Desert Island Tricks
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Desert Island Tricks
Stranded with a Stranger: Darren Bane
Get ready for a whirlwind of humour and magic in this episode of Stranded With a Stranger, where we welcome the uniquely intriguing Darren Bane. From his beginnings as a journalist to an award-winning police press officer and now a public relations expert, Darren shares his fascinating career trajectory. He enchants us with tales of his love of magic, including the first on his list, Screen Test Pro by Steve Dimmer. Darren also opens up about his adventures as a Guinness World Record holder and a decoy for Jason Donovan, not to mention his pun-filled passion for Doctor Who and roller coasters. Whether you're a crime book enthusiast or just love a good laugh, Darren's story is sure to captivate.
If you're a magician looking to elevate your performance or just curious about the art of illusion, this episode promises to offer a blend of insight and entertainment that will keep you hooked from start to finish.
Find out more about the creators of this Podcast at www.alakazam.co.uk
Thank you, hello, and welcome to another episode of Stranded with a Stranger. This is our mid-week episode, where you get to send in your list of tricks to us and we'll get one of these episodes recorded Now. If you want to be a part of one of these, please send your list of tricks to us and we'll get one of these episodes recorded Now. If you want to be a part of one of these, please send your list of eight tricks, one book and one non-magic item to sales at alakazamcouk. In the subject line. Please put my desert island tricks. That way it comes through to me. We can filter through these and get one recorded for you. With that being said, for you. With that being said, let's get into today's episode. We have another stranded stranger. Now I'll be entirely honest with you. This guest isn't an entirely stranded stranger. We do know a little bit about him, which I'll get into a bit later. Most notably, his name is Darren Bain, and any Alakazam customers know we have a trick called Bain. Unfortunately, darren liked the trick so much that he felt the need to change his name to Darren Bain in appreciation of the trick Bain. Now Darren will say the opposite. He will protest that we copied his name and that he deserves royalties for that. But I'm telling you now he liked the trick so much that he changed his name. So we're going to get into Darren's tricks, but before we do, he's given us a little biography. Here's what Darren says I was born at a very early age and have stubbornly refused to grow up since.
Speaker 1:I was the eldest of three boys and still am. I was educated in South Bristol where schooling was less fully comprehensive and more third-party fire and theft. I fulfilled my early ambitions of becoming a journalist and did that for 12 years before going straight and becoming an award-winning police press officer for another 12 years. I now work for a public relations agency. My claims to fame are being caught speeding in a Citroen 2CV. It is possible having a Guinness World Record certificate for organising almost single-handedly and taking part in what was, for one year, the longest single field hockey match in history, and being required to act as a decoy for Jason Donovan in order to help him safely flee from thousands of lustful young fans after a performance at the Radio 1 Roadshow.
Speaker 1:What a strange thing to have done Away from the day job. My time is taken up with helping my wife of 20 years to care for our disabled son playing hockey. Self-publishing books, which I've been doing for 10 years next month and have published 10 books. And, of course, magic, which I've been interested in since childhood, but only seriously as much as I take anything seriously. For the past 10 years or so, real life and my other time consuming hobbies has restricted the amount of time I can commit to magic, which is why I'm very behind, where I'd hoped to be at this time. I'm a huge Doctor who fan and I also like roller coasters and have a reputation for having a love for pitiful puns. Who doesn't? And I have not yet lived in the south west of England all my life, lived in the south west of England all my life. What an interesting life and career that you've had, darren, all the way from becoming a journalist and then working as a police press officer and now, obviously, public relations. It really sounds like a super interesting job.
Speaker 1:Now, at the very beginning, I mentioned knowing a little bit about Darren. That's because I actually have one of his books, which is Wicked Tongue. Now, as you would anticipate from someone who worked with the police, it is a crime book. So if you want to read Darren's books. Please do support him. Head to Amazon. Type in Darren Bain D-A-R-R-E-N-B-A-N-E. I've got wicked tongue, but he does have, as he just mentioned, 10 books for you to check out, and I've double checked. There are even Kindle versions, so you don't even have to wait, you can just get going straight away. So do go check them out and support Darren.
Speaker 1:But with that being said, let's get onto Darren's eight tricks. In the first position he has Screen Test Pro by Steve Dimmer. He says I love cinema and have multiple movie related tricks, but if I had to choose just one, it would be this one, as it's easy to do and is hands off, so it gets good reactions. Absolutely, screen test is such a wonderful trick and whenever you mention films, everyone has a favorite film. Everyone talks about Netflix, everyone even talks about films that they don't like, so it's always a super commercial topic for magic, and screen test is the perfect example of that. It's such a clever trick, it's a great hands off trick and it's one that, if you haven't checked out, I highly recommend that you that it's such a clever trick, it's a great hands-off trick and it's one that, if you haven't checked out, I highly recommend that you do. It's superb and a great choice in at number one.
Speaker 1:Now I will say, before we carry on, I do also know that Darren has a love for darker side of magic, so I'm anticipating that maybe we have some bizarre tricks. Now I haven't read forward. I've actually just seen his second trick, which is very not bizarre magic, but other than that I have not read on, so I do not know where we're going with this list. In the second position we have Papa Rabbit Hits Big Time by Daryl. When I was very young and had a magic set, two tricks blew me away more than any other and to me seemed more like grown-up magic and not toy magic. One was a penetrating coin effect and the other was multiplying rabbits. Later in life I discovered this version bringing the duck element and all the comedy of Daryl's performance, which really appealed to me.
Speaker 1:A great choice, and I think we have had this before. Maybe it was on piff, the magic dragons, episode um, where he talks about this and he talks about the dark. It's great. It's such a great routine. Daryl had a great way of just routining magic into a super quirky way that you never really knew where the trick was going, and this is a great example of that. So absolutely great choice.
Speaker 1:And just from the jokes that you put in your introduction, I can tell that that's probably your jokey side coming through as well, which I really have great appreciation for. And it does lead us to number three, which is Nothing but the Truth by Cameron Francis. I talk about my previous life as a police press officer and in particular, police interrogations, lie detectors, which is a natural link to using this effect. Absolutely. We actually had that in this week's episode with a guest who talks about it. It's a superb, superb trick. Cameron is such a smart cookie. He's been around a long time, um, and every trick he brings out is always really clever. And nothing but the truth is an ideal example of that. And absolutely the fact that you were in the police and have that legitimacy to your patter really make a really interesting act. Almost I wonder if you'll ever do a police show almost. Or maybe you can adapt one of your books into a magic show. That'd be interesting.
Speaker 1:On to a number four Mirage Coinset by Craig Petty. Not one trick as such, but it is sold as one package and since I don't know how long I'm going to be on this island, for I want something to occupy me, and the length of the tutorial on this, craig Petty, is, to the Conjuring community, what Ken Dodd was to comedy in terms of the length of performance and tutorials. As the ad copy says, the only coin set you will ever need Absolutely. You know Craig puts his all into these projects and I know that the tutorials are sometimes super long, but it really gives an appreciation to how much these coin sets and these tricks really can do. So absolutely.
Speaker 1:The Mirage coin set is a great choice and, so far, a really great list. We've had Screen Test, which is sort of a packet trick. Papa Rabbit Hits Big Time, which is Sponge. We've got Nothing but the Truth by Cameron Francis, which is another packet trick, but again it's themed differently. And now the Mirage coin set, so really interesting. And it does take us to number five, which is Dead Man's Hand by Matthew Wright and Mark Bennett. Previous comment about the only coin set you'll ever need notwithstanding, I do love this and I'm currently developing a Wild West themed routine which has this at the heart of it Wow, wild West routine. So maybe I jumped the gun earlier when I said about adapting one of your books into a show. But that does bring us on to number six, which is a bizarre trick. There we go.
Speaker 1:Scream by Jamie Dawes. Just one for the fun of making people jump out of their skins with the bang at the end and if I'm on a desert island and have plenty of caps it may help walled off any would-be predators. Yep, absolutely, yep Scream. I cannot rate it highly enough for obvious reasons, but it is a really fun routine to do. It always gets a great reaction and for someone that loves storytelling which I can tell Darren does because of his books these sorts of tricks are going to be really fun for someone who enjoys telling stories to perform. And it does bring us to the tail end of Darren's routines. Here we have Time Traveller by Wayne Goodman.
Speaker 1:I'm a massive fan of Doctor who and as soon as I brought this from Wayne I saw an opportunity to put a routine together linked to Doctor who. So I've combined it with a Paul Gordon effect, the wow gimmick, and another Wayne Goodman trick bullet time to create a Doctor who themed routine Wow, cool. So a Doctor who themed routine with a combination of different effects in there for the routine sounds really interesting and, again, super commercial. I've not seen a huge amount of Doctor who themed routines or tricks, so I bet that's really interesting. And it does bring us to Darren's final routine, which is Can Can from the Essential John Carey, my go-to card effect, when I want to blow someone away with a grown-up piece of magic after some clowning around.
Speaker 1:What I love about this? A bit like Nothing, but the Truth is that from the spectator's point of view, there's a sense of inevitability about where it's going, and then there is a kicker that they do not see coming and it blows them away. Having had a spectator make a lot of free choices, it's quite powerful, but to produce a blank deck at the end gets such amazing reactions Interesting. I don't know anything about this one, so this is one for me to go and check out. But what you mentioned there about this sense of inevitability, it's. I love routines like that because it really is like it's a bit like an open prediction effect, the fact that you're telling the audience what's going to happen, and they know it's going to happen, but they have no idea how it's going to happen. It's a really interesting dynamic for routine. So that's a really great list. Some really diverse routines on there. We've got sponge on there, packetet Tricks, coin Tricks, bizarre Magic, a Doctor who theme routine and a can as well on there, which is great. So let's find out what he put in his book position.
Speaker 1:Darren put Gold Dust by Paul Gordon. It is aptly named because it really is a treasure trove of powerful effects. If I had to pick just one, I guess it would be Corner of Piccadilly. Of course, if it's a non-magic book you're looking for, then I might be vain enough to choose one of my own or the Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin Compendium all four books in one volume by David Nobbs. A great choice, and you're right, it is a tome of magic. It's an absolutely great book and Paul always puts some really clever routines out. Of course Corner of Pic.
Speaker 1:And we get supplied with loads of syringes to administer them. I've pinched one which I used for a memory effect which I learned from Craig Petty but which I believe may have been created by Jay Sankey. It uses the out to lunch principle. The syringe is just an additional prop for fun which I use to extract part of someone's memory. That's really interesting. I wonder if you're doing that in a sort of darker, bizarre way or if you're still doing it in a light-hearted way, even though it's a syringe Definitely not one that we've had before, but a really, really good choice.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, darren, for sending in your list and spending the time to write all of that out. Now again, please go check out Darren's books on Amazon, but do go check them out and support him. Of course, darren, you are a stranger, no more. We know everything we need to know about you from your list. With that being said, if you want to be a part of one of these, like I said at the beginning, please do send in your list to sows at alakazamcouk. Send it in with the subject line We'll see you again this Friday with another episode of Desert Island Tricks, but for now, have a great week. Bye, bye.
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