Desert Island Tricks
Each week we invite one of the biggest guests in the world of magic to maroon themselves on a desert island. They are allowed to take with them 8 tricks, 1 book, 1 banishment and 1 non magic item that they use for magic! We discuss their 'can't live without' lists and why those items were chosen.
Episodes are uploaded every Friday and are available via all Podcast service providers!
To find out more about the team behind Desert Island Tricks, please visit: www.alakazam.co.uk
Desert Island Tricks
Roddy McGhie
Step into the wonderfully whimsical world of Roddy McGhie, where card boxes mysteriously grow tiny doors and silver laptops transform into signed playing cards. In this captivating conversation, Roddy reveals how his distinctively offbeat approach to magic has carved him a unique space in the industry.
From the nerve-wracking moment of investing borrowed money to produce his first commercial hit "Little Door," to witnessing people's jaws literally drop when rubber bands pass through one another, Roddy generously shares the pivotal moments and creative influences that shaped his magical journey. What began as a side passion alongside his mental health support work has blossomed into co-owning Trick Trick Boom, a company specialising in the unusual, practical, and memorable magic that has become Roddy's trademark.
Beyond just selecting his eight desert island tricks, Roddy delivers profound insights about performance philosophy. His refreshing take on handling difficult audiences—"My job is to fool people, not make fools of them"—challenges conventional wisdom about audience management. Whether explaining why some magicians are too nervous to perform Tobias Dostal's phone-vanishing miracle "Optics," or defending the unmatched reactions to the humble sponge balls, Roddy's experiences demonstrate that prioritising audience impact over magician approval leads to more meaningful performances.
Whether you're drawn to his creative process, technical expertise, or performance wisdom, this episode offers something magical for everyone. Subscribe now and discover why Roddy's approach to magic continues to surprise, delight, and inspire performers worldwide.
Roddy’s Desert Island Tricks:
- Stand Up Monte
- Little Door
- Optics
- Sponge Balls
- What’s in a name
- Tommy Wonders Nest of Boxes
- Beard Book
- Mini Book Pro
Banishment. Heckler Put Down’s
Book. Definitive Sankey Book 1
Item. Rubber Bands
Find out more about the creators of this Podcast at www.alakazam.co.uk
I did in fact.
Speaker 2:I forgot to do that. I was doing Magic at Turnberry at New Year this year and I forgot to say that to this seemingly very wealthy couple that I did the magic for. And the lady picked the name of her mother. It was a Polish name, man Alive. I couldn't pronounce it, but I was able to see it and when it was revealed, she got really upset and I was like I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, but see it. And when it was revealed, she, she got really upset and I was like I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, but it turned out okay, because I sheepishly left the table and moments later the, the husband, came over and gave me a massive tip and he was like oh, don't worry about it, you were great, I can't believe you got that name. She's amazed, and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 3:Hello and welcome to another episode of Desert Island Tricks. We are back up in Scotland today with today's guest, and I remember first hearing this man's name one day Forrest, who is a previous episode, so do go listen to that. One of our early episodes and he showed me an effect where some writing uh, well, rather some dots were on the back of a card and then they morphed into some writing and that trick became flux, which was roddy's. I'm not sure if it's his first trick. I think it was his first trick to the community. And then, after that course, there are some incredible tricks.
Speaker 3:Of course, one of them in particular gets mentioned quite often and that is Little Door. And if you haven't seen Little Door, my goodness, get it, because it is phenomenal. His magic is always completely different to everyone else's. There is a very distinctly Roddy type of trick which is whimsical. It's normally a bit out there, it's normally, like I say, just totally different to what anyone else is doing. So that's why this podcast is going to be an absolute joy to listen to. Of course, I've already mentioned his name and you've seen his name on the title, so I don't know why I do this every time, like you, don't know who this guest is. It is the wonderful roddy mcgee. Hello, roddy, hello, hello. How are you? I'm very well now that you're here oh shucks, thank you, that was.
Speaker 2:That was a lovely introduction.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much well, I'm very excited to have you on here. We've been trying to get you on here for a little while, but you are a very busy man, not just creating, but you do co-own a magic company. So tell us about your new company.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Noel Coulter and I have a company called Trick Trick Boom. I think this is our second year now, but yeah, we started this company and we're going strong. We're currently working on the trailer for our new release, which hopefully will come out next week. From the date of this recording, which is an exclusive we haven't mentioned it yet. I'll probably get in trouble from Noel for saying that, but we're about to drop our new release and, yeah, it's great, it's the hardest I've worked in my life. To be honest, um, I am myself one man, little sweatshop, saying, uh, manufacturing gimmicks 24 7. Um, but no, it's, it's exciting. And um, yeah, that's that. I don't really know much more to say about it. Yeah, check us out tricktrickboomcom, and we've got some awesome tricks out already, and then more amazing miracles to come.
Speaker 3:So that's that well, no, has nipped into the shop a couple of times and showed us some of the things that you guys are working up to, and some of them are just ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. They're so clever, they're so practical and a lot of the time, like I said there, your effects are quite whimsical. There's always some sort of clever hook or a clever through line, or sometimes just a joke, which is brilliant that a trick is built around. So how do you come up with all of these sorts of weird, whimsically strange ideas?
Speaker 2:Joe, I wish I knew, but I suppose it's just the way my brain works. But Noel and I have been friends for years, sort of magic friends, and Noel has always been like a muse for me. Really. He's great at just saying something random, like you know what, if you had a deck of cards that was out of date, what's the track? And that just gets my brain going right, you know, you'll just say some comment, what about this for a premise, you know? And he just throws a thing out there and it sends me off in mad directions. Because that's what I need, that's what I crave is just that little seed of someone saying something or seeing something weird or seeing something in a film and going, oh, I wonder if that could be a trick.
Speaker 2:You know, I think it's just been open to any influence really. I mean, I don't read a lot of magic books, or because I kind of have this thing of feeling that you're kind of, if you read a lot of magic books, I kind of feel like I'm trying to reinvent what's already been invented. So I kind of take my influences from other places, but definitely Noel and I together we haven't had a lot of time to do it of late because we've been so busy trying to get our tricks out there, the ones that we've created already. But when we get time together to just I mean, we speak every day, but when we have time together just to talk about tricks, there's always something comes out of it. You know, one of us will make a comment that sends the other one off in some random direction and then eventually we'll converge into something that is completely different from what we started with.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I don't really know. I mean I do, I lecture and I talk quite often in my lectures about creativity and methods behind it. But the truth is it's such an elusive thing. I mean, you know yourself as a creator. Sometimes you have no idea where the idea came from. It's just there. And I firmly believe that if you have a little seed of an idea, I plant it in my brain and then I just get on with my life and I say, just, you work on that and my subconscious will work away on it. And that's when you get that kind of light bulb moment where you go ah, you didn't suddenly think of it, your brain was working on it while you were doing other things. That's what I think, anyway.
Speaker 3:A second ago. You just mentioned your book and you mentioned that you don't read a lot, so that may give us an insight into the ending, without giving anything away. But how did you find putting your list together, did you?
Speaker 2:find it a hard thing or an easy thing. Oh, it's impossible, almost impossible. I'm still doing it as we speak. I mean, I've got a lot of lists in front of me. I have nine books on this list.
Speaker 2:After saying I'm not a big magic book person, I love magic books, but I I find I'm very easily distracted, as you'll tell, from all these tangents that we'll go off during this conversation. So when I came to try and decide on a book here I like to sit down and read a book I easily distract him off elsewhere doing other things. But, yeah, trying to choose one, I've got nine on here just now, which I'm hoping by the time we get to the book part I'll have narrowed it down. And the same with the tracks. Picking the tracks. It's like an almost impossible task. I have eight. But oh my god, it was so difficult because I love magic and there are so many amazing things out there and I didn't want to just say eight of mine. I did really, but I better not. But yeah, it was really tough, really really tough.
Speaker 3:Well, don't forget, you are allowed honourable mentions, so you can have the occasional honourable mention if you want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, OK, OK.
Speaker 3:Now, if this is your first time listening to the podcast, the idea is we are about to maroon roddy on his very own scottish island. When he's there, he's allowed to take with him eight tricks. Banish one thing, take one book and one non-magic item that he uses for magic particulars like who's there, what's there? Are there animals there? Are there people there? All that good stuff we do not mind. It's in Roddy's very whimsical imagination, so we don't need to know any of that. It's basically the list of tricks that he could not live without. With that being said, let's go to Roddy's island now and find out what he put in position. One.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I was thinking about the whole island premise and I decided that, yeah, I'm not going to go for any of that cast away stuff where I'm having to spear fish in a lagoon and all that sort of nonsense dying from a cut on my hand. I want a luxury island. That's what I'm going to have, a luxury island where I'll invite people to come that I can perform magic to, and it'll be like a lovely private island with smell. Actually, do you know what, now that I've said that that sounds like a famously dodgy private island that you'll get invited to forget that, forget the island thing, I'll just get the first thing.
Speaker 2:So my first pick is Stand Up Monty by Garrett Thomas, which is, oh man, it's an absolute powerhouse, this trick. So it is basically the three card Monty routine, where you have two cards the same and one is the money card, like maybe you have two fives and an ace or something like that. I think it's a queen, actually with the one. This is the set I've got, so, uh, and then you go through a series of just the monty, the standard monty routine, where they have to find the card and it's never where they think it is, and oh, it's just there's so much magic happens in it and it just uses one move that you do over and over um, which, and also you just need to learn the procedure as well. And I and I love it. It's like I do it as my, not not my opener as such. I tend to. I open with with pretty much always open with Kieran Johnson's Lollipop production, which is just almost made the list, because it's absolutely fantastic and it establishes you as the magician right at the start.
Speaker 2:I like to approach because I do restaurant residencies and weddings and stuff like that and I have a residency I do every week and I don't like to go up to a table and say, hello, I'm the magician, and blah, blah, blah and have to break through that wall. So I usually go up and I'm wearing the suit, so they assume I'm the manager or the bouncer or something, and I ask them if they're waiting on food and I say, well, actually, while we're waiting this may seem odd, but I have little raffle tickets here and if it starts with a five, you could win a prize and by then they're going what? And I light it and there's a lollipop and now I say I'm the magician. So now at this point I've created a lollipop from fire and I've given them a bride done with confectionery. So I'm in there, so I even though it likes to count that as an honorable mention then. But then I'm straight into stand up, monte, because now you establish yourself as an absolute sleight of hand wizard, because this, this trick, is incredible. It's like the cards here and it's there and it's in their hand and it changes and then all the cards change at the end and there's just so much happening. It's like hitting them over the head with magic and you can do it really quickly, also rapid pace, and do it in like a minute or so. But I love it.
Speaker 2:I saw Garrett Thomas doing it at Blackpool and I stood and watched him doing it over and over until I had the measure of it and I thought I've got to have that and I bought it. I never watched the instructions. It's terrible. I know a lot of magicians do this and it breaks my heart that I know people. We get messages from people all the time saying I'm kind of struggling with this part of the trick. You know, like from a trick trick, boom, trick, and you know they just haven't watched the instructions because it's in there. It and you know they just haven't watched the instructions. Because it's in there. It's like the first thing and you have to say, well, you should do this, this and this. But I'm guilty of it as well. I thought, right, I know what I'm doing here and I just kind of I remember sitting in my little B&B at Blackpool going over it, trying to remember what I watched them doing. So I think my routine is probably the same, but it's a fantastic trick and you can.
Speaker 2:I have seen it perform poorly, I have to say as much as it is easy. There's just this one move. You need to get it down, you need to do it with confidence. But it absolutely blows people away. And yeah, that's my number one there. I think I've pretty much always got four cards in my jacket pocket somewhere, which it's not really particularly organic. If someone says, can you show me something, you go hold on. Oh, I just happened to have four cards in my pocket. But I think if I had to, if I was forced to, just in a position where I thought, right, right, I can do one trick, it would probably be that. You know, if I had to do one carp trick, it would be that because, wow, it's incredible and it beats every other Monty routine in my opinion, because there's just so much that happens and, yeah, that's my number one.
Speaker 3:What was it about stand-up monty that made you want to do this particular version of the monty plot?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I think I was just blown away when I when I saw garrett thomas performing it and I think I must have watched him do two or three times or more before I kind of twigged on what the method might be, because traditionally there's a certain way you hold the cards with, like Skinner's Monty, for example, and as magicians we're kind of switched on to things like that. And the method for Garrett's is, when you know it, you're like, oh god, really that was it, that's it. But it's so deceptive, especially when he performs it, because obviously he's Garrett Thomas, right, and I think it was just. It looked so clean when I saw it being performed and also you can the name, the clue in the name, you can do it standing up, and I do a lot of wedding receptions and stuff like that where you can just do this in people's hands. You don't need a table.
Speaker 3:Um, it's very practical in that sense and uh, yeah, it's just, it's just fantastic well, I think that's a great opening gambit and leads us very nicely into number two. So what did you put in your second spot?
Speaker 2:well, self-indulgently, I went for Littledore, my trick, littledore in position number two, because it's been, it's been my biggest hit really and it's the kind of thing that sort of put me on the edge of the map slightly. I had other tricks out before. Like you mentioned, I had Flux and I had another trick out with Full 52. Only, we only did a short run of it before Flux, which I can't remember the name of now, but Little Door was really a massive thing for me and it really kind of set me on this path. Now. So to describe the trick, I always do it as I say to people I'm going to tell you a little secret, right, and it's between us. So conspiratorially, I'll say do you want to? You're the kind of person that likes the secret. Do you want me? I'll teach you a trick, I'll tell you how it's done. And then I say another magician showed me this. He had me select a card and he shuffled them and he put them in the box. And then he did this, and I hold the box up to my head and then do a very obvious squint and I'm looking at the box and then he said four of clubs, and it was. But the secret was he could see through the box. He had a special magician's card box and it looked really ordinary and I let them have a look at it and it just looks like a tatty old card box. But it had a little secret. Let me show you. Hold on. I'd bring a pen out, a sharpie out, and I'd draw a little rectangle where the index of the card would be on the box, and then a little handle and I'd say it's a door. It had a little door. It had a little door in it. So all I had to do was get my card to the bottom in this case it's whatever the king of hearts pop the cards in. And then I open up the little door and you can see inside the box. You can see the card that's on the bottom of the deck that I just showed them a moment before. And then I say, and here's the amazing thing though, it was so well made that you know I take the cards out at this point, and it's so well made that it was almost completely invisible. And then I just rub that door away and it just vanishes and you can hand them the box at this point and they go mental. So yeah, again if I I know I said, stand up, monty, if I could only do one trick, one card trick, I would do that.
Speaker 2:Little Door's not really a card trick, it's a box trick. Really. All the magic happens in the box. The cards are beside the point really. People never remember.
Speaker 2:And the thing with Little Door is no one selects a card. That's very relaxed for your participant, right? Because if you say to a lay person, okay, pick a card now, remember that we'll come back to it in a minute, then we think as magicians, okay, they're watching the magic and they're loving it and you know, we're getting to it. But in reality most lay people are sitting there going four of clubs, four of clubs, four of clubs all the time, because they think if I forget this, I'm going to ruin everything and it's not natural for people to remember playing cards, right. So they're constantly going four of clubs, they're trying to remember it, trying to remember it. But with Lil Dog, no one's picking a card, no one's having to remember a card.
Speaker 2:I'm just telling a story and I find when I perform it that people they don't realise it's a track until it's too late, because you're just telling them a little story, right and they're like why is he drawn on the box with a sharpie? That's mad. And then when you open the door, they go oh what? And strangely you know it's a weird thing if anyone performs Little Door and I know there's a few people do you've got to do this? Right? This is a tiny little thing but for some reason it adds another beat to it. So when I open the little door and I show them it, you get that first moment where they go what's happening here? That's mad. Then I close it up again and then I say to them do you want to open it? And I offer them the box, I hold it and I get them to open the door. And it's just a little thing that I never used to do, I just started doing it.
Speaker 2:I can't remember who said this. Someone else said this on the podcast is that you get some of the best lines and the best parts of tracks you get come from your audience and I get some of my best lines from things that people say and I go, I'm having that. I'll remember that for next time. And I think when someone said to me, can I open it? And I was like, yeah, sure, and I let them do it and for some reason, when they are able to open it, they go and they get another, another beat on it. It's so weird because they expect not to be able to open it, and sometimes what happens is someone's got dry fingers and they try and open it and they can't, and then they go, oh my god, and then I open it and they go oh, he can do it.
Speaker 2:It's weird. You're getting another beat for nothing. You're getting another part for doing absolutely nothing. So if they can open it, they're like wow. If they can open it, they're like wow. If they can't open it, they're like oh you sneaky magician man, you're getting another magic moment. It's so weird.
Speaker 2:The thing with Little Door was I came up with it and I honestly don't remember what influenced it. I found my original gimmick about a year ago, found it in a drawer and I had a little tiny door drawn on it. I honestly don't remember. I assume it's probably G Sankey who probably influenced me. He likes to draw on a lot of things and and I decided I was going to produce it myself. So I borrowed. I didn't have money for it.
Speaker 2:I worked it out that I would need I think I needed something like two or three thousand pounds or something like that to make it, and I borrowed money from a friend. A friend said to me I'll lend you. I was like no, I can't do that. He said, yeah, sure. I said, all right, if you lend me, I'll pay you it back in this time and I'll give you this much extra. And he was like no problem. And oh man, the pressure, the amount of pressure. I remember being in this. I had to go to this industrial printers to get the specific finish that I needed for the card boxes and stuff. And I remember when him giving me the little card machine, I had to type in my number to pay £850 for prints for like cardboard, and it wasn't my money and I was just like, oh my god, what if this doesn't sell? What if no one likes this? And I remember the moment and my heart was going. But thankfully it did really well.
Speaker 2:I sold it through Penguin and their partner scheme. So they have this thing where you can go into their site and you can put up your own photos and your own listing. You send your product to them, to the warehouse, and they just do all your sales for you and they take a percentage. And it used to be quite a small percentage. I think it's quite a bit bigger now because of Little Door, funnily enough, I think. So they take a percentage and they just sell it. Every time someone buys one, they send it out and blah, blah, blah and I put it in there and I kind of I made a trailer for it myself and I put it on the Magic Cafe and I kind of deliberately, I kind of gamed the Magic Cafe a little bit.
Speaker 2:I feel bad about it now, but what I did was I got my phone and I sellotaped a Sharpie marker just over the camera and then I switched the light off. You just put a lamp, switched all light off, just put a lamp, switched all the lights off, put a lamp in and then I drew the door onto the box so you had this really close up image of just a pen nib you can still see it on YouTube just drawing the door and that sort of music, kind of cool music going. And then it just said coming soon, little Door, coming soon, like a teaser trailer, right, not. A lot of people were doing the teaser-y thing then and I knew it would annoy people kind of. I kind of knew it would annoy people so I put it up and of course in the cafe people were going mental, going what is this? I don't even know what it is and they were getting all annoyed. And then I followed it up with a just straight to camera performance, did it at my work at the time when I was on night shift. I set my camera up and I filmed it and I put it up and I said sorry, I was just trying to get people excited. Here's the trick straight to camera with no cuts and stuff. And then it blew up and then penguin ended up going to number one in penguin and they said they've never had a partner trip go to number one before. So it got to the point then where I was coming home from.
Speaker 2:At the time I was um, I was working as a mental health support worker and I was coming home at night from my shifts and then going into my garage and making little doors for hours and hours and then getting up in the morning and going to work and then in my lunch break I was making them and it just got. It was too much, I couldn't cope with it. It basically led to Sean Dunn at Penguin saying look, we can take over, we can take over production of this and we'll give you X amount royalty for it and blah, blah, blah. There's an even longer story involved there, but I agreed to it and that then led to Penguin offering me a position with them and for nearly six years I worked with Penguin just creating magic and making gimmicks and various other things. So Little Door was really, and that allowed me to give up my job basically, which I always did very stressful social care job since I left school. And, yeah, little door allowed me to leave the real world behind. And after Penguin, I started my business with Noel and here we are now.
Speaker 2:So it was a massive trick for me and it just when you perform it for people, it's something different. It's not what they're expecting. Like I said before, they don't realise it's a trick until it's too late. And's not what they're expecting. Like I said before, they don't realize it's a trick until it's too late and it just gets the best reactions for me and people are absolutely bamboozled by it. And uh, yeah, that's my number two.
Speaker 3:Oh my god, the other ones will be quicker, don't worry yeah, little door really is a phenomenal trick, and I know it's one that lots of people have mentioned on the podcast, and rightly so, and I'm glad that it's on your list. I would have been a little bit sad if it wasn't on your list, so so well done for putting that on, and it does lead us into number three. So what did you put in your third spot?
Speaker 2:I chose optics by tobias dorstow. But uh, so tobias is, he's a genius, he is an artist and, wow, I'm in total awe of Tobias Dostal. His magic is so sort of just beautiful and artistic and clever and engaging and different and I want to be him when I grow up. You know, it's like any time. I remember a couple of years ago I mean a few years ago, when I was in the ruskin and I had my little bag of tricks that I always have, my little bag of stuff, and uh, and other people were. I was kind of almost holding court a little bit because someone had said, oh sure, can you show him this, can you show him that? And I'm showing people trips. And then, as soon as tobias came in, um, he came in and someone knew him. They were like, oh, tobias, come over. I instantly put everything back and zipped up and put it under the chair and just sat quietly. I thought I can't compete, man, this guy's something else. But Optics is wow. So Optics, yeah, to synopsisize, I should do that.
Speaker 2:You ask to borrow someone's phone. You say can you actually, can you put it onto the camera for me? I'm going to show you something cool. You take the phone off them. You switch the light on and then you say, oh, actually, can you film this on my phone? You then go into your pocket and your jacket, you hand them your phone, you have them film it and then you just openly vanish their phone. The light's still on and it just it's gone. Your hands are empty. And at that point they discover that they are actually filming it on their own phone, which is just mind-blowing. Mind-blowing.
Speaker 2:And when I first saw it performed I just couldn't get my head around it. I was like how's that? And then I got it. And you know, I think there's the thing with Tobias's stuff is and it's the same with a lot of magicians as well. It's like I remember seeing Danny D'Otti's lecture in Spain years and years ago and I remember buying a couple of the tricks at the end of it and then realising when I get back to my apartment that I can't perform this. I'm not him, right, you need to be him to do this stuff. And there's something about Tobias' stuff, particularly like Silhouette and stuff like that. There's something about the way Tobias does it. So I think it frightens people. When they get the track, they're amazed and then they find it a bit difficult and they're nervous with it.
Speaker 2:So I knew personally quite a few magicians who bought Optics when it was a blackpill and just didn't perform it too nervous. What if they know it's their phone? What if they see what happens? And I thought you know I was doing a residency, so I need a lot of material. I get a lot of regulars coming back and I need to be adding material quite a lot. So I had no choice.
Speaker 2:I had to perform it and I really wanted to and I got out there and I did it. And the fact is sometimes they do notice when you hand the phone to them which you are purporting to be your phone and they go hang on a second. But at that point they look up at you and you've managed that one and that it's still amazing. It's still amazing. And for the other people watching who haven't noticed it's their phone, they, they have a whole different reaction. So I would say people, I said to loads of people and honestly, go out and do it, don't't be nervous, it's so worth it. Because that I mean I do it after I've performed at a table and I'm kind of scoping it out and seeing if there's a phone, which is going to be ideal for me because essentially you can use any phone, but I'm not going to choose something that's got a bright yellow. Although you can do that, you't get away with that. So I'll scope it out and, as I'm leaving the table, so I'll show you something else. Can I, can I borrow your phone and then vanish it and I say thanks very much, you can keep that as a souvenir and I walk off. And now I can hear them reacting later on. I mean I'm dying to hang about and sometimes I'm around the corner listening when they realise it's their phone. But oh my God, it is incredible.
Speaker 2:Tobias, he's something else. This guy, he is really something else and I wish I had his touch. He's something else. And Optix if you don't know, optix Pro is out now, which I almost bought at Blackpool. But I'm kind of in love with my original optics now. I like the old method. I'll probably pick up the pro version at some point because the original one did have some flaws mechanically when it came to the light and stuff like that. But optics is amazing. That's my number three.
Speaker 3:And what I was going to say earlier on. I didn't say it, but if I was to liken your type of magic to another creator who is around, that would have been tobias. Like, when you think about tobias and what he does, it's almost like you're living in a film yeah, do you know he's such an artist? It's incredible the stuff he does but I think that's a great choice, uh, and it leads us very nicely into number four. So what did you put in your fourth spot?
Speaker 2:so number four is sponge balls, which I know has uh, I would probably surprise a few people, and I know it's. It pops up a lot because I went through my list and I thought I don't want to choose things that other people have picked, but the fact is these are the ones for me. Spongebob I'm probably going to say the same thing that other magicians who have picked Spongebob on this podcast have said that a lot of magicians are very snobby about it. I'm not going to do Spongebob. Oh god, it's so cheesy. But man alive, I get the best reactions using sponge balls. People absolutely love them and it does seem kind of cheesy and a bit weird, but I don't concern myself too much with performing a particular style of magic. As you'll see, I've got other things. My next one coming up is more of a mentalist thing, but I will. I will mix that up with doing sponge balls and other weird stuff. Magic is magic to me. I'm not. This is mentalism, this is mental magic. It's just like whatever works for me, and sponge balls works for me, it's great because I do a lot of.
Speaker 2:I say I do the restaurants and I do weddings and stuff like that, so there's always kids there as well and people think of Spongebob as being a kids thing, which it's not. It's absolutely not. I mean I don't do the ding dong thing and all that. I'm not into that. But I do Spongebob for adults but I do it for kids as well. So at weddings and all these kind of things, I do exactly the same magic for kids that I do for adults. I just do it maybe slightly differently. I'll do stand-up Monty for little kids. They can understand that card is gone and it's changed and stuff. Little Door will do that for them. But Spongeballs man's I dropped it for years. I started doing it, as you do when you start doing magic, and then I dropped it as well. It's like crappy kids magic. That's like the guy with the playing card tie does the Spongebob's and I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 2:But there's no denying the reaction it has on people, like at the point where you put one in their hand and you have one in your hand and it vanishes and they open their hand and they've got two. There's no denying that reaction. People are just like oh my god. And like Mark Bennett said the other day, even though they know they're spongy, when they open their hand and they've got these two big balls there and it's like how's that happened? You know it's like how's that happened. You know it's brilliant.
Speaker 2:And the routine I do with it is it's very basic. I use a purse frame to produce a couple of balls at the start and then I don't do any magic for a good few minutes with the sponge balls, I just milk it and I cheese it up for you. Like I have the tune, I do the whole tune in the hand and say did you see it? They've splashed places. And then I do it again. I go, that's a hard bit, we're going to do it. And then I go, oh no, they've splashed back.
Speaker 2:And people are just like, oh man, I mean, I'm quite. I would do that as an opener. I don't generally do it, but I like the idea of like I used to do Dr Daly's Last Trick as an opener, like way back, and other magicians were like, oh my god, that's not an opener, but I think I think it's great as an opener because you you're establishing. So the thing with Dr Daly's Last Trick is, you know, you put the card in their hand, is you put the cap on their hat and you have the red aces, you've got the black aces and they're one on top of the other and you say I'm going to make the hat, and the way Bill Mullen does it is brilliant. You've got to make the hat and the spade change places. And you do that and you go, they've changed places. That was the easy bit. Now I'm going to put them back the way they were. Now at this point when going oh my god, this guy's terrible. So their expectations are down. So the point you said they really had that was getting them over here and the cards have completely switched. Then the reaction is even better because they thought you were awful.
Speaker 2:So I kind of think that way with the spongebob as well. When you're doing the whole well, like the switch, places have switched back. Then I put one in someone's hand. I say what's your name, john, whatever you hold it, and then I go open, open your hand and I go and they've switched places again and he's not in on it. How do you even explain that? We've never met?
Speaker 2:This is and I make a big thing of this before I actually do any magic with them and it gets a laugh. It kind of conditions them and the person's held the ball as well. They know what to do. I've instructed them, you know. And so the point where I eventually do do it and it goes in my pocket and it comes through the jacket and blah, blah, blah. At the point when they think they're holding one and they open their hand, there's two. Then I've primed them for that reaction and then I just do a few people on the table until eventually someone opens their hands. There's like six of them.
Speaker 2:And then I have an extra little kicker because I use orange sponge balls uh, the super soft ones that you can't really get anymore and I lost one of them. So I went looking and I thought I've got some somewhere else. And I found them and it's a totally different coloured orange. It's like a dark orange, the one that I found and it looks like tangerines. So I thought I'll just use that.
Speaker 2:And at the end, when they open their hand and they've got like six or seven of them, and I'm like, did you bring these with you? I mean, you're not supposed to. I'm the majority. They don't bring their own tricks, man, and I would just make a joke of it. And I pick up the dark one and I say that one's not even the right colour, that one looks like a tangerine. I throw it in there and then I confiscate it and I say you'll get them back at the end. So Spongeballs love it. More people should do it. I know people are snobby about it, but man, they're great fun and people love it. Like the late public, they love a bit of the old Spongeballs.
Speaker 3:Well, I like that. You seem to have developed your routine more so, like the, through the pocket part and the tangerine part. I've not heard those two moments before. So how did you develop? I mean, you mentioned the tangerine was almost incidental, because you had the one missing. I had to replace the one.
Speaker 2:I lost and it turned out it was a different color and I thought how can I justify this? And I thought well, it looks the same color as a tangerine, so I'll just change it into a tangerine, which is very easy If you're holding it in your hand and you pick it up and toss it and catch it. It's now a tangerine. So, yeah, it does mean that every week I'm buying tangerines which I generally don't eat. I'm Scottish, don't eat fruit. We need to get tangerines imported up here in Scotland. I'm not going to buy into that cliche. We eat plenty of fruit. But yeah, I usually give it to people. Quite often I take the balls back so you can keep the tangerine if you want. It's very silly and the through the pocket just allows me to set up for the next part.
Speaker 3:I'm concerned that you and Mark Bennett are losing one ball. I feel like this must be the magic equivalent of losing one sock. There's like sock heaven somewhere where all these socks are going to. Somewhere. There's just a big pile of sponge balls that you and Mark Bennett are missing well, that leads us to number five. So what did you put in your fifth spot?
Speaker 2:So number five is so this is kind kind of mentalist thing. It is a trick by Oz Perlman called what's in a Name from Into the Abyss, and it's a mentalist thing. It's a very direct kind of mind reading thing. So it was a DVD that came out years ago Into the Abyss. I think I had like three tricks on it.
Speaker 2:Now I did think I'm going to have to look back on this and research it for talking about it and I forgot to do that. So I'm just going from memory here. I think there was three tracks on it and they were pretty much the same. The three of them, but the what's in a name was the main one and the one that I do. And essentially what it is is you have someone think of someone close to them and then you reveal that you knew that name that they were thinking of. And the way I do is I have it in a wallet and I open it up and in the zip compartment there's a folded business card that they take out and this wallet has been on the table the entire time or someone else has been holding on to it before they even thought of a name. You take it out and it says written on the business card does the name Jonathan ring a bell? Or whatever the name is? And it is man. It's so powerful and it's so well constructed. Now I will say to anyone if you're thinking of looking into this and getting it, you will need. They don't really teach you the method for obtaining the information that you need to obtain really, they kind of do but most magicians will have their own. I'm trying to skug around this, but you know, most people have their own method of getting that bit of information. The really clever part of it is that name tells you so much that the process that you go through, where you're writing down, you're getting information about this person and you're writing it down. You're so justified in writing that down. It's great, it's so well constructed. But then I do this. God, this is gonna. This is certainly gonna annoy quite a few people, but you know, like I said before, I don't really massively distinguish between. This is mentalism, this is magic, this is that. This is that. I just still do everything when I do that. I have.
Speaker 2:I used to use the thought transmitter for that part of it, for getting information. I use the Insider now by Mark O'Brien, another genius in our industry, which is a great little thing. So when I bring this out, I've got a hip mollica, hip mollica wallet plus a notepad, plus the index cards, the insider thing, with two rubber bands wrapped around it, with this massive packet, and I take the bands off and I do the can you think of a name of someone close to you? Blah, blah, blah, and I give someone else the wallet and then I do some rubber band magic. It's mad. I mix mentalism with rubber blah and I give someone else the wallet and then I do some rubber band magic. It's mad.
Speaker 2:I mix mentalism with rubber bands, which I know I'll probably get crucified for, but I do it as an aside. I've got the bands and I go oh, here's an interesting thing. You know you can do this with a rubber band. I won't tell you the stuff I do, because that's a whole other thing. I do a thing with a rubber band. I won't tell you the stuff I do, because that's a whole other thing.
Speaker 2:I do a thing with the rubber band, like it's just a piece of information I'm giving them, and then I go oh, actually, sorry, you were thinking of a name, let's get back to that. So it's a whole kind of routine thing. So by the time we get to the name at the end it's like pfft, it's an amazing thing. It's amazing and I always find in where you have to gain information and then write something down. It's very difficult to justify why you're writing something down at that point, but for me what's in a name justifies that entirely. It's a fantastic thing. And I know probably not many people do it. I've never heard anyone else mention they do it but wow, it's like it blows people away.
Speaker 2:The only thing thing, the only caveat oh, I've got to tell maybe a little bit of a sad story here, so you don't. I've learned now that when I say to people, think of the name of someone close to you, I have to say, oh, by the way, don't pick someone who's recently departed. It's not that kind of trick, right? And and because I had to do so, my dad passed away a good few years ago, just suddenly, and maybe two days after it I had a gig at this Audi thing and of course I wasn't going to do it right, because we were in massive shock at the time and my mum had said to me your dad would go mental if he knew you were turning down cash and she was right he would have been like he would have went mad. So I went and I did the gig.
Speaker 2:And it's like we all have to do this as performers sometimes, especially if you're unwell or something's happened doctor show will get you through it. You get through there and you get into it and you do it and then deal with whatever it was afterwards. So I went and I did it, but right at the end, when I was finishing, it was the manager of the place. She said can you show me something? And I did into the bus with her and I said think of the name of someone close to her. So at the end, when she took the car down and she unfolded it, she started kind of welling up. She thought I'm so sorry, it's my dad's name and he just died recently. And at that point I was like I started getting upset and I was like, yeah, yeah, actually my dad actually just passed away a couple of days ago and man, it was a weird, weird moment. I got my money and got out of there kind of quick. So again, I'm off on a tangent there.
Speaker 2:But I will say to people, when you're asking someone to think of a name. Unless you're going to be doing any of these kind of spiritualist type things, make sure that they don't pick someone who's died, because it's heavy duty. I did, in fact, I forgot to do that. I was doing Magic at Turnberry this year and I forgot to say that to this seemingly very wealthy couple that I did the magic for. And the lady picked the name of her mother. It was a Polish name and man alive. I couldn't pronounce it, but I was able to see it and try and remember what the letters looked like. You know what I mean when you've been in that position.
Speaker 2:And when it was revealed, she got really upset and I was like I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, but it turned out okay, because I sheepishly left the table and moments later the husband came over and gave me a massive tip and he was like oh, don't worry about it, you were great. I can't believe you got that name. She's amazed, and blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, that is my. What was that? Number five? Jesus Number five. It's a great thing and I don't have any problem mixing mentalism with magic at all. I think there's no problem with it, frankly.
Speaker 3:Well, I think what's interesting there is. You mentioned about writing down the name of a deceased loved one. That happens a lot Because there's no denying.
Speaker 2:It's certainly powerful and I have had it. It's happened several times to me until it got to the point where I was instructing people not to do it, and it's never been a negative thing. Well, I've perceived it as being negative, but then people have come up to me afterwards and said no, thank you, although I did have. One time I did it at somebody's birthday party and it was. I didn't realise it was the sort of matriarch of the family had died recently. It was this big, massive Irish family that did this birthday and someone had chosen that name and it'd come up and the grandson, who was a big fella, got quite upset at it and then he came up to me and harangued me. Later on he's like you need to tell me how you know that. You need to tell me how you know that I was like it's just a drug man, honestly, but he was drunk and upset and I got to the point almost where I was going to show him the method because I didn't want to get knocked out. But I think someone intervened and his mum came over and went oh, come on, come on, it's okay. And she was like sorry, don't worry, don't worry, but it did almost get me into trouble once.
Speaker 2:But wow, it's an incredibly powerful routine and I love the way it's structured and everything's kind of justified when you get the information the point of them supplying the information and you revealing it there's enough time goes between then and enough process happens between those moments that it just totally negates giving you the information at the start. It's a great thing. I use it and quite often use it in conjunction with Invisible Day, which I was going to put on here. Honourable mention that is brilliant. I'm just going to mention that If you look it up yourself, if you don't, I think it's so much better than Invisible Deck.
Speaker 3:Invisible Deck, wow, brilliant thing well, that's nice, because that's another one that I've not heard of, and I'm sure lots of people haven't, so that's one that we can all go and explore. So you know, thanks for putting that one in there.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you quickly, right? I know it's not. It's one I quite like to man. It's great. I can't remember the chart. I can't remember his name the English magician, I think Carl Sharp, do it now.
Speaker 2:But you say to someone think of a date that's important to you, any day of the year, and they'll say, I don't know 12th August. And you go, oh, my god, what a coincidence. Coincidence, because in this deck I preface it with the usual thing. I was talking about how the deck is related to the calendar and all that jazz. And you go that's such a weird thing.
Speaker 2:In this deck I have two jokers. There'll be one near the top and one near the bottom. The only cards are face down. And as you spread through you find these two face down jokers and you take them out and she says here's the weird thing they're the only two face down cards, but also they're the only cards I wrote something on. And when you turn them over it says 12th August, like 12th on one and August on the other. Man alive, like the invisible. Deck's brilliant. But when you do something that's personal to someone, like a date, oh, it's fantastic. I've been singing the praises of this for a while, telling all the musicians friends that I know should get a hold of this. It's brilliant. So, um, yeah, that was. That was one that was going to be on the list hello guys.
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Speaker 3:Let's find out what's in your sixth spot. So what did you put in your sixth position?
Speaker 2:So I've picked so far. I've picked things that I want to perform on. I think we've established on my luxury island that celebrities come to secretly, that we're going to sort of like cut that idea because that's too dodgy sounding but I'm still going to go on my island performing for people. So I've picked things I want to perform. That I've picked because I just want to play with it and it's Tommy Wonder's Nest of Boxes. Tommy Wonder was like a revelation for me. So I was very much one of Roy Walton's one of Roy's boys, spent a lot of my formative years going into Tam Shepherds in Glasgow and just learning card magic from Roy and buying his books one of which is on my massive list of books and just learning card magic. I was very much into sleight-of-hand card magic and knuckle-busting moves and that's what I was into. That's what I thought magic was really, and it was through Roy. He was like, oh, we've got some videos, and I think it may have been videos or maybe it might have been DVDs, I can't quite remember, but he got stuff in. I mean I would always go there to buy something from the shop, like if I'd saved up a bit of money I thought I'm going to go in and buy a track. But if I hadn't been in for a while then Roy would come in. I'd come in and he'd go, oh, I've got your magazines here, and he'd have like four copies of Genie and four copies of Magic that he'd kept for the last few months that I hadn't been in and I'd be like, oh okay, and I'd have to buy myself a Bible and I couldn't buy a track. But I remember buying a couple of DVDs that changed my magic overnight, entirely, completely, and it was one was Tommy Wonder, in fact I bought two at once and then I bought one a few weeks later.
Speaker 2:So Tommy Wonder and I bought David Regal. It was a VHS, I remember it. It was. I think it was called Tricks, tricks, tricks and then Enough of the Tricks Already, more Tricks and then Enough of the Tricks Already. So I bought those and then Visions of Wonder was one of these L&L things and man Alive is just like I had been steeped in sleight of hand card magic and I'd never seen, I didn't know magic could be funny and weird and, like you said, whimsical. David Regal certainly taught me that Like man, the plots and the cards with holes and things written on them and I hadn't really seen that before. And then Tommy Wonder as well. It was just like the ingenious nature of them. And at first I kind of see this guy in a tuxedo with hair and I'm like this looks a bit cheesy, but the way he presented magic was wow. I just became a fan instantly.
Speaker 2:And then when I saw this Nesta Boxes thing so just to synopsis what this is and Matthew Wright has an incredible version of it, but the original one he borrows a watch. He says we're going to have a little auction. He borrows a watch off of someone, wraps it in a hanky, pops it on the table and then he goes. Okay, so the first item on the list in the auction is a gentleman's watch. And then he's taking bids for this watch and he's hammering. He's using this auctioneer's hammer to hit the table and then to the point where he starts hitting the watch and then I try to think what happens. At that point I think the table collapses as well. And then he goes I don't worry about it, it's fine, I'll give you your share of the auction brings his wallet out and he gives the guy like 50 cents or something for his share of the auction. But he also gives him a present as well.
Speaker 2:On the table there's a box on a ribbon. He just picks the ribbon up, doesn't even touch the box, and hands it to the guy. The guy unlocks the box, opens it up and there's an alarm clock inside it. And then at that point he has to unscrew the back of the alarm clock and it's quite quite a process to unscrew it. And then inside is his watch. And the first time I saw it I was just like what. I mean, I was pretty naive when it came to that kind of thing, you know, like objects in possible locations, one, probably one of the first thing like that that I'd seen and I just could not conceive of how it was possible, unbelievable. And then, when you find out the method, I was so ingenious. Tommy Wonder was just something else, another just like genius, and I just want one of those to play with. I mean, I will perform, perform when I get good at it, but when I'm on my little island I'm just going to be firing things into the alarm clock all day just for my own enjoyment.
Speaker 3:Uh, genius or genius yeah, I think that's a great choice. And again, all of the, the creators that you're sort of mentioning. So so you've got Tobias Dostal, now Tommy Wanda. They're all very whimsical creators. They're very unique in their style, I think. So it's clear to see their influence on your work. And I mean we've also got Charlie Fry, which I would probably put into that same sort of whimsical out there.
Speaker 2:What a talented man he is.
Speaker 3:Wow yeah, they're all great and that is a great, great choice. So someone needs to get one of the Nesta boxes over to Roddy Pretty, please. If someone can do that for us, that would be great.
Speaker 2:Like I say, matthew Rye is an incredible version. With the mobile phone and stuff like that he does a nice show.
Speaker 3:But Tommy's original is the one, the one for me well, that brings us to the tail end of your eight tricks. So what's in your seventh position?
Speaker 2:so in my seventh position is the beard book by rune clan uh, which is a little trick from his book umesworld, is that what it's called and I love this. I absolutely love this. As soon as I read it I instantly like immediately went out and made one. So it's not a trick, you can buy, it's in his book and it's amazing. So I used it last year. I used it as the end of my Magic Castle act and added a little extra bit to it. So essentially what it is, it's you. You can play this any way you want. I usually go.
Speaker 2:You can see I've got a weird kind of like Amish sort of beard thing going on here. I was thinking about growing a different beard so I drew some and then you hold that like a not notepad, it's a big, big size four, it's a notepad and and landscape and you flick through it and you show them. On each page there's a picture, like a cartoon picture, of different facial hair, like a person I do like a picture looks a bit like me and it's like a handlebar mustache and then a big bushy beard. And oh, you flick through and show different beards and then you say to someone now you, it's down to you you're going to pick what beard? And then you flick through and they say stop, when you like, you open the book up and you lift it up and it's like this big bushy beard. But when you lift the book down you have the big bushy beard and you've got the massive beard on and it's just man alive. It's a great thing. It gets such a laugh.
Speaker 2:I was kind of like I made one and then it ended up in my drawer because I thought when am I going to do this? It's not really a close up piece. And then I was forced into it. Someone offered me a gig where I had to do a bit of a stand up bit with it and I agreed because it felt like it was a million years away. And then suddenly I had to do it and I thought, right, I'll do that beard book. That's a great opener and it gets such a laugh and it's so clever. It's basically the coloring book, but RuneClan takes things that we know about magic and just makes them so funny and clever and different. I like, if you're going to do something sort of traditional, I want to see a twist on it. Right, and that beard book is just brilliant, and when I did it in my Magic Castle Act.
Speaker 2:So basically, the premise of my Magic Castle Act was that I wasn't Roddy McGee, I was Hamish McTaggart, a famous magic debunker, and I was coming and going to explain all the secrets of magic, because a lot of my tricks are like that. They're like I'm going to tell you the secret. Oh no, I'm not. Ho ho, ho, you know. You start to tell them how it's done and I have a wanted poster that I put at the side of the stage. So when I do the beard book at the end, because the police have come to get me and I need a disguise to escape. So when I do it at the end and I've got a big black bushy beard, I take a bow and when I go to walk off, I realise that the wanted poster has changed now and the wanted poster has a big black bushy beard as well, and then I run off. So that was the end of mine, but I love it.
Speaker 2:The beard book by ruin clan is just funny and different and visual and just clever. Uh, so that's why I picked that. Uh, love ruin clan. He's brilliant.
Speaker 3:That sounds like a really fun little routine, and that book was recently mentioned as well. I think that was dave loosely's selection, so it's brilliant, brilliant stuff in it yeah, it sounds like a great routine. It sounds very, very fun indeed, but does lead us onto your final selection. So what did you put in your last position?
Speaker 2:so my final one and these are not in any order, this has become obvious my final trick is mini book pro by uh, trick, trick, boom and getting another one of the other things in there. Uh, so what mini book pro is? It's a kind of it's almost, I suppose it's kind of like a cartoon, possibly locations, a transformation thing. What happens is I tell people I've come up with this, I got this thing recently online. Now you can borrow their phone, get them to look it up for you online. I quite often just use my own phone. I say I bought this thing, it's from Magicians, it's brilliant. You take them to a website for the MiniBook Pro or the MagicBook Mini, and it's a Magicians, it's brilliant. You take them to a website for the MiniBook Pro or the MagicBook Mini and it's a little laptop and you can see a graphic of it revolving on the screen and it's got. It looks like the Apple logo, but really it's like a little spade with a bite out of it. And you see this little thing revolving on their phone or your phone and you say, well, the only thing with it is the size, it's a bit small, and you pull the phone, the laptop, out of their phone. So it's the standard, kind of like producing something from the phone and you it looks like you just pull this little metal laptop from their phone.
Speaker 2:And then I give them the laptop and they select a card and they sign it and it gets lost in the deck and they shuffle and shuffle it and I say, okay, the laptop does all the work. All you have to do is type in the name of your card, which you get a great little bit of business when someone's got this little dollhouse laptop and they're typing away on it, honestly, sometimes people go to incredible. I've had people go to their bag and get their glasses out and go like that, you know, so that you can look at the letters. You can't even see the letters and some people go to incredible effort so they type it in and then I have them shuffle the cards. And then we look at the laptop again and I say, oh, it says it's five from the top deal, four cards in my hand and one on the table. And da, da, da, da, da. And it's not their card. Right, stand the old magician in which I tend to fall back on quite a lot in Magic. It's not their card. And I say, well, I'll reset the laptop. You click your fingers and when they look at the laptop again, it is now, it's their card, it looks like the laptop, but when they unfold it it's their same card and it appears to have been on the table the whole time and it's transformed into their card. So it's kind of an inspiration which obviously very much came from Dan White and Dan Hoss's lit with the match trick that turns into the signed card.
Speaker 2:And it was Noel's idea initially that he saw this little laptop and thought, wow, that looks like the same size as a folded card. And of course it was. And then we just went from there and we came up. We worked on it for ages until we got the routine perfect and it's wow. It's such a reaction. So many times people pick up the laptop and you see, check the laptop and they're looking at it or they type on it and they have no idea you have to. Someone else at the table usually notices and said, oh, you need to unfold it because it's like it looks like a little silver laptop with the screen and stuff, but it's just printed on the back of the card now. But it gets fantastic reactions and it's my go to kind of closer now at most tables because you leave them with this lovely little souvenir as well. So, yeah, mini Book Pro is my, it's my final choice. I don't really know what else to say about it. It's yeah, it just gets amazing reactions and it's dead easy to do as well.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of magicians worry about like folding a card or or having to control cards and stuff, especially when you're just starting out. But this is like and misdirection magic right, because it relies on misdirection. And my misdirection magic is just so satisfying to perform, like when you know you're way ahead of people. Like I do a card under box routine and I use actually the light by Chris Congreve, which was another one that was going to be on here, because that's amazing. So I do a card under box routine and, man, that's so satisfying to do because I get to bust out quite a bit of sleight of hand I don't normally use, uh, harking back to my youth and but knowing that you're way ahead of someone, you know that whole thing, like when you get a whole deck under the box and you think you're holding it so satisfying. But the thing about mini boot pro is it's like misdirection magic with the training wheels on me. It's so easy to do and you have like man. You could drive a bus through the misdirection that you've got for doing this and, yeah, you can look like a proper pro magician.
Speaker 2:I'm selling this here in our time. This isn't an ad, but it's true. I mean, we went to such great efforts to make this so easy and accessible for people, because that feeling of getting ahead of your spectator when the magic is done and you don't have to do anything, it's so satisfying as a performer. They fill it in, you know, in between, and doing it in people's hands as well. When you put it in someone's hands, and doing it in people's hands as well, when you put it in that in someone's hands and and then you, it changes. Oh, it's so satisfying. I do that a lot when I'm doing walking around and and yeah, it's uh, so that's my, that's my last choice I think it's a great trick.
Speaker 3:I remember when I first saw it. There are versions of this that have been out, but what I think mini book pro did was number one. It took away some of the complications that were around with previous in terms of the method. Some of the previous methods were quite involved, um, sometimes with things being in places and multiples of things, and I think it brought it into the current age. I think it made it more relevant to now and I also think that with that kind of trick, the change at the end, the more substantial the change, the more impactful it is. And I would argue that even with Lit, which I love and I've also performed in the past, the change kind of makes sense when you think about it. It can sort of it can sort of make sense, whereas this just feels totally impossible yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2:No, thanks, that's nice of you to say. I think I know what you mean about letters like you could kind of almost retro engineer it like it's like you go. Well, that's yeah. Can I see how that might have happened? I might have mistaken that for that, but it's a little silver laptop that they were handling moments ago and in their mind they've never let go of then.
Speaker 2:Ah, it's such great fun to do and the great thing about it as well is that we produced it so I don't have to worry about refills. I've got loads of them and that is such a bonus for me, you know. I mean because I love it when I get in a track that requires refills and I mean it's a bit of a pain, right. We don't want to really be the refill guys and we've kind of ended up doing that with a couple of our tracks so far. But, um, and we try and make them as cheap as we can, but the fact that it's our track is I'm loving it. I know that I've got I've got access to it. I can do it as often as I want. You know what I mean well, I think that's uh.
Speaker 3:That's a great list. We've gone from stand-up monty, little door, optics, sponge balls, what's in a name, tommy wonders, nester boxes, the beard book and mini book pro. I wonder how many people listening playing roddy bingo would have had some of those on there. Certainly little door would have been on there, I think. Um, so yeah, I think there's a great uh list of whimsical tricks, as predicted, but it does bring us to your banishment. So what did you put in your banishment position?
Speaker 2:and now I didn't really have. I forgot about that when we restarted and I had been thinking a couple of things. But I think I'm going to go with heckler put downs or that kind of thing I don't know the right name for it really but I know a lot of magicians do this right and you get this whole thing of. There seems to be this sort of mindset with a lot of magicians that if you go to a table and someone's kind of heckling, you shut that guy down Usually a guy right Shut him down immediately, like when you approach I've heard this so many times you go to the table and you identify the alpha male and then you shut him down immediately and let them know you're in charge and man alive.
Speaker 2:Every time I hear stuff like that, it makes me, you know, it annoys me, because you're there to entertain people, right, you're being paid to do it. We're remarkably privileged to be able to be paid the money. We are to do what we're doing and you know for years like I would talk to other magicians about it and I'd say I've never been heckled. I don't get it. I don't know if it's that I look threatening or something or what's the deal. I've never been heckled. And then I did gigs with other magicians who would work the same tables. I'd worked and they'd see me work the table and they were like, geez, they gave you a hard time. And I was like, did they? I didn't know, they were just a bit banter and it's your perception. So I think it was my perception. I didn't perceive I was being heckled. But I think a lot of magicians going in they're very kind of nervous approaching a table and the minute somebody says something they're a bit loud but instantly defensive. And if they have this in their arsenal, a way of shutting this guy down, they're going to use it as a defensive mechanism. But the fact is you're being paid to entertain these people. So if I go to a table and someone's being loud and blah, blah, blah, I give them their moment and I kind of come down to their level, maybe a little bit, and then they usually allow me to carry on with what I'm doing. I mean, it may be a little bit more difficult, it's just. It's not difficult, it's just different. I don't know. It's a hard thing I've seen. I don't want to talk particularly.
Speaker 2:I know there's some magicians do very specific things, as heckler put downs that I frown upon, and particularly things like where? So? So people are going to say the same things all the time. Right, you're always going to. People are always going to say can you make my wife disappear? Right, I hear it every week. At least once a week I hear that, and you can make that person feel bad by going. Oh good, one mate heard that before. Do you know what I mean? You can. There's ways of doing that, of making them look foolish for saying that.
Speaker 2:But your job, my job, is to fool people, not make fools of them. Right, and I think magicians get such a bad rep. People like you go up and they find out you're a magician they don't want to involve because you're going to make a fool of them. And it's because of things like that, I think, this whole heckler put down thing, which I think comes from insecurity, you've just got to roll with it, right? If someone's being a bit loud and boisterous, I make them the centre of it for a while and you know, I might have a little kind of friendly dig through a trick at some point. But it's all like ah, mate, and all that. Only at some point that it's all like ah, mate, and all that only when I know I'm going to get away with it, right, but I don't make them look foolish because you're being paid to entertain these people.
Speaker 2:So if someone says to me like bill malone, and it's brilliant advice, and he says that you know what people are going to say, so have a line for it, because you know what they're going to say, and that'll make you look dead witty and you're just like bang coming back with the routine. So I always say if someone says to me, can you make my wife disappear, I'll say sure, sorry, she asked me first. And um, although you have to work out what that actually means, you're just saying something back. That's witty, right, and they go ho, ho, ho, and everyone gets a laugh. And if I hear that saying, I laugh at it every time I hear it, like it's the first time I've heard it, because that's my job, right, and when people say the same things, they have a witty line or laugh at their joke, right, the heckler put down thing just makes us look all bad, I think. So I would get rid of that. I know there's people that are going to be worried. They're like I can't put down heckles anymore. How am I going to cope? Just roll with it, man. Learn to deal with it. It's not a heckle, they just want to be part of it.
Speaker 2:And you will go to tables where someone is holding court and they are there.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've had, like many, many, many years ago, one of the first gigs I did I used to do a residency for the Revolution Vodka Bar and I remember going up to a table where there was that one guy and loads of girls and he was kind of holding court and I could tell right away at this kind of like attitude and I had him select the card and he took the card out and he ripped it in half and kind of threw it back at me and put it back together.
Speaker 2:Then sort of threw it back at me and I remember my neck kind of going red and just like you know this steam coming out of my ears, poppy style, and just going, alright, you have a nice night then. And I just walked off and they were all like, oh, they were all annoyed with him because I walked away from the table. But man, I was properly raging, but that's the only time I've ever had anything like that. Um, and I just walked away from it. But a lot of the time when people think they're getting heckled or they think they're getting noised up so that they're not, you know, you just it's your perception of it, right, it's just just man up and go on with it.
Speaker 3:Well, I think it's important to think of it, right, it's just just man up and go in there well, I think it's important to think of it like we are all and again we've spoken about this on the podcast before that we're all colleagues. Essentially, we are all working for a company. The company is magic right, and if anyone who's listening to this works for a corporate company, they know that as soon as you bring the company's name into disrepute, that is normally you're going to be reprimanded for it, basically Because you are effectively representing that company at that moment. And if you're going to bring that company brand and name into disrepute, then obviously the people who own the company, or the directors or whoever, aren't going to want you around that company. So it's really important no matter what you do and wherever you are, you have to remember that your actions reflect on all of us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's important to say that it depends on your character as well, right? I can't imagine Jerry Sadowitz suddenly going well, he's got a point, you know. I mean it depends on your character. If people, if you like Jerry's been that's a perfect example, isn't it really you're going in expecting that. You know it's like people who go to Jimmy Carr's show and then get annoyed that he says things that are offensive, like really. But I think, like you said is right, most of us aren't that person, right? If you've established that character at the start, then you can get away with it. I think people are expecting it. But the whole thing of just making someone look foolish for making a comment, for trying to join in, try to do their part of it, it's just, it's bad for all of us. So, yeah, I think you're right. That's a good point.
Speaker 3:Well, that brings us to the nine books that you have. Let's see if we can get it down to one. Don't forget, you do have honourable mentions.
Speaker 2:So obviously my first choice was Roy's at least one of Roy's, roy Walton's books, because I sort of grew up in magic with these books and there's a lot to discover in there. There's probably tricks in there that I've overlooked, that I could go back and go, oh, and I certainly learned this one. But also, to be honest, the books I've not been back to for a long, long time. So that was part of a reason of maybe that's something.
Speaker 2:I'm on the island, I've got time, I maybe go back to it. But also I had to think about books that sort of broke me through from what I was right, so from what I was into, and definitely the Art of Astonishment is a big one for me because Paul Harris, coming across Paul Harris' magic, I think it was somebody, was someone I knew or someone I vaguely knew, said you should check this out, this is your kind of thing. I think you'd like this. And it was eye opening like, oh my god, this is totally my thing very weird and different and funny, unusual plots and odd gimmicks. The minute I had to say the same, as I said about David Driegel earlier on, as soon as I started to see cards with things drawn on them and holes in them and corners off them, I'm like, oh my god, it opened up a whole world of possibilities. So that was going to be it. But let's think so also. Rune's World was on there as well from Brilliant Stuff. So let's think so also. Rune's World was on there as well from Brilliant Stuff. But I really like it's always Dominatrix by Tyler Wilson, which is just such a funny book to read. It's a lot of classical plots that are reimagined and stuff. But such a funny book to read and I thought I would love to read that again. I lent it to someone. I don't have it anymore and I thought maybe I'll stick that on there because I remember really enjoying reading that.
Speaker 2:But also I'm going to lump these ones together. This is terrible. These are a lot of honourable mentions. So Plot Twists and the Plot Thickens by Oliver Meech, his two books, and Only Ideas by Rory Adams very different kind of things. Just such creativity in those books, such unusual left field kind of offbeat plots and ideas. So I was going to have those and also Japan and Genius as well, for the same style of like. Honestly, this last year my list of tricks could have been 8 Tenyo tricks because I just love the something that's very simple and ingenious and method and unusual and plot is really my cup of tea. So I could have just went for all the Tenyo stuff. So the Japan Ingenious book has got such clever ideas in it and totally different thinking. So what I went for in the end, I mean it's a toss up between.
Speaker 2:So Rory Adams book, only Ideas, which I happen to have here, is just a little book that's got ideas in it. It's just like I'll say here's an idea for a trick, do like the car through window in the red light district in Amsterdam. Or do a car stab with an umbrella and blah, blah. You know, it's just like ideas in it. But man, what a great launching point. I mean I think with this little book I could probably come back to it so many times and find something different in it. But man, what a great launching point. I mean I think with this little book I could probably come back to it so many times and find something different in it, because sometimes the idea that's in it will steer you down a path towards something else. But it's a great thing. I'm almost going to go for that one, but I think I'm going to put my foot down and say the book I'm taking is the definitive Sankey volume one.
Speaker 2:Um, because Jay Sankey is a massive influence on my magic. I haven't mentioned him yet. Some of his tricks almost made it into my my top eight, but Jay Sankey was a huge influence on me. Like when I first came across him I was like, oh man, this is. I had quite a few tricks that I had thought up until I discovered that Sankey had invented them already. So I think we think in very similar ways and you mentioned Flux earlier on.
Speaker 2:So the year that I was selling Flux at Blackpool and I was on Dave's stand, I was thinking I wonder if maybe I'll get a little bit famous now, like, oh, but magic famous, not real famous, but magic famous, right. Like people would come up to me and go, hey, are you that guy? So I was quite like, ooh, this'll be cool. And at the time I was wearing my glasses and stuff and I remember I was on the stand and it was a really quiet. There must have been a really good lecture on because it was pretty quiet.
Speaker 2:And a guy came up to the stand and honestly he looked like a. He was kind of like a Jasper Blake character, right. He had like a green anorak with the orange and sort of half-masked trousers and like he just didn't, sort of it's a bowl cut here and everything. He had a little autograph book. And he came up to me and he went, gee, sanky, I presume, and I said uh, no, and he went, oh, he's tuttied. And turned up and walked off and honestly I was so crestfallen because I saw him walking towards me and I thought, oh, someone's gonna ask him for my autograph and he was like Jay Sankey.
Speaker 2:No, so yeah, I got that a lot in the start when I used to wear the glasses. That, yeah, I got that. I compared to Jay Sankey a lot, and that's not a bad thing, because Jay Sankey, man, I know he's a proper OG, isn't he? And that book is just ram packed full of wonderful. He's a proper OG, isn't he? And that book is just ram packed full of wonderful, magic and thinking. And, yeah, jason Anki, is he the man? So that is that. That's going to be my choice. Oh, no, I've changed my mind. No, I haven't. We'll go with. We'll go with, we'll go with.
Speaker 3:Jason Anki, thank you, I'm going to be slightly devil's advocate here, but not quite. I don't say pick one trick from it. Not necessarily. So my thing was why did you go for book one? Was it something in that particular book which made you go for that particular edition?
Speaker 2:I assumed you wouldn't let me take all three so I was like let's just go for one. I think you wouldn't let me take all three so I was like let's just go for one. I think by now you're right. Maybe psychologically I was thinking right when he's writing this. I know Andy put it together that when you're writing volume one you're putting all the gems in there. By the time you get volume three you're like you're getting a bit of filler in there. That's not the case. They're all great, but I think probably I can't give any definitive reason. I think Volume 1's probably just more interesting tricks in it. For me they're all great. All three volumes are great.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that's a great choice and leads us on to your non-magic item. So what did you put in that spot?
Speaker 2:Rubber bands. I'm sure a lot of people have chosen that and you know I was thinking I was forgetting that my island was luxurious and I was thinking they'll come in handy for stuff, for desert island things, you know, for rubber banding my flint onto my my, you know, to make my spear and all the rest of it. But no rubber bands, because, yeah, I do a few rubber band tricks with them. And again, this is another thing like spongebob's, where a lot of magicians sniff at them. Oh my god, rubber band magic. I know no one hates it, right, some people just despise rubber band magic. But I've got to say it.
Speaker 2:Man, crazy man's handcuffs I know a lot of people have mentioned this in the podcast, but like, so I do that. Like, as I mentioned earlier on, when I do the what's In my Name routine, that I take the bands off, all the stuff that's all banded together, and I do a few things. I do, yeah, I do a few things which kind of culminate in me doing Crazy Man's Handcuffs. And if I'd said this to Noel the other night, we were talking about this because I said I need you to add something in here that is a non-magic thing. And da da, da da.
Speaker 2:If I was to film that entire routine, right where you start with the name and then I do the horses and the, and then you get to the end where the name is revealed if you were to watch that back, the moment where I do, where those bands pass through each other, you would see this. People's jaws just drop for such a tiny thing that's right in front of them. It's an incredible trick and it's much overlooked and much maligned. But that alone crazy man's handcuffs is just like a lot of magicians I know do it and they hide it like I did.
Speaker 2:They hide it and, amongst other things, it's as a little moment because we're almost a bit embarrassed by it, but jesus man, it just it blows away. You see them doing that. They do that kind of like involuntary jaw drop thing when it happens. So for that reason rubber bands and also there's so much more you can do with them I'm not massively into the whole rubber band magic.
Speaker 2:I do four maybe five different tricks with them and it's always a good thing that you can have these in your pocket. I don't do them around my wrist, my arms are too hairy and that's painful, or anywhere you go there'll be rubber bands. Like my local post office because I post quite a bit of magic from there have discovered my terrible secret that I'm a magician. Because nowadays the post office is like what's in it, what's in your parcel? So sometimes I have to do magic tricks for them and it's always good to say give us a couple of those rubber bands there and then do something with them and then leave like a hero. So yeah, rubber bands are my non magic use magic item yep, that's a great shout.
Speaker 3:I don't think it's one that we've had too many of that I can recall, in honesty. So I think it's a really, really good choice and just a great list overall. So we started with Stand Up Monty. To Little Door, to Optics, to Spongeballs, what's in a Name, tommy Wonder's Nest of Boxes, the Beard Book from RuneClan's Book, we've got MiniBookPro. Your Banishment is Heckler Putdowns, your Book is Definitive, senki Book Number One and your Item is Rubber Bands. That's a pretty solid list.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you. It took us long enough to get there, didn't it? That's eight hours You're booking with me.
Speaker 3:The fact that you have so much to say about them just shows how much thought that you put behind what you do and how much you think about the tricks that you've put together. But I think what I found most interesting about your list is actually looking at the influences behind the choices that you put together. So some of the people there you've got like Rune Clown, tommy Wonder.
Speaker 2:Hey, Sankey and Paul Harris. These are the guys, man.
Speaker 3:These are my inspiration for sure, but you can definitely see crossovers in your work and theirs and your, your styles, um. So yeah, I think it's been really, really interesting. Now, if people want to find out more about you roddy you mentioned about lecturing earlier as well, and obviously trick trick boom where do they find out about you?
Speaker 2:trick trick boom and, of course, your lectures well, yeah, trick, trick, boomcom is the place to go for all wonderful offbeat magic. The home of offbeat magic my website. I have a website which is absolutely awful it's like about 20, 30 years old, it's ancient which I keep saying I'm going to do an actual, decent website. I'm working on it. It's happening now, but my god, don't look at that Facebook Instagram. You'll get me on there, although I keep forgetting to look at Instagram. It's only when my daughter messages me. So, yeah, you'll find out, you'll find me on there and that's it really. That's really. What else did you ask me there?
Speaker 3:lecturing as well, so if anyone wants to find you lecturing, where can they go? I?
Speaker 2:love lecturing, I like to talk I don't know if you've noticed and I love talking about magic. I love magic, so I love to have a lecture. And, yeah, people can just get a hold of me through Facebook or email me through TTB. You'll find an email link on the Trick Trick Boom website. And, yeah, if you want to hit me up for the lecture, I'm more than happy to do it. I love doing it, I love talking about magic and hopefully I have some interesting things to share that you would like to hear. People generally quite like it.
Speaker 3:Even if it's 1% as good as this podcast, then people are in for an absolute treat. So, yeah, please do go check that out. Thank you again, roddy, for putting this list together and giving us your time.
Speaker 2:No, thank you so much. Thanks for taking so much of your time to listen to me ramble man. No, thank you so much. It was thanks for taking so much of your time to listen to me ramble man. Oh God.
Speaker 3:And thank you all for listening as well. Don't forget, we do have Stranded with a Stranger, which is our early week edition. If you want to be a part of that, then send in your list of eight tricks one banishment, one book, one non-magic item that you use for magic, do sales at alakazamcouk? Put in the subject line my desert island tricks, that way it comes through to me and that way we can get one of these recorded for you. With that being said, we will see you next week for another episode of Desert Island Tricks. Goodbye.
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