incredible strobe effect ending and unless you've seen it live you can't appreciate it. It is online from the secret cabaret back in the 80s. But when I worked for Simon doing close-up and then I was in the show as kind of on stage, kind of on stage kind of body double assistant, and I remember on my birthday once I think it might be 19 or 20, he said to me bring me a three-foot piece of dowel and I'll make you a cane and you can just go away and work on it. And it's still the same one. He said he knew that I just was fascinated by it and I think up until I started going on holiday when I had kids, there wasn't a day that went by when I didn't spend at least a couple of hours on this. Even on that Christmas day, when I was living at home, I'd get up in the morning, we'd do the Christmas thing when everyone was getting ready, I'd do a couple of sessions. I just find you can disappear into a slightly hypnotic kind of thing of practice with it. Um, it's, yeah, it fascinates me, the slow cane making it move slowly and it's sort of moving, trying to move independently of it. I could spend hours with it on it and it's a really weird one because no one's I people might never, I might never perform it. You know live, because you know it's obviously heavily influenced by someone else. But yeah, he made it for me. So I'll just go away, practice it for 20 years and then come back and we're not quite at 20 years yet, but it's been a long time. And if I was going to be stuck somewhere. I could very easily probably just work on that. I mean, even if I didn't have the capacity for actual music I know enough of the different music I've rehearsed it with over the years um, to just, yeah, spend hours, hours, days and days working on that.
Speaker 1:I love it, it's. It's an incredible thing. It's like all the best magic. It's a simple concept, the simple thing, but very hard to do. Well, because 99.9% of routines that we've seen can would do with the dancing cane.
Speaker 1:A rubbish, and this, you know, it is just a like a piece of doubt that has got a kind of sort of coating on it.
Speaker 1:I think it's like a paper, like a reflective type of thing, which doesn't make it kind of. It doesn't look like a walking stick like some of the more traditional ones, but, uh, it just fascinates me. I mean it become. It was hugely frustrating at first because you think, okay, you start learning some basics with it and just realize how rubbish it looks and it takes a long time, and I did when I did five, six years of dance classes throughout my late teens, early 20s they used to do mime classes and then I did exactly what Simon told me at the end I would pay the teacher a little bit extra, wait for 20 minutes and just get them to help me work on this and and it was yeah, it's, it's, it's a massive, uh, a massive part of my kind of magical kind of world. But again, something I've never done in public, might not ever do, you never know but uh, I love it. I couldn't if I was going to be on a desert, I like I would not be, uh, not taking that.
Speaker 3:It's like um it's like puppetry for magicians, though isn't it so, because it's an animation effect you have, I would say, the likes of the floating table, um, or the zombie ball, sort of fall into that same bracket. It's an animation effect that's essentially being controlled by the performer, um, or has some sort of uh like root with the performer. It's a it's being controlled by the performer, as opposed to something like a dancing hang which may be externally animated. So, trying to create that consistency of not looking like it's being controlled by the performer, again like the floating table, when that's done really well, it just doesn't look like it's feasibly connected to anything in any way you're right, you're all right about that.
Speaker 1:It's about that. It's about approach to it as well. I mean, someone always said that it's about the relationship you have with the cane and if you look at sort of his approach to it which I think is is is the best is initially it's kind of like a starts off with kind of isolation or kind of your standard kind of magnetism and stuck and that, and then it becomes conflict because it's like the cane gets away and it's like moving around you and it's like how do you get back to it? And then you get back to a point where it's slow and it's almost dancing with it and then it fires off into this very fast ending and it's interesting.
Speaker 1:I think that genre of stuff I mean I've got this is slight, uh, slight, tangible. I've got a huge collection of puppets and puppetry and ventriloquist dolls and I'm fascinated by them. And you mentioned the floating table and the zombie ball. They're both also routines. I've worked on over the years a lasander tableander table, which I think is brilliant. I've also worked with the tables where you place your hand on the top and they kind of come up and it's all sort of illusionary mine and the other thing I worked on for a long time but I've never done is Raymond Crowe's naked zombie ball. That to me is like oh, it's just amazing, because it's so hard to do, well, um, and it's a zombie ball that he's got a concept where it's not just a ball, there's no full on this full adult handkerchief with it. It's it's not, it's just him and a silver ball and he's moving it and it's all pretty much mine and it's incredible. That to me really appeals. I suppose perhaps the reason I've never done it or got it quite right that it was good enough, was because of places to do it. Because you know, I've been a gigging sort of close-up magician for years but I love silent magic. I think sometimes magic can be best when you just shut your mouth and do something like that. That can give it space. It's uh, it's incredible, yeah, yeah, that stuff obviously really appeals. I think it's like you said, it's a really good way to think about it, like puppetry in in a sense, um, because you have to kind of give it that If you're going to make something like a cane or a ball or a table move, float, supposedly independently of yourself, then why is it floating?
Speaker 1:What's the underlying story? What's the conclusion of it? I mean, I know, with Lysander now he's got this incredible version of his floating table where it disappears at the end. I mean, it just sort of covers it in a cloth and it vanishes. You know, because that's always been the thing and I used to do the floating table, I tell you, I did do the floating table quite a few times and I never knew how to finish it, because I always felt like, if it lands and you pull the cloth off and just show oh, is that your sort of what are you doing? Well, done me. It's a normal table. I used to. I pinched an ending I was only young at the time where it would keep floating and then it would just go off into a wing and you just hear loads of crash, bang, wallop like kind of thing, as if at the table it's finally floated off, crashed, I crashed into stuff and that was it, and you just walk back out holding the cloth. I thought that felt like a good way to finish it rather than it. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Apart from Lysandra, I've never seen anyone sort of land a floating table particularly well. It doesn't look like relief and I love all that kind of material in the right context. Someone doing a floating table in front of a DJ in a kind of a village hall doesn't look that great. When you see Lysander do it in like Masters of Magic, in like Palace of Mystery, it totally looks like it should be there. It looks exactly where it should be.
Speaker 1:I think all that stuff's contextual and that's probably why this kind of material I love it, but I've never had the opportunity to really push it or do much of it, because I'm never in that environment doing a private show in like a uh, a manor house where there's old furniture, definitely floating table perfect, because it looks like it should be there. If you sort of walk out with that at a corporate event and put it on the stage, I don't know, but there's probably people that do it beautifully. That's probably says more about me than anyone else. I'm just not quite creative enough to come up with the best way to justify it. That's the close-up. I'm just trying to justify all the props again. So well, stop it.
Speaker 3:Maybe on your island it can be a floating tiki torch, maybe that's what it is.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. There's a brilliant version of Simon doing the cane on a christmas special show years ago on tv where he starts doing it the normal way and he walks behind the tree a christmas tree and he comes out and it's on fire both ends. It's like a huge sparkler. So the top of it and the bottom have both got like kind of lit it and it's got like like a spark and he does the cane in it. I mean, for people that know the routine, that has huge implications on the sort of the method. The fact there's a hot kind of fire element now going on at each end of it and he's he's whisking around him like nobody's business. You just think I asked him about it and there's that. It's really interesting. I can only imagine how difficult and perhaps slightly stressful that might have been to do. But, yeah, beautiful. So that, yeah, that would be my first thing. Going back to the beginning, I've gone off on a tangent on other things, but voting cane yeah, it's a great choice.
Speaker 3:It's one that we haven't had yet. We haven't had many stage um routines which I would put the the dancing cane, as they show. It's great, uh. So what is your second item? What are you taking in your second position?
Speaker 1:needles. Um, the needles trick is a trick I've been fascinated with since I was about 14 or 15 and this is the trick where you put a bunch of needles in your mouth, swallow them and swallow a load of thread, then pull the thread out and the needles are threaded onto the thread. Um, peter, remember me doing this? Yeah, I think I showed it to him when I was like 15 or 16. This idea I had for it and over the years I've kept refining it, refining it to find the beats in it, and there's been a lots of kind of commercial versions of this trick out. But the version I do now is a version of my own and the idea was that I wanted to be able to do it anywhere in my act and start and finish clean. But I wanted it to be the type of routine where some routines you put a needle in your tongue, swallow it down two more, swallow it down a needle on your tongue, swallow it down two more, swallow it down a whole bunch of them. Swallow them down, a whole bunch of them down um string, put it all out at the end and, yeah, your mouth's completely empty at the beginning of the routine. It's not completely empty at the end of the routine. It's dangerous in the sense you are putting needles and stuff in your mouth. But I don't like the versions of it where you put, like needles in a glass of liquid and stuff like that, because I think it's superfluous to the effect. I think probably the best version of that routine is hella from pen and teller, um, because it's just a vast amount of them. But then I also subscribe to the the tarbell thing. I think david william mentions this actually because he does the routine. I'm a Williamson fan and I didn't know until his DVDs came out some years ago that he did a needles trick. But by the time you've got six, seven, eight needles in when you're putting them out of your mouth, that kind of is the trick kind of done. You know you've either got to go big like Teller or keep it to about a dozen or 15. And for me this is a trick that I do perform uh frequently because with the right lighting it works well on stage because you can see them. But it's also a little bit like the, the type of person you get up to help you with it.
Speaker 1:Their response kind of feeds the audience as well. If people do worry, it's a bit small. I know people discuss the idea of the razor blades as a bit more visible. I think razor blades, in the format for that routine, are something that are very alien to people. I don't think we're particularly well familiar with them in this country. That could just be a UK thing.
Speaker 1:But with needles it was always the idea of don't put things in your mouth and it's an interesting thing to sort of. I mean, I have performed this with a child as a helper, which is experimental but it's quite funny because you know a child. It feels like you're showing them something you definitely shouldn't be showing. But it's got that notion of quite funny because you know, as a child it feels like you're showing something that you definitely shouldn't be showing. But it's got that notion of remember when you were even younger. You know you don't put things around.
Speaker 1:I've always found it gets a hugely good response. Now I mean it used to get a very mixed response because it can be slightly squeamish or a bit weird. It's an odd thing to do but I think over time if you develop more of a kind of a, it's not really comedic, it's just a bit odd. But I'm not a serious performer, so my sort of demeanour doesn't make out that it's perhaps.
Speaker 1:I mean, lots of people have discussed this actually, and Tom Peterson, god bless his soul he used to do the needles and I remember him saying once I'm not ever really sure what the audience think they're seeing with this trick. Do they think you're somehow doing a regurgitation kind of trick? Do they think there's a little tiny kind of minion in your stomach tying the needles on it? I'm not really sure what they're supposed to think, but it's, it's needles on. I'm not really sure what they're supposed to think, but it's, it's something. Again, I think it came into my kind of world, I think when I was 15, paul Zenon Trittery, he did the needles on there, and at the time I thought maybe he's doing this and I just sort of worked out a way where I was doing all kind of all the work.
Speaker 1:Um, as I thought it happened and then years later I watched it and thought I know I don't think it is that at all, but that was where it came from. And then it's, it's written up in like tarbell and that. But the method I've got now is really good, it's really solid and it would work. Anyone would be able to do it. You just put needles in your mouth. But whether you want to kind of throw them back and really push the drama of sort of swallowing this down to you, but it it's got good things. Um, little tiny kind of you know gimmick I've worked up and made, but I love it. I mean I do it lots. Yeah, I do it like it's a good finale for close-up, because it's a pack, small, play, big trick. Um, you can do it on stage, parlor, and because of the fact you don't have to with this method now, you could start at any point in your act. It doesn't mean like it's got something you've got to pre-plan for, so it's something you could just get into. The only thing you would have to do is shove the needles into like either a pin cushion, but then I use it. I've never got gotten sticking out of a lemon because I sort of then we'll use the lemon later for, like, a lemon, egg, walnut or something like that, you know. So, uh, um, it's yeah, it's very dear to my heart the needles I've been doing a long time.
Speaker 1:It's the first public show. I did one of the fun when I was sort of more serious as a teenager, but yeah, about 15, I did it in the school show. They said we'd like you to do some magic in the school show. I said definitely not, I don't want to be in the school show. I don't come and rehearse at the weekends in the school play. I don't, I'm not an actor. They said we'll give you a little spot. You could just do some magic and I did this needles trick in it and I hurt the people. You know all like the kind of the older kids say it's absolutely horrendous to the parents sitting in the back going what's he doing, sticking these needles in his mouth, why are they letting him do it? But yeah, brilliant, one of my favourite tricks to do. I think I'll always do that. I think that's always a main staple of my kind of stand-up work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a great trick. It's one that not many people do as well. I know Dan House has his single needle routine, which is great as well.
Speaker 3:Yes, because I think yeah yes, you mentioned about like the having lots of them or going for 12, but I would suspect that if you was to do a single needle in front of an audience, just that one needle, put it into your mouth. That's the first shock factor. Number two shock factor is swallowing in it. Um. Third shock factor would be it coming back out or regurgitating onto the string. Uh, if you showed them that, I think they would be happy, I think they would be satisfied with that. But then if you were then to do the same routine again, the exact same routine, but this time with 12 needles, which I've never seen anyone done. I've never seen anyone done. I've never seen anyone repeat the needles from one and then making it bigger, which?
Speaker 3:I think, would have a massive impact and then swallowing 12 or, or you know, 24 or whatever you want to do, like. I think that the second time around you would have even more impact from it, but each version would be great for any audience if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:You know what I think that's a. I think it's a great idea and I think it actually be a lovely way to do it, because you could almost bookend and act with that by doing one needle at the beginning and doing multiple at the end. And there's a lovely thing I'm still I don't always remember to do it because it's a little bit more work, but it's incredibly effective and it's an idea from Paul Potassi. If you haven't got his book, it's brilliant. I think he's got DVDs as well.
Speaker 1:But what's lovely about he does the razor blades, but what's lovely about his routine is the piece of string that you swallow. He gets the person the audience members help him to hold on to the end of string that you swallow. He gets the person that the audience member is helping to hold on to the end of it and he takes it into his mouth. But they never let go of it, so the string never goes completely out of sight. So he gets to about.
Speaker 1:I think there's a three or four inches still sticking out and he's got a face obviously right near their hand, and then he starts to pull back again. So it appears like the string is coming straight back out again, but this time it then comes out with the needles on it. It's a really, really clever subtlety that wouldn't be applauded by an audience. But my god, when you see it as a magician kind of fooler, if you don't know that and know how he gets around it, which is massively simple, it's a brilliant idea. It's one of those ones that has to come with a warning, doesn't it? You know there's routines saying we're going to teach this, but don't do it.
Speaker 1:So, that takes us on to your.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he can be collateral damage. Teach Harry and then.
Speaker 1:I drugged him on his head when he was a kid. It doesn't matter, a bit more won't hurt.
Speaker 3:Right, so that brings us on to your third item. What's in your third position?
Speaker 1:So we're going much more kind of mainstream now and this is something. It's one of my favourite favourite close-up tricks and it is Rim Flight. I know it's probably come up before and it will probably come up again, but this trick has probably got me more gigs over the years than any other, specifically at things like wedding fairs. So I think if you're at a wedding fair and a potential couple come around and you borrow the engagement ring or if you can even better, borrow it off of the mother of the bride or groom, vanish their ring appear as in your keys they're definitely booking you. It's the trick that when my wife first saw me at a wedding fair, she wasn't there as a punter, she had a stand. She wasn't like walking around as a potential bride. Um, it's the trick that she always remembers. It's, it's a favorite and I still use a key case um for it.
Speaker 1:Back when I first started doing this, the, there was two versions. Uh, there was the immaculate ring flight, which is brilliant, which is sold in a shop, and there's rinky dinky from hot tricks, which is one of the best names of a trick ever, and then peter, like he always did and still does back then, even more. So back then found a company, el Duco, who just did this amazing version of it, and he was always very known back in the day as being able to get stuff in that wasn't readily available in this country. This is sort of the very early days of the internet. So you know, this stuff he would get in and you couldn't get it anywhere else. And he got one in for himself. I said I definitely would love that and it was a fortune. And I self I said I definitely would love that and it was a fortune. And he I remember buying one of him and I've used it ever since.
Speaker 1:Um, we cut all the clips out. I cut all the clips out of it, apart from the two either side of the clip the ring appears on, because I believe when you hold up a table, if there's a key the side of it, it just frames the ring better. Um, and like lots of magicians in the last 15 or so years, I have refitted into a design key case. So, um, just not anyone, no one ever, ever, ever brought up the fact that it was just a black leather key case. But I think my wife like this designer gear. She said, oh, this would look good if it appeared in one of these baton key cases. She bought me one for christmas, thinking that if she just bought me the key case I would still be able to do the trick. So I don't. She realized there was some kind of like you know gimmicked element to it, so I refitted into that.
Speaker 1:But I've always done it in a key case. Um, I used to carry a rinky dinky on my keys. This is before that. Um, what's that lovely one that? Uh, dave bonzo makes ring flight revolution. This is before that came out. So I used to have a rinky dinky on my keys and I would do sort of casually this is 18 or 19 I do it sort of nightclubs, but I would want to put the keys in their hands beforehand. So I was would sort of vanish the ring, hold on to my keys for the keys, the ring would appear in the keys in their hands after that, you know. So they'd have it before they supposedly vanished.
Speaker 1:The only reason I'd still do it in a key case is because I think if you do borrow a ring expensive ring I quite like the idea of it being in something that looks like an expensive key case. It means you've given value and care to the ring. I always worry that idea that if it's kind of a, if you bring out your bunch of keys and it's sort of smashing around against your car keys and that perhaps that's probably me overthinking it, because I think more people use Ring Flight Revolution than they do a key case, but it's probably more down to the fact that I've just always used the key case and it's use the key case and a bit of a creature of habit. You know, once you've used something for such a long time, um, you can't, I mean, you don't want to change it, but it's again, it's just one of those tricks that just it's a very good, it's a quick, it's a go-to trick if you're at any kind of event and a waitress or someone comes up or some social itservice quick drink. It's just a very strong routine. I don't do the whole thing without it going into an envelope.
Speaker 1:Now, all the time I have done, but I think, just appearing on the keys, taking off the keys, giving them back the keys, put the key case away, it's really powerful. I think it's a, it's a go-to trick. Um, and I've I've used it, gosh, everywhere. I've used it on stage as well, um, I have used it a lot. Um, I experiment quite a lot and I'm still not there with the routine I want to do with with linking finger rings and I've got lots of different kind of you finger rings and I've got lots of different kind of you know versions of it I play around with over the years and it's a very good intro to that to borrow a ring, vanish it and that, and there's a I think it's in Rick Einhander's lecture that he has a routine where he does a ring fight first and then goes into a more in a parlor setting, then goes into a kind of a or in other rings and link in them.
Speaker 1:But oh, it's one of my favorite things, it's. It's just amazing, I know it's one of my favorite things. It's, it's just amazing, I know it's. Some magicians shy away from it and for a while I used to do interlace instead Richard Sanders, my nan, to make it up for me and my suit at the time. But just get such a good reaction, I think. I think it's hard to beat as a good commercial close-up trick. I really do. And, like I said, people listening will know that the El Duco version, ring for Evolution, is a certain method. There are other methods. Pro Flight, I think, is one, and there's lots of other ones where it's done in a slightly different way. There's a lovely Gate and Bloom has a lovely one and a Pouch, which is brilliant. James Brown used to do that really well, but, yeah, I've always done this one Absolutely love it. Couldn't be without it.
Speaker 3:Great. It's one that we've had many times before and we will nearly definitely have many times in the future, but it's a great choice anyway. And it brings us on to your halfway point. What is in your fourth position?
Speaker 1:your halfway point, what is in your fourth position? This is a trot um. So you might try and pin me for a certain thing, but it is the mind spy. The original mindset and this is not in here because I've been told to mention it or have to mention it or feel obliged to the mind spy is Peter's peak wallet, is a moment I go back to over and over again in my head as a time when I was standing one side of a counter opposite a magician in a magic studio and just thinking, look, there's lots of incredible um peak bullets and out there and there's lots of utility bullets that do lots of different things. And you know, in kosa we always think that, jl, what is that? But the mind spy it.
Speaker 1:It's the one time I can remember really feeling like proper layman, kind of feeling of like what was that? You know what was that and I think I must have been about 14 when I saw it and it was Peter did the routine on me. He had a prototype and I can still remember the film that I wrote down and he did the Hollywood or bust routine on me with it. I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I was just it just sort of floored me. I was just it just sort of floored me and it's a prop item that is always in my case I have. It has saved me on many occasions when someone said could you just get up and do something? At the end you can use this on the stage, and that because for me I still like the fact that it's an inside jacket pocket wallet. I can put it out, do what I need to do. But yeah, the Hollywood or bus routine that Peter did on me back in 2000,. It must've been 2000, 2001. It can't have been much long after that. And he maintains I will actually I will use this to correct something because he maintains so I wrote down the film. I think I thought of Keanu Reeves and it was just at the time the matrix had come out.
Speaker 1:Now, at this time, I had a shaved head right and I and he did the whole thing on me. The badger thing, think of the letter x. I was like what the fuck is going on here? You know, this guy knows he maintains I was wearing a full length leather jacket in this, which I because I didn't own a full length of the jacket until a couple of years later. But I did have a suit style, three-quarter neck, leather jacket, because I am, I was and still am a Paul Zelen geek and Paul Zelen started wearing a leather jacket and I had found this leather jacket but I think, to Peter's credit, I was standing the other side of the counter. The jacket was just below my waist, so he probably just thinks it went all the way to the floor. It didn't. But his point is he probably didn't even need to use it. He used he used the wallet because I was wearing a full length of the jacket. I'd have shaved head and I thought it couldn't have been more obvious.
Speaker 1:But, my gosh, that prop is so good. I mean, I used to use it for chronologue because, um, it has other features in it that allow you to do various different things. There was so much with it and I just just remember that moment of feeling and I've been into magic quite a while. Then I was very into sleight of hand and technical stuff. I didn't know much about mentalism, I didn't know anything and and he did this and I felt proper gut punch Like what the fuck? How does he know that? I phoned him every day from school? This is back when it was, vodafone paid you to talk phones and you topped them up. So we're talking very early 2000s or late 90s every day to find out when that was coming out. And I think he got so irritated with me in the end Probably more generally got peed off than anyone I was trying to. Is that out yet? Is that out yet? Is that out yet?
Speaker 1:And it came out and I think it was like £49.50 at the time when it came out, which was like huge I got so it felt like such a lot of money but, my God, I've got it. I literally felt like a. I read the instructions from bit to bit. I set up everything, the indexing. It's still something I use. For me it works really well because you can use it in stand-up on stage because it's got the pad element in it. It just floors me.
Speaker 1:I used to watch him do it in the shop at conventions. Even if you had magicians come in that knew the methodology, they missed it every single time. It was just like. I love it. I think it's an incredible thing.
Speaker 1:I'm definitely buying that new one because I just like the fact that it's called the Baker street version as well. It's that lovely brown color. But my bun is in the bottom of my bag, which is down to the left of in here. I can see it in there. Um, yeah, it's just a brilliant, brilliant prop. Um, and if I had to be pushed for a routine, I've done hollywood or bus with it quite a lot, but I'm not as good at films as others, so I've always got to try down the film rather than the actor, because I can try and decipher the film. But, um, again, because of the way it works it's the way the peak sort of element happens is so justified that you can pretty much get into anything, um, even if it's of a specific word or something, it's just oh, oh, it's brilliant, I love it.
Speaker 3:I was going to be devil's advocate then, but you saved yourself by giving me a routine. I tried to you know I tried. I think Pete says as well his favourite routine with it was Hollywood or bust. But because celebrities and films and stuff change so regularly it becomes a little bit more of a challenge. But it is a phenomenal routine Hollywood and bus. And that brings us over your halfway point now. So, number five, what's in your fifth position?
Speaker 1:Number five is going to my kind of 20-odd years as a gigging magician and it's probably the trick I've done most. I did it pretty usually at every table for a long, long time and it is Bill in Kiwi this came along. Cole Cloutier was the first person to kind of really push this idea and then some years later the I'd say one of the sort of the fathers of modern commercial close-up magic without really wanting to be it Martin Sanderson, put his routine on his dvd and everyone was doing it and it's uh, it's a really, really strong trick. I don't know how many times I've done it. I mean I used to back in my early 20s. I had two or three residencies a month and we'd have like 20 or 30 tables a night, so I was turning up with a lot of Kiwis. It's a lot of work to do because it is a bit messy, it's pocket space and things like that to carry bits around, and over the years I've probably pushed it as far as I can go. In terms of the methods, I used to do a fairly standard thing and produce it at the beginning of the routine, a cup and ball routine, the routine that Pat Page taught me years ago. I've done it in a bag and I'd sort of start with producing it. Do the note kind of vanish and it would reappear at the end. Do the note kind of vanish and it would reappear at the end. I just really think it's one of those routines that it is worth the effort If you can be bothered to do it it's.
Speaker 1:There is the argument that perhaps doing it every table, if there's 15 tables at something like a wedding, perhaps it's overkill. But what about if these people are only going to see you once you've got eight, 10 minutes of their table max, hit them with stuff. That's really hard, I'll say that. But I have in the last few years done it less. So I haven't always done it every table, cause I sort of worked up a routine of mine with, like a note. It appeared inside the lid of a pen, um, either a Sharpie or a shirt, and it's my own hand, either a Sharpie or a Sherp, and it's my own handling. Again, it probably appeared on the unlisted at some point because it's a nice little commercial trick, because what I found was it was getting the same response, but without the mess or without any kind of reset. But I just think.
Speaker 1:I think if I had to kind of look back over certainly my sort of 20s and that and very early 30s, this was kind of a trick that people were kind of rebooking off the back of. This was the one that kind of did it, and there was some lovely sort of psychological moments because when this became popular I was working the shop and peter and I would come up with ideas for it and I've got a couple of lines in there that make them think afterwards that they've done the cutting open and taking it out. There's a very good tip of of doing a kind of a little something and leaving something behind a gig, a couple, or leaving a couple of tables which is an idea of nigel meads where you leave behind a key that's been cut in half that the note came out of, um, that kind of throws them off. So if someone oh, could you just throw that in the bin for me and giving them something, they go and then look here again well, hang on a second, what? How did this work? I just I think it's just such a good trick and there's been times when I think by doing that at tables and it kind of throws off what could be like. There's a big, big trend to sort of doing like a finale trick at close up now and something like a, a bin and lemon or something like that is a very good finale trick to do for the whole room. So if you've done this around the tables, you've kind of killed yourself on that, so you want to come up with something else, but it's just it's, it was requested. A lot is to do in the restaurants. It was very, very, very um. It gets a huge reaction, but it is one of those ones that's a lot of work and I suppose the biggest struggle with it is as trends have changed in fashion and suits have become more closely fitted and that we wear different styles of suits now to have too much in your pockets is a little bit more challenging.
Speaker 1:Hence the thing with the pen, and the main reason I kind of dropped it at some corporate stuff is is because of the mess. It is messy. You take the note out and it's messy. Um, it appearing in the middle of the pen means it's clean. It's neat.
Speaker 1:It's just been a built-in possible location, which is essentially what this is, but there's just something about it that people always remember. It's always like the Kiwi trick and it was my closing thing at tables. It was that I used to open with a cup and a ball, produce the Kiwi, do my other bits like ring fights and card stuff, I would do bottle table and then that would supposedly be the finale and then it would always be like oh, where's the note? And it was like oh yeah, and then it was kind of like the callback and then I'll lift up the cup and there's the Kiwis there still, but cut it open inside to the note and it's a really solid trick. It is messy, it is work, but as far as reactions go it's a bit of a no brainer. I've got a whole routine around it and something else I'm going to come on to it forms part of it. So I'll call back in a classic kind of uh, close-up way to this routine, but filling kiwi absolutely great choice.
Speaker 3:It's one, again that we haven't had a huge amount of, which is a surprise. I'm certainly not in kiwi, which, I would argue, is maybe not as performed. Nowadays, it's normally to a lemon, or an orange, um, or um inside a lemon, inside a an apricot it's normally inside a thing, inside a thing inside a thing, inside a.
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Speaker 3:check out now alakazamcouk cheers so, yeah, really good choice, and I'm interested now to hear what that callback's gonna be um so take us to your sixth position. What's in your sixth place?
Speaker 1:all right. So this is something you're definitely going to call me out on and it would be a deck of cards. Um, cards are a massive uh part of my kind of world. I've always got cards. I've had to push them further across the desk so I don't annoy you but keep constantly fiddling and shuffling with them throughout this conversation. But card magic you know, some people get really attracted to certain types of magic, coins, things like that.
Speaker 1:Cards to me, it fascinates me and I think it's probably because there's such diversity in what you can do. But sleight of hand with cards to me feels like the ultimate kind of test of kind of skill. I mean, I I remember being really drawn to people like mike vincent guy hollingworth when I was younger because there was a program here as a magic that was on telly and they were on it as talking heads and they would build a sleight of hand artists. I went I want to be that kind of guy. That's really technical, um, hard stuff. A deck of cards, I mean, it's endless stuff you can do with it. But I have made some notes because I think a deck of cards feels like a cop-out as an idea. Yes, it is. I've got two tricks that I've tried to nail down with three. I've tried to pull it down to it and I will come to one. But I love technical sleight of hand.
Speaker 1:Card magic and phoenix aces is a really important routine for me because I suppose people always give me stuff on my birthday like the cane. But when I was I think it's my 16th or 17th birthday I was working for peter card stunts the video by greg also just come out, um and of people were saying, oh, this is brilliant, it's great to watch, it's really hard. Peter said it was my birthday. I was there working the shop packing the orders. He said, well, have this if you want to have it. I think he gave me that and that double take. There was quite a few. I went home, watched this and went, wow, learned everything from it.
Speaker 1:That's what I did, it again in the actual close-up competition, the Magic Circle one Sorry, not the actual, the adult one a couple of months ago, whenever that was, and did it again, but with a twist with the different colors and that backs. And to me it's just one of those routines. It just feels like it's really magical because you're sort of plucking the aces out of the air. It's not particularly commercial because producing aces kind of a you know if I'm working in a gig environment, but I've done it before selections quite a few times had four people like kind of stop on different cars and pulled them out there and pulled them off of people and that, um, and then in the magic circle competition. This time I did a sort of variation which is a I think it's a richard kaufman idea from the book card which, again, I think Peter had. It was one of his own and I borrowed it and I think I might've not given it back, you know, but it was a lovely thing called Aces of the Phoenix, of a different colour and it was. You did the Phoenix Aces, then at the end the backs all changed colour which kind of spurred. That was kind of the starting point for that whole thing.
Speaker 1:I love that as a routine with cards because it's sort of technical, a bit flourishy. If I had to pick a card routine I would do over and over. It's really hard. I came down to like a kind of a cards to pocket routine. I did a competition that cards to pocket with the ambitious and the colour change it uses, I think probably for me the Torn and Restored Transposition by David Williamson is one of the best card tricks I think there is. I first saw it on an international lecture video. It was williamson close-up international lecture and I think peter got it because he used to get quite a lot of international tapes at the time just for himself and watch him. And I'm pretty sure he got it and lent it to me. And it was noel courtley's to phone the shop all the time, said, oh, you should watch the williamson tape, it's really good and this is pre-williamson being kind of.
Speaker 1:It wasn't. You're not the raccoon on this, it was kind of very young and it was all very serious and kind of. You know, it's just before he would kind of jump around and like what we know him as today, but we're watching that and just being floor by. And then I think a couple of years I think, david Blaine did it on one of his specials in the magic man, especially to Tyra Banks in the street, his own version of it. He didn't do the spin out and all that. But total muscle transposition is a really really good card routine and if anyone, I assume most people would know it. But the reason I love it it's really hard to put into words and the best thing I could say is go and watch. It sounds like I shouldn't mention other magic shops on it, but he did a penguin lecture and at the beginning of this lecture he does this routine and he takes, he explains it and it takes him about 40 odd minutes to do an explaining because there's so many points in how he explains it I think are so applicable to carb magic in the terms of what the audience thinks, what they they want to happen, motivation, the beats and points and it's just amazing and I do stand by that extra little bit of effort at the end when the cards are stored and then the wrinkles come out of it. That wrinkle, getting the wrinkles out of it is 100% worth doing. That peripheral effect where you get the cards then shuffled and then you just roll it and the wrinkles are gone, it's great. And if I was to sort of back reference I know people haven't seen it but my magic circle routine, this time I did the Phoenix Aces and I used one of the Aces as a sign in the card and that ended up changing colour as well, with the colour changing deck at the end. I've done a few sort of commercial close-up shows and rather than the Phoenix Aces, because it's not always congruent with the environment, I've done Tornado Sword Transposition, which if you know the method then you'll know that if you then want to go into a colour-changing card sequence, you are kind of set up to be able to kind of know what card they're going to kind of sign. It's just my favourite. It gets a huge response. It's it's just my favourite. It gets a huge response. It's got all the different elements in it but it's got a lot of elements in it that can be done very naffly, like finding the wrong card oh, is it the right card, oh, has it changed? And unless you really kind of do it a lot, it's, I think. I suppose that it's really hard to put into words what people's response is to it. Because you've got so much magic in a short period of time.
Speaker 1:A card is a transposition in it, obviously with the transition, but it's torn. So how could that swap places with that? Then it goes back together. But it's kind of pre-thinking what they're going to say Well, because you almost have to hold back and go put it back together and be prepared for the fact that the card then goes back together. I just it's, if I'm put on the spot to do a trick out and about with, like kind of you know, if I'm at gigs or show us a card trick, it's almost always that, um, because it just it just hits people in a way. That's not what. It's, not just a standard pick a card, I'll find it. The card sort of seems to go on this whole journey of kind of changing from one to the other and not being found. Then pinch one up, going back together, and then all the wrinkles come out and people are like by the end of it, it's, it's almost too much for people. It's brilliant.
Speaker 3:I love it great trick, but I do think that we're gonna have to allow you and I've never done this before a weekly shipment of cards to your island for that, because I think you're going to need more than one deck. So yeah, a little rubber dinghy is going to come to you every week with a little brick of cards.
Speaker 1:Three decks at a time. Borrow them together and you're there.
Speaker 3:So that takes us to your tail end, the tail end of your list, the last two tricks. I'm guessing at this point you were pulling out your hair, um, so what's in your seventh position?
Speaker 1:okay. So the seventh position uh started up as a utility type item, but actually is something that I use in the billing kiwi as a part of the method, so it's a. The best way to describe it, I suppose, in this form is a changing banknote. A changing banknote using a prop that all magicians own. We all use it, often to vanish the silk. But a bill change that gets a thumbs up from me. A hundred dollar bill change, I think it was called that gets a thumbs up from me. Absolutely there bill change.
Speaker 3:I think it was called. That gets a thumbs up from me, absolutely there we go.
Speaker 1:He's skirting around it, but specifically, not just the idea of changing one denomination to another. It's a routine that I think is Etienne's idea Etienne Praday and it's called Bureau de Change this is where it's a note that's called for. That is a different currency. So the reason I love this and what I think is so good about this is, I believe, that it's on a very similar path to any drink called for that magicians do on stage. Now, any drink called for the magic kettle or whatever you like it to be, is a routine where people call out drinks, supposedly at random, and the kettle pours out the drink. I feel like this is the same thing of it, but in close up. I feel like this is the same thing of it, but in close up, I someone you can borrow.
Speaker 1:You know the way I did it with the Kiwi trick is I'd borrow a fiver, change it into something they call for, often a 50. I know some people change down, change up, spit the money in that, but and then change it back here and have it signed and I would ask them are you going on holiday anytime soon? You going away anywhere soon? And they might say, oh yeah, I'm going here, I'm going here, I'm going here. Or you detect an accident from somewhere at the table Someone's from Australia, it might be. If you then change that note into the currency of where they're going on holiday, a currency they've named, or the country they're from, it's incredibly strong. It's almost strong if you don't specifically ask for name any currency in the same way you would do in any drink called for. But I've done this thousands and thousands of times and it has that same feeling as what I imagine people must feel when they shout out um, I want a whiskey. And you pour a whiskey out of the magic kettle trick.
Speaker 1:This is the same routine, but but the closeup and it, it just has something about it that there's sort of a little bit inexplicable for people. Of course there's going to be an element where they question method. And is he just, you know, is this guy like a travel agent walking around? But having done it so many times and seeing the response of it, it's just incredible, especially if you've got a couple of kind of variations where you know someone calls for 20 Australian dollars and you ask if they want it in one or two notes and it could be two tens or 20. And that it's a really powerful thing because it feels like because of the timing of them, because of the fluidity of the method, it looks like it's happening in real time.
Speaker 1:And I mean, if people have seen Etienne lecture or work live, you'll see the pinnacle of it. And I'm lucky enough to have been there at the early stages when it was just I think it was just euros or US dollars or something. But over time now he's developed this gimmick that you get US dollars or something. But over time now he's developed this, this gimmick that you get um, which kind of allows you to have quite a few you you know currencies you know to hand to make this work. And it's amazing. You see, definitely see trends. At the moment you see quite a lot of kind of younger people and it's always Dubai, dirham's and some people you meet. You can just kind of get a feel what it might go for. But I feel like. So my callback is I would borrow the note back, have it signed after having changed from like a higher currency. Say you borrowed a Fiverr and they say I'm going to South Africa, whatever it is, and you also could do that.
Speaker 1:You know what is that that ran Boom, change the signed note to ran, put it on the table, bang done. And that was always my way of vanishing the note for the billing Kiwi. I'd throw that sort of lesser currency down and lesser in value on it and that would be it. And I'd crack on with the next thing and then at the end I'd pick up, I'd say, oh yeah, the note, and then go to fold it back up, put it in my pocket, boom into the ending of the Kiwi, kiwi. And it was. It was a really efficient way to do it. It's very, very magical.
Speaker 1:Um, the biggest thing with it is not to do it too much. You don't want four or five people around the table shouting out different currencies and just going for it just because you can, because it kills it. You know, actually, the best time, the best usage of it, which happens more often than not. I mean, if you, if people do it they'll know this you'll be at a table, you go, can I borrow like £5 from someone and there'll be some guy that sidles out with some Polish zloty or something. You just borrow that and carry on with the routine as normal. So if someone hands you going, oh yeah, get a Canadian dollar, get them to sign it straight away, change it to a different, change it up, but it's changed up in Canadian. You don't reference the fact it's a different currency, just crack straight on, it's changed, and then go straight to the, the, the Kiwi, ending later.
Speaker 1:That's probably where it's strongest because it feels like it could have been any note. So, for example, if you were a gig and someone handed you a ten dollar bill and you said, oh yeah, just sign that for me, that's great, I said without kind of flinching, and yes, and change it. I would change down to a one. Oh, there we go, it's a one. And they go their brain, just go because they go. Well, hang on a second. He asked for five pounds. Why give me different currents if it still works? And I don't understand that there's so many permutations.
Speaker 1:It's a really good trick. Um, again, I suppose like a pattern here, isn't it? It's a little bit of work to get it kind of, you know, to get yourself well versed with it and the speed and the kind of the timing and that, but it's really well worth it. It is a blockbuster trick. It is the close-up version of any drink called for, and I mean the utility gimmick itself, I mean I could use for other things on the island. You know, I could be doing tricks, banishing any kind of lonesome handkerchiefs that might be hanging around and that. But if I had to pick one thing to do with it, it would be that that Bureau to change that multiple currency thing Brilliant, brilliant.
Speaker 3:Great and I've never. It makes absolute sense, but I've never heard it compared to any drink called for, but as a close-up version, which is absolutely true. Yeah, it's phenomenal, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, if you think about it, if you think about you're standing at a table and you've got nothing in your hands. You've borrowed a note and just say name it, name it, name any currency. But it's a lovely idea. I can't remember whose idea it was. I want to say it was Paul Fowler. Paul Fowler, is it Paul Fowler? It does that card in the sock trick. It might have been him that mentioned to me many years ago. He says I don't ask for any currency because that makes them kind of think of it as a challenge. He said I asked them are you going on holiday this year? Or, if you could go on holiday, you're taking her away this year. You're getting that. You know where you go on honeymoon, at a wedding. I want to give that credit because I'm pretty sure that was his idea. Um, that told me that and it's a really good idea.
Speaker 1:If you're worried about saying name any currency, you, you know it's like are you going to have this year? Oh, yes, we're going to Thailand for the first time. Oh, really, you know. And then you're kind of straight into whereabouts is Thailand? You know as you. But it's yeah, sign it, write Thailand on it and on the flyer and change it to like Thai bar People just go, what? So? Have a great time in Thailand and you it's amazing, it is that that same thing. And no, you don't need to. You know it's something you can do in real time on the fly as well.
Speaker 1:I think if you buy the, the routine of him, it gives you that kind of the top things that you know that might come up, um, but you know, you get to know over time what there is. It's phenomenal, really phenomenal. I have actually no one else does it because it's a really good routine. I don't want to be too infusive. Actually it's rubbish. This is a terrible, terrible routine that no one should do. Don't waste your time. It's embarrassing going to the counter and saying one note from this, one note from this oh yes, my daughter's in her project at school. We just need lots of different notes. It's awkward.
Speaker 3:I like the idea of that mixed with any drink called for from the note. So you go, oh where you go, in Thailand or you know like Greece. What is their like drink? And then you fold it into a tube and pour it out into a glass and it's their local drink. Wow, that would be excellent. Good luck trying to find a method for that.
Speaker 1:I think you just want me to not sleep tonight, although I tell you what though I mean? Etienne, you asked Peter about this. He had this amazing. He came to the shop and said I've got a great idea for a routine in that, and it was like a machine that he said. He said there's a machine that you fold, feed a card into in your pocket and it folds the card and inserts it into a cigarette. And Peter said to him that sounds brilliant. I thought into a cigarette and peter said to that sounds brilliant, I don't know how to do it. Could you make a machine? But he had no specification for the machine or how the machine would work. But if anyone could do something with a drink coming out of it, it'd be him, because he's crazy so, on the our tail end, we're on our last uh item now.
Speaker 3:Uh, so this is number 8. What's in your final position?
Speaker 1:So this was a bit of a throw up between a couple of things, but it's something I've only performed a couple of times.
Speaker 1:It's still a work in progress, but the thing I'm most excited about, I think, like all magicians, it's the thing you're working on at the moment, and this is a version of the magic square that I've been working on for a long time, but specifically a routine by Harry Anderson called the Brain Shows Off, which is incredible If you've ever seen him do it. I mean, you know he's no longer with us, sadly, but this was a routine where he would frame it as he was. So he had a book that he bought out, which is really hard to get I've got one here somewhere, um which is kind of a book where you pick the last trick of the show and I think if people want to go down this route stage by stage, by john graham, he has a sort of a simplified version. What I love about this is it's a memorised deck thing, but then, as you're supposedly memorising the cards, you're writing all these different numbers down and the trick that was numbered in the book happens to be the number that the Magic Square adds up to. What I like about it is it's a bit of a head fuck because there's so much going on. It's this memorised deck plus the magic square. I like magic square but I always think there's something about it that's a little bit odd for an audience to watch.
Speaker 1:What I liked about Harry Anderson's version is he does it on I don't know if you've ever seen it he does it on a folded piece of paper. So he's kind of folding and unfolding the paper and writing only one number at a time. So when he reveals the magic square thing he unfolds it so you can see a strip of four numbers across or away and then unfolds the full thing at the end. But what appeals to me about it is it's got sort of multiple layers so I can't actually memorise a deck of cards. I find that I did so. It uses a deck memorisation, which I find impossible. But the way I've done it in the past, I've sort of tied it in with Bob Cassidy's deck memory which I used to close my little standup thing with a lot of a few years ago and I really liked Cassidy's deck memory. But the idea of sort of combining it with the magic square presentation of of Harry Anderson's it really appeals to me and I think it's again. I suppose it's.
Speaker 1:It's a routine that I'm working on. It's not polished, but if I was going to be stuck on an island and be forced to work on something, it would be this to get it refined. The biggest difficulty with it, like any mentalism, is to make it not too Derren Brown-esque, which I think is something a lot of modern performers must struggle with, because anytime you think of anything kind of mentalism or with kind of this mathematical I'm not always processing that to it. It's really hard not to do it in a way that feels like deron's done. Um, but yeah, the the routine itself, I think again, I keep referencing, I think he does it on.
Speaker 1:I think I saw it on penguin lecture some years ago. He did a lecture in london international quite a few years ago and you got the lecture note that he had the lecture notes for it. But the brain shows off and to me just it's not supposedly. I don't suppose it's really a magic trick, is it? It's not really mentalism, but it goes back to this idea of one of the first sort of mentalism tapes I've got that that peter gave my mum to give me as a critic, suggested to her when I was was like 15 at Christmas, was Bob Cassidy's Mental Miracles and he closed with the Mem Deck and he said this sort of justifies gives credibility to everything he's done beforehand. It kind of looked like he was just demonstrating a kind of a technique that he had in this sort of deck memorization.
Speaker 1:And that always really appealed to me and I thought the magic square idea, you know, combined with this you're sort of combining the numbers you're writing down must have something to do with the way you're trying to memorize the cards in the deck and and that kind of got justified one to the other and it's. It's not there yet, it's still a work in progress, but I I've done a couple of times. It's been pretty good. Um, there's a like any routine. It's got a few wrinkles to iron out. Um, namely because in the anderson routine he has a card taken out of the deck that he memorizes and he somehow manages I can't remember what his method was, but a spectator in the audience is the one that names the card that's missing. It turns out to be correct and takes out the environment is and I've kind of been working on that element, you know, with a with a slightly different method that's a bit more sort of infallible, but it's just a really good trick.
Speaker 1:A magic square is again one of those routines that can be really, really bad um, and really boring or overly complicated, but I think it can be very entertaining. I mean, notably, you've got I mean, john Archer's routine is excellent Graham Jolly Geoffrey Durham had a really good routine. So they're all good. But I just this appeals to me, I think, because it's a bit complicated and a bit weird and a bit unusual. And it's a bit unexpected and I'm just always trying to look for an ending to sort of understand the fact that it's a bit different than no one else is doing. And the more I look into this routine and work on it, the more I realise why people aren't doing it, because it's really hard to sort of do it without it becoming too complicated. But it's about stripping away. But that's the right routine. I mean, it was a toss-up between that and a sort of standard club set routine, but I think that feels like a more interesting thing to throw out there that you know might be of interest there are some really really good.
Speaker 3:Oh, you love it, magic square routines. I know, um, uh, phil smith has a really nice one using this notepad, um, but I think it's square numbers or something like that, which you have as as like an added kicker almost in there, um, so there are lots of really good versions, but I know harry anderson was, when I was growing up, harry anderson was phenomenal he's got amazing stuff.
Speaker 1:Harry anderson, he's one of those people. He's a lot of people obviously known for needle through arm, which is, you know, brilliant. But this the magic square if you've seen it, there's some lecture notes you can track down called the Wise Guy Show, which is the show that he used to close with it when he had his residency. Doing this show he used to finish with this and it's got the full scripting of how he did it. It was amazing. He'd be calling off the cards in the memory and writing down all these numbers and that At at the end he'd get to this thing where he had to fold it up. It's a massive a1 piece of paper but you could only ever see one number at a time when he was folding it and unfolding it. But the idea sort of was that when he sort of unfolded it he'd unfold four numbers at a time so it would either be horizontal or vertical and add them all up and show that it added up to the number. So I suppose, to put it really kind of clearly, that the, the routine, is or was a book. You said that you're going to pick the last trick in the show flick through the book, stop on a number. Uh, what? Stop on a trick, what trick do you like? And I would remember what the number of the trick is so he would know what the number was going to be. So all the tricks were numbered like 1 to 52 or whatever it may be, or 1 to 100, and the number of the trick that they selected, which happened to be called memory, would then be the number that worked out to be the number on the magic square.
Speaker 1:But I think if someone wants a, it was a. It's a very complicated routine. But if someone wants to go and look up kind of a version of it that's been thought of and was taught to with Harry's blessing, stage by stage, which I think you sell in the shop, the book I think that's where I got it from by john graham. He's got a routine in there and he's he's simplified it down. It's five cards that are memorized in it, um, and he still does the magic square element. He's made the paper a little bit smaller, a little bit easier to do. He's really thought about it and made it practical. So that was my kind of starting point and it's a I I should probably just look at what the routine is called, because that would probably be better than me sort of rambling all the Square Deal. It's called Square Deal. So if that's probably the if I wanted to sort of refine this down to a sort of a modern version. So I'm going to look up Square Deal, page 231, stage by stage. Brilliant. Stage by stage, brilliant.
Speaker 3:Great, and again another wacky one. So we've gone from the dancing cane to the magic square at either end of your list, absolutely. We've got a Kiwi thrown in halfway through. We've got around the world banknote changing and just to top off, we've got a sprinkling of needles. So that's a great, great list, very, very good. But that brings us on to your book. So what did you choose as your book?
Speaker 1:I chose the expert at the card table by sw erdnase for a number of reasons. Uh, one, I think if I was trapped on this island, I could be forced to learn everything in it and I could come back and hang up with cool gambling kids at the conventions. I've be forced to learn everything in it and I could come back and hang up with cool gambling kids at the conventions by being able to do everything in it. But two, I just love the mystery of this as well. I love the mystery of who wrote it. I think it's really enigmatic and appealing. I think it's enticing. Was it this guy who wrote it? Why did he write it? Why was it a pseudonym? What actually was his real name? Was he a gambler?
Speaker 1:It's also got something in it, a kind of undertone in it. I mean, it's got gambling moves, obviously, and it's got magic in it and there's the Rojada man section. But what appeals to me about this book is this is where this kind of initial notion, which has now become like the Vernon touch, and that it's about hiding a skill and not being too. I mean, there's some amazing moves in there and there's moves that we all love, like some of the Erdene shifts, which are wildly perhaps impractical all the time. But I think with card magic specifically, it's about sort of you know, I mean when I started I you know I mentioned earlier phoenix aces, which is probably one of the flashiest kind of kind of close-up tricks you could do with cards, which is it's a great competition piece but because it shows skill and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:But what what I love about the Expert at the Card Table is it's about hiding the skill and it's about this kind of card work and card sight of hand in an arena where you don't want to be flashy, it's got to look natural. And it's only a small book. There are people far more knowledgeable and better than me that have spent a lifetime studying it. I think if I was going to be chucked on a desert island, I think you could very well easily spend a lifetime studying it. So when you got tired from practicing the dancing cane, you could sit down with a deck of cards and work on moves from the air.
Speaker 1:It's just so appealing as well. The mystery of it as well. No one really knows who wrote it. I think that as a kind of a magic although it's magic and gambling book, I think is is just perfect because it's it's, it's a bit mysterious. We're not really sure and we probably never will know. There's a couple of really good documentaries. There's one on youtube and there's the one apple tv where paul wilson specifically says I actually don't want to know who wrote it. I think that the mystery is more enticing than actually finding out the truth. So, yes, it would be that, but mainly probably because I'd like to just spend 50 years learning everything from it and come and hang out and be like do you know that thing from Erdos? Yes, I do, because I've just been working on it for 50 years on my own on a desert island.
Speaker 1:We'll have loads of people saying it, I'm sure but we haven't had anyone say yeah, I don't think it's very niche, it's very specific, because it's specifically card stuff. It's not magic. It's a lot of gambling stuff in it. There's a lot of stuff in it. There's a lot of stuff in it I'd love to be better at and better with and more well versed with, but I think it's a book that you could very well spend a lifetime on and still only kind of get half good with it. Um, yeah, I mean there was a big debate on the book thing. For me there was. There was a number of different ones, there was a couple that come up a couple of times before, but I chose this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for all those those reasons and it's a great choice as well. And, like you said, the story behind it, I think, is I've seen people write shows based on the, the concept behind the book um, and that brings us to your curveball item. Your curveball item is something which is non-inherently magical, but you use for magical purposes. So what would you take as your curveball?
Speaker 1:I find this really difficult. This is probably the most difficult question because I think I don't use it for magical purposes, but I'd like to do something with it. In my app. I would probably take a ventriloquist doll, because I've got a lot of them. It was my first interest when I was very, very young. I realized it was very difficult to become ventriloquist because you didn't just have to learn technique, you had to learn sort of writing, comedy and things like that.
Speaker 1:But I've always, always, always wanted to break up my sort of cabaret type show with a bent bit in it and with a figure, a character. So I figured if I was going to go to a desert Island I would take a vendor with me and be forced to come up with a routine with just one of them. I've got lots of them here and all different styles and genres and that. But I've just always, I've always just found it massively appealing to do a bit with it. I've never had the guts to do it. There's other you know lots of. I mean it probably goes back to the thing we were talking about earlier, which is why it's interesting. You said about the cane being that kind of puppetry you know I love. I've done the mind-reading goose in the past, which doesn't require any kind of voice. I think every magician's probably got one rocky raccoon knocking about, which you know is really hard to do, because, again, it's one of those tricks that's hard to do without feeling derivative of Williamson. You know, because he's so well-known for it. Feeling derivative of Williamson, you know because he's so well known for it.
Speaker 1:But I think if I could just come up with the right routine, I just think it would be very funny, very amusing. It would completely break character. It would be a really odd thing. I would be the only magician to do it. I mean, tom Malika used to do a bit with a rabbit. Who's the name of the rabbit puppet of his completely escapes me, but malika was one of my absolute favorite, uh, magicians of all time and he was a very funny magician, did good stand-up magic, great sleight of hand, but also had this bit with with the rabbit where he did this vent bit and that's always really appealed to me. So I know it's not using it specifically for magic purposes. That feels like a bit of a cheat, but I think it feels like the most honest thing to say. I mean, there's other things. I could say. I would have taken my kit for making impossible bottles and that, but I don't want to sit around doing that. You know what am I going to do with them? Chuck them in the ocean, get help on the decks.
Speaker 3:No I think it's within the same vein as magic, though, because it's still a, it's well. It's basically like a uh, old school saturday night entertainment. You would have ventriloquist musicians.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it, it's a prop. So my, my thinking has always been to come up with a routine, a magic routine that that involves a ventriloquist doll, you know where you are kind of interacting with it and it is contributing towards it. I had a routine years ago that I thought of with a raccoon, rocky Raccoon, which was Psychic Roadkill, which involved kind of a mind reading raccoon. So I was trying to go completely opposite to what other people do with it and what it was going to make the kind of raccoon doing this trick and it was using like a Barton nurse sketchbook and all these other, these other kind of mentors and stuff. But it wasn't really right. Um, I've just always got the idea of, yeah, just doing something with it, of just having this thing. I suppose as well. There was, you know, wayne Dobson used to have Ringo Rabbit in his show and it kind of broke it up a little bit.
Speaker 1:It was different characters, the idea of having another character on stage. I mean, I'm a big fan of David Strasman who I saw in 1996, royal Variety Awards. I was sitting at my nan's. He came on, he left the dummy Chuck Wood on stage and it came to life and I went. What the fuck's going on here? It was the most unbelievable thing. He'd just come back from Edinburgh and I saw him live in the West End in 97 with all these different characters, and it only dawned on me then where I went. This is just one guy on stage. It feels like there's like 15 people up there, but it's just him and all these characters. He was one of the very first people to sort of leave the puppet and it came alive. It was incredible and it's always appealed to me.
Speaker 1:Since then. I've never had the guts to do it. I've probably spent as much on event figures and puppets as I have over the years on magic um and one that I'd like. You know, maybe I'll get there. I've got. I had a good routine with a baby for a while, which is a baby, because I thought it'd be quite funny if you could did a baby cry and you went into the audience and someone bought a baby with them and you got a bit annoyed and came out with a baby car and it ended up being a puppet and it was a baby. But I think there would have to be a magic element to it. I think the other thing I had to have went quite a long way with was a pig. It's like a Muppet type one which is over there somewhere it was called. I've always had this thing about the thing being a mind reading thing. I can't remember what it was called psychic pig. I can't think there's a theme here, isn't there? Psychic raccoon, psychic pig?
Speaker 3:I mean very limited knowledge of these ideas arguably wayne dobson has done villain, uh ventriloquism in his act, but he just uses celebrities of some kind for the voices yeah, but again I.
Speaker 1:But again I mean that idea because and one of my heroes, malika, you know he used to kind of have this thing where he I think was it the Stephen's Magic tape or maybe an international one, definitely one I watched at Peter's once when he had it there, I turned up for work and he had it do a thing where he used to say to a woman shuffle the cards, and he used to do a little voice and he used to have this little voice that he kind of said and spoke on their behalf and it's a really funny idea. I think the idea of using people is still very, you know, certainly magicians remember that as Wayne's routine and Malika, when he was doing close up and at the bar I can't you know the masks and that has been done to death and probably slightly ruined by celebrity Jews where they sort of overdone putting a mask on someone. I just always wonder I'll get the guts to kind of really write five minutes of material with a character and give it a kind of thing and do it in the middle. Because you know I do really love it, I love the idea of it and I think it would just bring a really different element. It's something that no one else does.
Speaker 1:That's what makes it difficult, isn't it? Which is why it's a good idea, because if everyone's doing, you can go. Well, that person does this, this and this. You're trying to take all these frames of reference. Then you're probably copying, which is not a good idea. So, yeah, I think if I, if I, if I was hopping in my little boat to the desert island, I'd take a little tiny suitcase, a little figure in it, and try and come up with a routine at long last and do something with it. Great One day.
Speaker 3:I think that's a great choice and a great list, probably one of the most diverse lists that we've had. List that we've had, like I said, dancing canes, swallowing needles, ring flight, mind spire, cementalism, billing kiwi um a deck of cards yeah, it's a really, really diverse list, really really diverse. Um so where can people find out more about you, chris, if they want to find out more?
Speaker 1:um, I'm on all the normal things. I think I'm facebook, uh, twitter, instagram, chris harding I think it's chris harding magic instagram is probably the same on instagram, uh, twitter, facebook, I've just got a normal profile, chris harding, with lots of magician friends. I'm always happy to sort of talk to people about magic and that and, you know, especially with things like competitions, if people are thinking of entering, like magic circle, just want a bit of reassurance it's. You know, I'm always happy to help people out if I can. And, uh, yeah, I just love it.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's what I love about this, this kind of, um, I mean, I've loved listening to these podcasts, these desert island ones, because I think you can learn so much about people, um, that you wouldn't normally perhaps get if we just go into, like, how did you get into magic? What did you do? What did you do? So I think the tricks and things that you pick for this kind of discussion probably say more about you than than perhaps some of the things you've done, and they're probably a bit more interesting. And you know, and if any. Similarly, you know, I'm on all the social channels. I have websites like Chris Arley Magic. You can email me through it. If anyone's got any questions about any of this stuff on here or they want more on where to kind of look stuff up, then you know, obviously just get in touch. I'm always about always just sitting waiting for correspondence from anyone Twitter, facebook, myspace, anything.
Speaker 3:Because he's on his desert island. Excellent, thank you so much, chris thank you for sharing it's. It's a great one, uh, and I know that certainly I'm going to be going to look up um the brain shows off by harry anderson. I will be going to check that one out, because it sounds great brilliant so thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Chris.
Speaker 3:Thanks for doing this. We will be back soon with another episode of Desert Island Tricks.
Speaker 2:Goodbye, enjoyed that podcast. I just wanted to make you know that alakazam have their own app. You can download it from the app store or the google play store. By downloading the app, it will make your shopping experience even slicker. At alakazam, you'll also get exclusive in-app offers and in-app live streams. So go download it now and we'll see you on the next podcast.