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
Jonathan Goodwin
Ever wondered what it's like to perform magic for the Queen? Or how about orchestrating a death-defying stunt where a car explosion nearly takes down a helicopter with a celebrity inside? Jonathan Goodwin, the legendary escape artist and stunt performer, pulls back the curtain on these incredible moments and more in this captivating conversation.
Goodwin's approach to performance art stands apart from traditional magicians - he created experiences where genuine danger and clever theatrical thinking collide to create moments of wonder. From his nerve-wracking experience performing "Brainwave" for Queen Elizabeth II at her 80th birthday (where time seemed to slow down as he frantically searched for her chosen card in dim lighting), to the hilarious mishaps behind "The Fish Slap Prediction" (featuring a live trout escaping down a London high street), his stories give us a peek behind the curtain where otherwise, we would never likely see.
What makes this conversation particularly fascinating is Goodwin's insights into the psychology of creating memorable magical moments. He articulates why endings matter more than beginnings, how the question of "why" should drive creation rather than technical prowess, and why magic works best when it feels implausible rather than impossible. His methodology for designing routines reveals the mind of an artist who understands that genuine connection with an audience transcends mere technical skill.
Whether describing his crossbow routine with its hidden assistant reveal, his admiration for Blackstone's floating light bulb, or the terrifying behind-the-scenes reality of television stunts gone nearly wrong, Goodwin's passion for pushing boundaries while honouring the traditions of magic shines through. His recent creation "No Bull" continues to baffle even the most knowledgeable magicians and was a huge hit at the Blackpool Magic Convention 2025, proving his creative genius remains undiminished.
This episode will forever change how you view the intersection of danger, deception, and wonder.
Jonathan’s Desert Island Tricks:
- Brainwave Deck
- Fish Slap Prediction
- Crossbow Routine
- Blackstone Floating Lightbulb
- Moretti Cardboard Box
- No Bull
- Car Off Cliff
- Burned at the Stake
Banishment. Silent Manipulation Routines
Book. The Method to my Madness
Item. His Wife
Find out more about the creators of this Podcast at www.alakazam.co.uk
In my life I've never met a helicopter pilot who wasn't a complete badass. The initial idea was to have Craig run and have to climb up a ladder to go over a hedge to get into a field. And I said to this helicopter pilot he was sort of this very posh, quite older jolly hockey stick English champ I said can you land there? He sort of squinted his eye and he looked left and right. He went yeah, it should be alright, we only had one. Go at this, right. So that's the other reason why is because we only had one car and it was rigged to explode.
Speaker 1:Nobody's seen the explosion, nobody knows exactly how big this explosion is going to be. The car goes off the cliff and explodes and the explosion is absolutely humongous and it showers rock everywhere up into the air. And if the helicopter had been where it was supposed to be, then the helicopter would have gone down and we would have lost the helicopter pilot and Craig Revell. Thankfully, this brilliant helicopter pilot saw what was happening and banked away out of the way of the explosion. He then came back into that position. So we got the shot, we got the trick. Craig Revelwood smiling, completely oblivious to the fact that he nearly died. I'm not sure exactly how we get that trick to Desert Island, but I would take that one with me.
Speaker 3:Hello and welcome to another episode of Desert Island Tricks. We have one of the guests and I know I've mentioned this a few times in the podcast who I have wanted to get on here from the beginning of the concept. It's another guest who I've sort of grown up watching through various TV shows and different performances, including Dirty Tricks, which I remember and I know we've referenced on the podcast before. If you haven't seen clips of this, there are still lots and lots of clips and videos online. Do go check them out because they are excellent. But he's had lots of other shows and performances Discovery Channel is one way out and he even had his own series, the Incredible Mr Goodwin.
Speaker 3:Now a lot of you will actually know him nowadays, I would say, for his incredible feats of escapology. Incredible feats of escapology. I have never been on the edge of my seat more in a magic performance than watching Jonathan Goodwin, and that is no exaggeration. It is terrifying watching some of the things that he did, and that means I think we're in for a really unique list, which is also why I was really excited to have him on. I think we're going to have a really different set of tricks and ideas and thoughts, so let's stop babbling on and bring him on. This is the wonderful Jonathan Goodwin.
Speaker 1:Hello, jonathan, hello how are you All the better for seeing you. Oh, that's very kind. That's very kind. I'm excited to do this. It's an interesting for him to have fitted on the plane, which is an interesting thing. I guess my bigger. I'm retired, so for a start I'm not performing anyway. But if I'm alone on a desert island, I don't quite understand why I would need magic tricks if there's nobody to perform to. That seems like a waste of a wish, but I'm going to go with it. I'll suspend my disbelief and create the idea that, of all of the things that I could possibly want on a desert island, magic tricks is going to be top of my list. So what do we do? Do we just start with the first one, or what's the process here?
Speaker 3:Well, let's talk very quickly about your list. So we sort of had a little bit of a chat before we went into the recording. We said that maybe your list is a little bit different a chat before we went into the recording and we said that maybe your list is a little bit different to other people's. Perhaps there's things that we wouldn't ordinarily get from other people. How did you find putting your list together? Um, it.
Speaker 1:It was, it was a challenge. You know, I, I, I sort of vacillated between uh, because I'm not entirely sure whether whether you're supposed to, or people typically choose tricks that they do, or whether it's stuff that that they loved, the other, the other people do, I, I, I'm, I'm loathed to to do most of my material, like to take most of the things I'll perform, because almost all of it sucked to perform. Uh, I'm not, I'm not necessarily saying that it sucked as a, as a, as an audience, although you know you may have that opinion, but I, you know, I, setting yourself on fire or lying on a nail is not something that I particularly want to do. On a desert island, with no audience and not being paid a fee like that. That doesn't, that doesn't appeal to me particularly. So, um, there are not many of the things that I, uh, that I sort of am particularly known for, um, but that's fine, you know, I'm, I'm happy to to sort of diversify the list if that makes sense.
Speaker 3:Well, I think you're going to be the first guest who we're going to have to give a luxury item of first aiders to on your island.
Speaker 3:So we might have to give them to you. But I think lots of people have gone different approaches with it. So some people have gone for their working set. Some people have gone for tricks of other people that they really like. A lot of the time we have a mixture of people's own material tricks that they wish they could perform, that they will never, ever likely perform, and stuff that they just enjoy watching. I think those are the sort of three categories that we have. But, agreed, I can't imagine that you're setting yourself a light at a walk around gig. That's the problem.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, it's and it's. It's the kind of thing that you know you have. You have to do it in very specific circumstances. You know it's difficult, isn't it? When you're? When you're trying out you know magic or comedy or whatnot, there's plenty of places you go and sort of try that stuff out and and be bad and work it in, whereas if you want to set yourself on fire you sort of have to get that right first time. You know there's there's no room forever, forever there. So yeah, it was an interesting. It's an interesting one. It is very far away from from the.
Speaker 1:The first on my list, which is actually probably reasonably traditional in its scope, and I'm willing to bet it's not the one that you would have predicted, I would say. My first on the list is Brainwave, which is a card trick that essentially enables you. The plot is that somebody thinks of a card and that happens to then be. When you open the deck, it's the only one. That's the wrong way around. It's the only one that's faced up in the deck, and then, when you remove the card, it also has a different color back to one of the others. And when you remove the card, it also has a different color back to one of the others, and the reason that that is particularly memorable for me, that trick, is because when I was a student I earned my living doing close-up and sort of paid my way through college doing close-up gigs, and I was fortunate enough to be asked to go and perform for Her Majesty the Queen.
Speaker 1:It was her private 80th birthday party at the Ritz, and the party planner who's? I'm not sure whether she's still alive, but her name was liz anson. She's the queen's cousin and she was this wonderful lady. But she told me in in no uncertain terms that I had to do a trick for the queen. Uh, because nobody normally has the nerve. So she gets to see all of this sort of stuff. You know, in this kind of event she gets to see all the stuff happening, but she never actually gets to see anything herself. So that then begs the question to myself what trick do you do for the queen? And you know, can you ask the queen to pick a card? Can you ask the queen to sign her name on a card?
Speaker 1:You know, like all of the things that we traditionally would do that you don't necessarily think of, all of a sudden became sort of protocol issues about whether or not that's okay, um, and so I decided and I I had done brainwave a little bit, but it wasn't sort of in my a close-up list at the time um, I decided that that would be a good trick to do. I mean, I should have done I never really did invisible actually, which is obviously the one that people the version of the trick that that people prefer, which is a slightly different, a different version, as you know, but um, uh, very similar. But um, I, I decided it would be a good trick because she doesn't need to touch anything, she doesn't need to pick a card or whatnot. She can just have the free verbal choice and then, and then we can go from there. So, cut forwards. I bought myself a brainwave because I didn't have one for some reason at the time, and I won't expose the trick.
Speaker 1:But essentially the challenge of brainwave is if they can say any card you know they have a free choice of card then the skill involved is finding the card that they chose, if that makes sense, and the way that works is that they're all in an order and so you have to find it. So all of a sudden, the queen's in front of me uh, you know, basically the most famous person in the world and, uh, she said whatever card. She said, and I went to I'm doing my sort of confident spiel and I went to find the card and the light was too low in the. So now I'm about to cock up a trick for the queen and time slowed down in that moment, really, and I sort of I imagined what was about to happen. I visualized it in the microseconds that you know, as I was sort of spreading through the cards, desperately looking for the pencil dot. Time slowed down.
Speaker 1:I imagined myself showing her a card. She says no, I say in for a penny, punch her in the face, like you know it was. You know, I was really imagining a complete downfall, you know, in the moment. And so, as you all know you, if you've ever performed the trick or you've fiddled around with it I was basically making a one in 26 chance that I was going to get it right and, uh, I took a, I took a guess and I was right. I, I actually, I actually found the right card. Uh, and uh, I think I was far more impressed with the trick than she was. Um, for that reason, um, so because of that, uh, brainwave is probably my, my, my, first choice, just because it was uh, it's got a good story attached to it well, the whole thing just sounds petrifying.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna lie it sounds absolutely petrifying.
Speaker 3:But how does the queen react to a magic trick does? Does all composure just drop and and she goes crazy, or does she politely clap on the back of her hands and move along?
Speaker 1:no, no, she was, she was lovely and and I have to say that about about all of the royal family were there. I've interacted with them on a number of occasions since and they're all cool and actually kind of normal, and so she, she reacted beautifully. You know it was, it was, it was great. I mean she didn't say bugger me, you know whatever she was polite with about her, about her response, but but no, she's, she's cool, I loved, I loved her. She was, she was very normal actually and just just chill and lovely company. She was very charming.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm I'm already invested in this list, just just in the first trick.
Speaker 1:So let's find out what you put in your second position so after you know I did, I did um, close up, uh, you know, and, and that was that was a big part of my, my wealth for for a while. I eventually got a bit sort of jaded with it, I think, for the reason that most, most um closer performers, you know, do at one point or another because you know, you, you, you get those great gigs, but you also get the terrible ones where people are just rude and they're not interested and they just assume that you're going to be you know crap and annoying and whatnot, and um, just assume that you're going to be you know crap and annoying and and whatnot and um. And so really, after I was lucky enough to to um, to get involved with with television and and I started making TV magic shows, and at that point that was sort of the death knell for my, for my close performing, I did a little bit. You know, pete, pete Furman and I would go and do the odd gig and maybe Ali cook as well, we'd, we'd go and do some gigs together and stuff like that, but but for the most part it, it sort of it. You know, I stopped doing that and certainly when I got into escape performing, um, I, I, I stopped doing magical together, um, partially because I thought that, if you know, if people thought that what I was doing was a trick, it undermines it. So I don't think they fit particularly well as bedfellows. Actually, you know, in the idea of doing a magic trick and then doing an escape, I think they sort of pull in opposite directions. I think I think they they they sort of pull in opposite directions.
Speaker 1:So I, um, but there was a period of time before I really gave up performing magic tricks, um, that I was doing magic tricks on television, uh, I was in a series called monkey magic, um and uh, and, and we also did a spin-off of that which was called the Greatest Magic Tricks in the Universe. And then we did, as you mentioned, we did Dirty Tricks, although by that time I was doing Escapes, and so I wanted to pick something from that time. And there's a lot. We did an awful lot of ridiculous and very humorous uh and fun to perform magic tricks. Uh, for in in the in the monkey magic days um, painting pete mccann completely green and producing, producing mrs the incredible hulk. Painting Pete McCann completely green and producing him as the Incredible Hulk.
Speaker 1:I mean, there was just a lot, but I think probably the most memorable was a routine that I did with Pete Furman and we were in, I think it was, crouch End in London, and we did a trick which was called the fish slap prediction, which I wrote You're nodding, like you remember this. It was essentially a person there was a load of fish on the slab in a fishmonger's and Pete the conceit was that he was psychic in a very, very specific area, which is that he was, you know, his psychic ability only related to fish, and so he, the audience member, would choose just think of a fish and so then I would pick up the fish one at a time. They're concentrating on their fish. I would pick the fish up one at a time and slap Pete in the face and he would say no, not that one. And I'd pick him up, pick another one up, you know a cod or whatever, and slap him in the face with it and he would go no, no, no. And then eventually he sort of unwittingly or wittingly, I guess, found the right one you know, I think it was a trout and he kind of started to make out with it like snogging this, this trout, and he goes yeah, this is this, is it? This is this is the thing. And and the lady is surprised, you know, that was the one I was thinking about and then he says well, here you go, you can have the fish as a prize. And my response to that was well, pete, what does somebody want with a dead fish? And then Pete goes oh, there's a really good point. And he puts the fish in a tank that happens to be in the aquarium and it comes back to life and that was the end of the routine. And the reason that's on my list is because if I can spend time I mean, I know he's not on the island, but if I can spend time slapping Pete in the face with a fish, then that would be good time on a desert island. I would enjoy that very much.
Speaker 1:There is also a very funny element, which part of the part of the explanation for for um, for that was that we we had um was that we had essentially a pause in the filming. Somebody had a camera problem or a microphone problem or whatever, and the challenge then was that we would swap the fish that they were thinking about, the, the, the fish that you know that we're thinking about and essentially it's. You know, this is, this is what happens in angling. You know, you sort of take a fish out of the water and it'll wriggle for a moment or two and then, and then it'll stop and it'll go still and then when you put it back after you know, after you've weighed it or whatever if you're, if you're uh fishing, you know it swims off just just fine. So so we had uh and I'm, you know, I granted this is sort of vague exposure, but I also know that nobody else is doing this trick. It's not, it's not. You know, I'm not spoiling anybody's living by by by uh, by giving the the an insight into this.
Speaker 1:There was just a moment, so I was standing in this fishmonger's having to sort of talk to these audience members to distract them from the fact that behind them, pete has gone out into the street where there is a lorry with a big tank, an aerated tank of trout, live trout, on the back of this lorry.
Speaker 1:So he's gone out with the dead fish and then he's been given a live trout which he's then going to come back into the fishmonger's with trout which he's then going to come back in into the to the fishmongers with and and I'm basically trying to talk to these people to distract them from stop them, stopping them turn around and seeing what then became pete, completely framed in the doorway of the fishmongers, and it was like a bar of soap this trout shot straight out of pete's hands and skidded down Crouch End High Road and which is, honestly, truly one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my entire life. But I couldn't laugh because I have to keep a straight face, because all of these, these audience members that don't know that this is what was happening it's one of the most challenging things I've ever had to do, actually was keep a straight face in that moment. But it worked and we cut it together and it all looked just fine. So that is my second choice the fish slap prediction.
Speaker 3:Well, I don't know about everyone else listening, but I totally had that on your list. That was well. That just sounds absolutely brilliant. Now my follow-up question is how does a trick in which a fish is selected and then is slapped around someone's face continuously, how is that something that's manifested in in a writer's room?
Speaker 1:I, you know, I, I, you know. I think creativity is just, is a is a bit of an amorphous thing. I think it comes from just absorbing as much of the world as you can. There's a great you know and that's you know, not just magic, but comedy and writing and everything you know. I think when I was and I've said this countless times before, but when I was a kid I ended up having a very long conversation with Ali Bongo and he said to me that if you want to be a good magician, you can do a magic trick with anything. So if you want to be a good magician, you have to know how everything works, and so I think that's a really useful piece of advice. And then and then you know, and then the more, the more you know and have seen of the world, the more thoughts will just will just pop in there. I think.
Speaker 1:I think, probably, if I was to analyze it, there was a really great Monty Python sketch on I think it was Teddington Canal Lock, where it was almost like they're Morris dancing and I think it was Cleese and Palin come and they're doing a little dance and they come in and slap the other one on the face, almost like handkerchiefs in Morris dancing, but it's fish. And then the kicker is that the other one on the face almost like it was almost like handkerchiefs in Morris dancing, but it's fish. And then the kicker is that that's um, that I think maybe the third time it happens. One of them's got a massive fish that hits the other person and they fall in the canal lock. So that was. That was probably an image, that that you know how do you combine that and make that a magic trick. And also, you know, it wouldn't have been difficult for me to to just fantasize about hitting pete in the face with a trout.
Speaker 3:Um, that's probably where it came from, actually well, it sounds like a really great second choice and leads us nicely into number three. So what did you put in your third spot?
Speaker 1:Oh well, so then, going into, you know there are very few routines, because at this point in my life then you know, if I'm going kind of chronologically which I'm certainly starting to, although I'll probably deviate later there are very few routines once I get into doing my escape work and the stunt performing work that I would choose to have with me on a desert island, and that's for the primary reason that performing them sucked, that they were just not particularly pleasant to perform. But the one exception to that and which I thoroughly enjoyed performing and also would be handy on a desert island, would be my crossbow routine, and that was, I mean, I created a number of different crossbow routines in in my career, but the the primary one, the main one, was essentially there's a there's a little circular narrative section to it, so I would come out and I'd say when what you're about to see me perform? I'm working with two of the bravest and fiercest ladies in show business and I'm going to introduce them in a minute. But first I want to talk about the crossbow. And I talk about the crossbow and how it works and and and how fast it. You know the arrow flies and all of that, and I would do a little demonstration and shoot a, a balloon on a stand and all of the arrows land in in a target that's on the stage, and then I would introduce my assistant. She would come out and I would basically then start to make crossbow shots that are increasingly difficult and all of the targets are things that she's holding either in her hands or in her mouth you know the edge of a piece of newspaper and flowers and increasingly difficult shots, the last one being a blindfolded shot where I'm shooting something off the top of her head and you know that's the end of the routine. Everybody's you know that's the end of the routine. Everybody's you know. Responsive at that.
Speaker 1:In that moment and and at that point I would say do you remember? Right at the very beginning, I said I was working with two of the bravest ladies in show business and then I would open up the crossbow target and inside is a second assistant that you didn't notice there, who's surrounded by all of the arrows inside. And I was fond of that A because it's one of the one things that I did where I was in no danger, it was just fun. It was fun to do and I had always loved it the person that created the crossbow act was Hans Moretti, who I'm going to talk about a little bit more later.
Speaker 1:But Hans and his brother did a sharpshooting act with rifles. They were actually shooting live rounds on stage and they were very successful with it. But they had real problems when they were booked in other countries transporting the guns, for obvious reasons, and so they switched to crossbows because they were just less restricted and it was easier. And it was just one of those happy accidents, really. You know, they're much better. You can see the projectile fly and you can also see it sticking where it's landed. Um and uh, and so they developed this amazing, the amazing crossbow act. If you've never seen hans moriti's crossbow act, then then I urge you to to check it out. Um, I'm pretty sure it'll be on YouTube with his amazing, fearless wife, helga Beretti, who's wonderful.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I would pick Crossbow because, you know, also useful on a desert island, you can, you know, do your routine and then you can get your dinner at the same time well, I think if I was doing my jonathan goodwin bingo for real, taking out my comment about the fish lap prediction, I would have put crossbows in there somewhere, because it's something that, when I think about performances that I've seen from you over the years, it's one that stands out and there's been, like you say, I think I've seen one or at least two different crossbow things that you've done over the years.
Speaker 3:It must be really difficult to come up with concepts and ideas that seem dangerous but also have that almost magic twist ending. And what I love about this particular routine is you said you have that second assistant hidden in the target. So when you're constructing your escapes, do you have that magic mind at the back of your head when you're constructing it and you think, well, what can that, what can that little bit at the end be that really hits the audience, or do you go from it from an imposing perspective, like you said about the crossbows? It from an imposing perspective, like you said about the crossbows, that's an imposing prop on stage. That's terrifying. Quite frankly, I don't know how anyone had one of those pointed at them. So what avenue do you go to when you're trying to construct these routines?
Speaker 1:I think that you're right that one of the most important parts is what is the end, what's the end of the routine, and I think that works in all of magic, not just constructing tricks, but constructing shows. There's a psychological precept, which is called the peak end philosophy, um, where when people recall something they've experienced, they remember the peak part, the, the, the thing that was perhaps you know, you know maybe in the middle, or you know the thing that was that was sort of maybe the most impressive thing, and they will remember the thing that happened at the end. And the other stuff is, is less important. And so, and it makes sense, you know, if you think about it, the ending is is the part where you, the part where you, you, you, you, you come away with whatever, that feeling that the routine elicited is, is, is, that's, that's what happens at the end. You remember that, that, that fee, how you felt at the end of it, and so, um, and so I think that that, uh, that important Like, for example, I did a Buried Alive routine, which was actually created for Britain's Got Talent, and Buried Alive doesn't work on stage at all, you know, I don't think anybody had ever done it actually, and the reason that Buried Alive doesn't really work in that way.
Speaker 1:It's fine as a publicity stunt to a certain extent, but the reason it doesn't reallyany for what the end of that routine would be, where we would just dump all of the all of the dirt onto the stage and I would be left hanging in the middle. That's a heroic and and ending that's sort of quite a an amazing visual. So if we can create that, then it's worth doing, and so that's that's. You're entirely right that that starting at the end and working backwards, I think is a really good way of creating things like that well, it's a great routine.
Speaker 3:I'm glad it's on your list, uh, but that takes us to number four. So what's in your fourth position?
Speaker 1:uh. So I think number four is also probably one that you would not have expected me to say, and that would be the Blackstone floating light bulb, and I loved that trick. It is online, I think, somewhere, but there was an amazing special that Disney did. I think they filmed it at Euro Disney and shortly after Euro Disney opened, I would imagine it would have been about 1991. And it had all sorts of really great people in it.
Speaker 1:The Pendragons were in it, arturo Brichetti, tamariz, Hans Moretti, and the main host of the show was Harry Blackstone Jr, and he did a few different things, but the thing that really stood out was the light bulb. And so if you don't know the routine, first of all, look it up, you can find it. But Blackstone had this incredible presence, he had an amazing voice. I remember the opening line of the routine is I promise you that what you're about to see you will remember the longest day you live. Please watch. Now, that's a hell of a, a hell of a, a bet, you know, a claim to put up front and center. And he, essentially he, he would take a light, a light bulb, off a lap and it would stay lit, and then he would balance it on the tips of his fingers and uh, and then he would hang it from the tip of his fingers and then he would take his fingers away and it would just stay hanging in midair and then, uh, he would pass a hoop over it, twist it around, so you knew that there was nothing supporting it, and he would say just a moment, someone said they cannot see it. Well, let me bring it to you so that you may see it. And he walks down into the front of the audience and he hands it to a person in the front row and he says take, take it, look at it and hand it around, and then, if you would please just let go, and that person would let go of the bulb and it would float back up to him. And then he took it back onto the stage and he floated it again past the hoop around it again and he would say, um, oh, you'd like to see it as well, pointing to somebody that's sitting a little further back well, you may see it, but look, but do not touch. And the the bulb would then float out over about the front front, 10 rows of the audience above their heads, and then slowly back, and he's standing on the stage holding the hoop out and the bulb would float back up through the bulb and then you pluck it out of the air and that was the bit and, uh, it honestly is one of the most magical things I've ever seen. Uh, I would have been 11.
Speaker 1:Uh, because I saw him do it at, not only on that, on that the special, but then, I think probably maybe a year later, he headlined the Blackpool Magic Convention and I saw him do it live there and it was brilliant. I remember I met him afterwards in the hotel bar and got his autograph and he wrote his name and then he dated it and he dated it. I think Blackpool, let's say, was the 26th of February. It used to be just a fun day back in those days. It was the 26th of February and I looked at the date he'd written and he'd written the 27th and I was about to go. You got it wrong. You got it wrong and I looked it was a minute past midnight and so he did write the right date and I just thought's, that's cool, he was really cool. And then he died. I think maybe about a year later. He passed away far, far too, too young. He was um brilliant. I really loved, loved his, his work and he just had such an amazing presence.
Speaker 1:So the addendum to that story is that I loved that trick so much I got the opportunity to create. This is going back kind of at the same time as I was doing Monkey Magic, I got the opportunity to create my own show in a theme park, which I did for a season in Wales, and I wanted to do the floating light bulb and I would not. The method would not have worked. Uh, that, that um, uh, it was actually created by a guy called berlinghull.
Speaker 1:Uh, the, the floating light bulb, um, and then blackstone, senior did it, and obviously then then junior, but but, um, that, that hookup, the method would not have worked in the theatre that I was in. So I created my own method for doing it and then had even more admiration for Blackstone because when he did it he looked completely at ease and it was genuinely the most stressful thing I ever did in my whole life. It was just like that routine was suppressing panic at every moment, because you know there's a lot to it, and when there's a lot to it then there's a lot that can go wrong. So it was stressful. So yeah, the blackstone flating light bulb. Well, that's a lot that could go wrong.
Speaker 3:Um, so it's stressful, so so yeah, the blackstone floating light pop well, that's a great choice, is one that we've had on the podcast before, and I was just trying to find out who said it. So I'm so sorry whoever said it, but I could imagine there must have just been a ripple of reaction, as that went over the heads of everyone sat down.
Speaker 1:Truly it's a breathtaking piece of magic, and I know that I think Gay Blackstone ended up selling the rights to the trick to Hans Clock, actually and so Hans still performs it with the same music. He got the rights to the music that Blackstone used, so it's still being performed, which is lovely. But as much as I love Hans Klok too he's a great performer I don't think it got better than Blackstone Jr. He was amazing.
Speaker 3:Well, I very much enjoyed your performance of Blackstone there. I felt like I was in the room with him.
Speaker 1:Oh well, that's very kind of you. It was bad.
Speaker 3:Well, that takes us to number five. So what did you put in your fifth position?
Speaker 1:well, so then. So then you know, I, because you know, if you're, if you're, if you're, uh, uh, in doing this for any length of time, you will get asked what are you know? What are your favorite tricks, what are the? What are the tricks that that you've seen, that, that that you know? Is there anything that you've seen that really fools you? Um and um.
Speaker 1:My answer always my favorite piece of magic, um, is the moretti cardboard box, um, which you probably also had somebody say, just because you know it's one of the best tricks and, and very, very briefly, it's you know, hans morei, semi-naked cardboard box, completely empty, super flimsy, on a very thin table. He gets wrapped in chains, he gets inside, it gets shut with a very flimsy piece of cord, and then Helga will invite two guys from the audience to come up and put swords through big sabers, through the box. And you know, whenever you've seen the sword box done, or the sword basket, you know the swords go through it at an angle and you think, well, maybe there's a space somewhere in the middle that that's sort of possible angle, and you think, well, maybe there's a space somewhere in the middle that that's sort of possible. But the, you know, the perception of the of the moretti version is that they just go through straight and and they completely fill up that box and um, uh, you know, and hans was obviously like a big bluff german guy doesn't look particularly limber, he was still doing this trick in his 60s and the guys go back to their seats, helga takes the swords out, they open the box and Hans comes out now dressed as a clown, with umbrellas and scarves and livestock. He has a duck and a chicken coming out of this box, which is previously shown empty at the beginning of the routine. And it's just, I mean, it's the most extraordinary thing and it's such brilliant thinking as well, because the sword box is an inherently flawed trick and it's flawed because it ends in the middle. You know the hand's still at the top, so we know that they're still alive.
Speaker 1:And now you have to just repeat everything we just did in reverse in order to get to the part that we already know. You know, magic tricks work through surprise, and there's no surprise, is there? We know the guy's all right, so it's okay. Well, not if the guy comes out dressed as a clown, you know, with chickens and ducks and all of that stuff. It's the thing that you didn't see coming. He made himself the lemon in the chop cup, you know, and and it's baffling, it's so clever and I, you know, I love it very much. I love it because it's so anti. All of the slick sort of aren't I cool magic? You know he's he's is very rugged and and it looks sort of cheap and yet it'll nail your ass to the wall. It's such a great trick. It'll nail your ass to the wall.
Speaker 3:It's such a great trick. Is this one that you've performed? Would like to perform, or?
Speaker 1:you're not sure whether you would be able to perform it Well, so I did create a version, my version of the trick, and it works not in the same way. It works not in the same way and the kicker is that there is a second assistant that comes out of the box, and Air was okay. I mean, it's a beautifully made thing. You know, it took me a long time to to work it out and and, um, you know that you to to do that and make it safe, um, and you actually have the person in the box. You know, and and have the opportunity for um, for audience members. I didn't end up performing it this way, actually, but, but you could have, you know, audience members put the swords through.
Speaker 1:It was incredibly complicated, um, but you know, I I guess a little bit like the, the blackstone light bulb, like you, you just, you just can't really beat moretti doing it, because it was just um mad, it was absolutely mental, uh, because that's who they were. You know they were. They were crackers both of them, and yet they were just the best. I, I loved them. I met him. That was one of the brilliant um, uh illusions of of hans marity, is that you? You know, he, he, um, he sort of presented as this sort of great big German bluff dude and he's actually really little. He was not a big man at all but on stage, you know, really have a point of reference and so you know, he was just great. Honestly, I owe so much to him and I'm lucky enough to be friends with Peter, his son, who has been very complimentary to me about my work and said that my dad, he said that his dad would have really loved what I did, so that's really nice. So, yeah, that one's important for Hans.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that's a great choice in at number five and leads us nicely into number six. What did you put in your six spot?
Speaker 1:I think I am going to choose a trick that I created that I don't really and didn't really perform. It comes from a routine that I did in my series, the Incredible Mr Goodwin. I got the opportunity to do that show and it was basically supposed to be like a sister show to dynamo's show. Um, they, they it was a bbc um affiliate, um, bbc worldwide that had dynamo and they wanted something that was like it but obviously wasn't going to tread on Stephen's toes. And so I was approached and asked if you know, if I would do an escapology series series. By this time I had done, I had done, uh, a lot of escapes on dv. By this point I'd done a bunch in this country and then I'd been to america and made a series for discovery channel and it was. It was something that I had kind of. I felt like I'd I'd done a lot of and it's quite a thin plot escaping. You know there are plenty of different things that you can risk being the bad thing that happens, but there are only so many restraints and only so many times you want to watch the same person get tied up and see if they can get out. So I knew that it had to be broader than that, and so we brought in some other stuff you know the other dangerous things like the crossbow act and and whatnot. But I I really wanted to put in um other sort of ancillary skills. Um, you know, I I I always admired I'm good friends with deron and he was my flatmate for a while and I loved the thinking behind the idea of, of, instead of making, magic. I have this theory that magic is best when it's, uh, implausible but not impossible. Um, you know, magic magicians often try and make their tricks as impossible as they can, but actually I think the times where magic really captures the imagination of the audience is when they don't know, when they're like, really you can do that, you know, which is one of the reasons why I think mentalism is is one of the most popular forms of magic these days is because it's the one area where people don't know that maybe, if you know enough about psychology or hypnosis or you know psychological manipulation, you might be able to do those things and it's that might. That I think is really attractive. And so the idea of taking that thought and applying it to stuff that isn't magic, so skill-based stuff, I think is really interesting and that's kind of what I pushed into in the Incredible Mr Goodwin. Incredible, mr goodwin.
Speaker 1:We did a routine with um darts where I threw a dart into a named, freely chosen named place on a dartboard in a pub, from about 20 feet away. Um, with the guy standing right, right next to the dartboard and, um, that was a magic trick. Um, albeit, I am actually throwing the dart into the place that he said, but it was quite cleverly thought out and so it was just a really interesting use of magic thinking, but applying it in a slightly different way, and I loved the trick, but it was something that was um, that was entirely created for television and not possible to do that version of it live. But I wanted to, and so I came up with a, a live version called um. The trick is called no bull and essentially, uh, it works like this there's a dart board on a stand and, uh, you get to. Essentially, I'm going to throw the dart into the board. This is one presentation I'm going to throw the dart to the board into any place that you name, and to make it more difficult to do that, the dart board is sort of mounted on an axle, so we're going to spin the dart board and I'm going to throw the dart into, uh, while you know, and hit your, hit your place while it's spinning, and that's exactly what happens. So the dartboard is spun, the, the, the, the dart is thrown and when it slows, nobody touches it, nobody goes near it, and when it slows down, it's it's exactly where the person said so you can throw the dart and be a, you know, feat of skill.
Speaker 1:An audience member could throw the dart and it can be the place that they, they thought of or named um, you. So you could make it a magic trick. You could have a prediction in an envelope. Uh, three audience members throw darts. They open the envelope and you've clearly, clearly predicted whatever numbers they've thrown. And then you could also do it as a thought of piece, without any kind of pre-show. They think of a number.
Speaker 1:The dart board is spun, the dart is thrown, it's sticking in the board and at that point they say whatever they're thinking of.
Speaker 1:When it's too late to change, and as it slows down, it's exactly where they said um and so, um, I, I had, I had the idea for how it would work and a really brilliant engineer friend of mine called Graham Smith made one for me about 10 years ago and it worked beautifully and I performed it a few times and then I got into performing with the illusionists and they only wanted me to do dangerous stuff, so I didn't really have the opportunity to to to do it in that show.
Speaker 1:Um and so, uh, that was that and then, and so after I retired, uh, there were a few people that knew about it, and so that was the one that people started to sniff around and say, hey, would you be willing to sell us that trick? You know, darren wanted it, dynamo wanted it and I shouldn't call him Dynamo anymore Stephen wanted it and it made me think they all wanted it exclusively and it made me think maybe this is something I should actually market. So we did, we put it on a stand at Blackpool and there was so much interest in it, and so now it's available to pre-order and it's called Noble.
Speaker 3:This was one of the things from this year's Blackpool that sadly I didn't get to see, but it was honestly every time I saw someone it was have you seen jonathan's, jonathan goodwin's dartboard thing go? They wouldn't tell me what it was, they just went. I'm not gonna tell you what it is, just go and see it go go and watch it and you will not believe it. It can happen. Um so it must have really created a big buzz.
Speaker 1:It's, it's um, what what graham's done is is on it. He's, you know, I I had, I had the idea for the, the method in principle but I'm certainly not an electronic whiz and um, graham is the person that that has really put it together. It is incredibly clean. There is nothing it looks like it should look. There is nothing that sort of slightly dodged your little disappointing moment. It's, you know, and at one level it could be, you know a feature routine in a show. You know a feature routine in a show and at another level it's you know, the cleanest, easiest um uh out in a one-ahead routine, for example, that you could, that you could have um uh, so it's. It's. What I love about it is that it is really multi-purpose as essentially a way to predict or force any number, 1 to 20. And I'm actually really excited to see what people do with it, the different routines that they come up with. It's going to be cool.
Speaker 2:Hello guys, I'm here to talk to you about Alakazam Unlimited. This is the best streaming platform in the world. I'm telling you now. With alakazam unlimited, you get access to over 150 magic routines. This is video, performances and explanations. We have card magic, coin magic, kids, magic rope, magic, mentalism, stage parlor, impromptu. We've got you covered. All of this for the low price of just £4.99 a month, and you can cancel at any time. Perfect if you've got commitment issues. Yes, I'm talking to you, guys. You are going to absolutely love it. If you haven't joined the platform already, what the heck are you doing? Alakazam Unlimited is a streaming platform that you need to be a part of. Not only that, there is also exclusive content only available on the platform. Check it out now. Alakazamcouk Cheers.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that's a great shout and it's one that we can all look forward to. I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for that, because I've still not seen it performed, which is gutting, um, so hopefully we'll see it again. But it does take us to the tail end of your eight, so we're on number seven.
Speaker 1:Ah okay, so so I um now I don't perform at all and uh, my my connection with with magic other than you know, doing things like this and doing a bit of lecturing and and obviously I have marketed that trick, um it really is is consulting for, for people. Um, you know, I've just directed a show called the maze, starring jamie allen in the west west end, which is going off broadway and doing work with Stephen Frayne and and um and some other different people. Um, is is lovely and I really enjoy that and and it isn't even though it's something that I'm doing, that you know now, now that I'm retired, I'm not performing. That's that's really my connection with magic, but I I always did, uh, consulting. It's just not something I really advertised. You know it was a thing that people asked me to do now and again and I did a lot of it. You know I worked a lot of Darren's early shows and then I've done a bit of work for Justin Willman in America and the magicians for BBC One did. I was the the main magic consultant for, so I've done a lot of that stuff and um, uh, and so there are some, some routines that I uh, that I worked on, that I'm proud of my number seven, I think would be, uh, would be car off cliff, um, which is a thing I I mean, I did a version of car of cliff, which is an escape. But what I I actually uh, I'm referring to is a routine that we did with craig rovel hallward, and it was barry and stewart's magic trick. So I, I, that was something that I consulted on and it was actually kind of an amazing day.
Speaker 1:So the premise of the thing was that Barry and Stuart are teaching Craig Grovel-Hallwood how to be an escape artist. They'd apparently been practicing with him and this is the big sort of finish sort of finish. They tie him up, uh, put a bag over his head, they bundle him into the boot of a car and, uh, and they put a brick on the accelerator of the car, which then is has about sort of it's maybe 50 feet from the edge of the cliff, uh, with a, with a lake below, and, and the car then goes off the cliff, no sign of Craig. This is all happening in a single shot. It doesn't cut, and the car then, as it sort of hits the rocks, explodes, and then the camera tilts up and there's a helicopter with Craig sitting at the edge of the helicopter, sort of waving at us, and that was the routine and that was also incredibly stressful because the whole thing was shot.
Speaker 1:It was a single shot doesn't cut and we have to go from quite a tight sort of sequence of tying up, you know whatever. So the camera has to kind of get all of those different details to make sure that we understand how Craig is, and then it has to pull wide. They track along, get into the car and then it has to pull wide. They track along, get into the car and then it has to come even wider so that we see the car start to move, and then it has to go all the way, 50 feet following the car as it goes, and then the camera has to go actually out and over the cliffs and down.
Speaker 1:These days you do it very easily with a drone. You do the whole thing with a brilliant drone operator. It would be way cheaper than it was actually, but when we shot it drone technology didn't really exist in the same way. So it was a massive crane that we had to hire that was on a track that's running alongside the car, and I'm the magic consultant, so I'm looking at the monitors and if there's something that goes wrong, if there's a flash, if it's not gonna, you know if, if that, if this isn't a good take, it's me that has to say no. I saw that we have to go back and it became just a more and more difficult thing to get right. You know we're doing back and we're losing the light. So they started the routine in in bright sunlight and, uh, and by the time we actually shot the, the trick, it was almost dark, um and um, and if you can find it does exist, I think, online, if you find it, there's a very clear cut where, where, all of a sudden, the light changes and it's, and it's. You know they've opened up all of the irises as much as they can in order to to make it seem like um. We did get it, um, and, and.
Speaker 1:The other funny story about that is that, without getting too much into the mechanics of it, clearly we have to find a way to get Craig out, to sort of switch him out of the situation that he's in, and get ahead so that he can get into the helicopter and and and and you know, while whilst the car is going off the cliff. And there was. I've never met in my life, I've never met a helicopter pilot who wasn't a complete badass. I've never met a helicopter pilot who wasn't a complete badass. And the initial idea was to have Craig run and have to climb up a ladder to go over a hedge to get into a field. And I have reasonably decent spatial awareness.
Speaker 1:And there was in the area that we were filming there was, you know, a bit of an open area, not massive, and then on one side of it there was a building and then and then on the other side of it was a hedge. And I said to this helicopter pilot he was sort of this very posh, quite older jolly hockey sticks, english champ I said, can you land there? And he went, he sort of squinted his eye and he looked left and right and went, yeah, it should be all right. And I have to tell you that when he landed that helicopter there was no more than about two feet on either side of the rotors and the building. It was honestly astonishing the precision. But the other thing that happened was that we only had one go at this right. So that's the other reason why we had to stop if it looked like we didn't have the shot is because we only had one car. If it looked like we didn't have the shot is because we only had one car.
Speaker 1:Uh, and, and it was rigged to explode. So you know, and it's falling off the plate, we're not getting it back, we're not resetting, um, uh, and so we had to get it right. So this thing is is, uh, rigged to explode. Nobody's seen the explosion, nobody knows exactly how big this explosion is going to be, and the car goes off the cliff and explodes. And the explosion is absolutely. It showers rock everywhere, up into the air, right, and if the helicopter had been where it was supposed to be when the car exploded, then the helicopter would have gone down and we would have lost the helicopter pilot and Craig Revel would. And so the the uh.
Speaker 1:Thankfully, this brilliant helicopter pilot saw what was happening and banked away out of the way of the explosion. And then, and then came he. But he did. You know, he was professional, he wasn't like you guys, I'm, I'm off, I'm off. He then came back into that position. So we got the shot, we got the trick, craig Revell smiling, completely oblivious to the fact that he nearly died, and so that one probably is a good story. I'm not sure exactly how we get that trick to Desert Island, but I would take that one with me how we get that trick to a desert island, but I would take that one with me.
Speaker 3:Wow, I feel like those first aiders we gave you at the. The head of this podcast may be sorting out your blood pressure throughout this entire list, because that sounds absolutely gut-wrenching. I do not know how you you went through it. How do you even rehearse something like that? If you've got that one, take that one shot? Do you literally just rehearse it to the point of the car going off the cliff, because I'm guessing that's the point of no return, or is there some other sort of way that you can practice it?
Speaker 1:No, I mean, there was some elements of it that we could, that we could sort of fudge. You know the, the, if you ever, if, if anybody ever, you know, sees me and wants to know the method of, of, of switching Craig in a single shot, um, was was actually quite cunning Um and uh, and that I'm, I'm quite proud of, uh, because you see all of him at all times. You know, essentially, you see, you see him, uh and and um, and yet he, we, we managed to get rid of him and replace him for somebody else, um, which was all quite lovely, so that part we could rehearse, cause it was sort of a bit smaller. But the moment, essentially I'm, I'm looking at a monitor and the moment there's something in the frame where, where, um, where I'm, we can't get around, that in the edit we can't, cause we can't cut. That's the thing.
Speaker 1:Is that a lot of the time, if you're doing coverage on a magic trick and you've got more than one camera, if there's a little moment, I mean, and I'm also talking about back in the day where you know, these days editing out stuff is much, much easier than it was then and it was very expensive if you were going to do any of that sort of edit painting you know of of things that had flashed. That was, that was a lot to add to a budget of a TV show, and so you know you wanted to be able to get it in one and and so, yeah, it was stressful having to say no, stop, reset, and then we'd have to pull everything back and the camera would have to come back. And you know you've got a lot of people there's a big crew there essentially inherently annoyed with me. Even though it's Barry and Stuart that are cocking the trick up, or Craig of the Horde that's cocking the trick up, I'm the one that's saying no, so I'm the one that that gets everybody grumbling. But, um, we did get.
Speaker 3:It was a good trick actually I think that's an interesting perspective as well, the idea that the camera can be an aid to a method but equally it can be a hindrance to the method.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean writing magic tricks for television is a completely different genre of method, thinking. I mean, you see it a little bit these days in the sort of tick tock magic where you can tell by by. You know, you can tell that basically, if you, if the camera had two eyes, you would see how it was done. You know, or it's either a perspective thing or or or maybe it's it's a version of black art where they've really crushed the blacks or whatever. That's very common in social media magic, less so with moving shots. Most of that stuff is based on a static camera where you're just presenting a magic trick to. But you know, we got into doing a lot of very complicated moving stuff that is literally designed to fool the camera and not necessarily an audience. And then you know, and then you get into.
Speaker 1:There's lots of debates about whether that sort of constitutes actual magic or whatnot. It's a difficult thing. Bongo's thing was always if you're doing a trick and you've got an audience, you're filming it, you've got an audience there. If when they watch it back they say, yes, that's what I experienced, then you can do anything in that little gap. There's a tiny gap there, uh, where a bit of a sort of a dual reality where they think this is what happened and that's what you see on television, but actually that's not what. What's happening and that's a fun place to play.
Speaker 3:But that's a great, great choice, and thank you for the insight there onto sort of writing for TV. I think it must be such a fascinating topic and no doubt that we're going to experience it again with number eight. So what did you put in your final position?
Speaker 1:Well, so I think you know lots of different magic tricks, magic shows and performers that I, that I, um, uh, I did, I did called the death by magic, which was starring Drummond, money coots, um, and essentially the premise of the TV show was that he was doing, he was going to work up to do the different magic tricks that have that have killed people. Um, and it was, um, it was, it was a chat, chat, it was a challenge, so drummond's sort of traveling the world, doing close-up predominantly, and then he would, then he would do these these big, dangerous things. Um, it was a bit of a flawed uh, uh premise for a show. I'm sure drummond would agree with me, because we struggled to get eight, you know, uh, we, we struggled to come up with eight things that killed people. Um, so it was, we were always going to struggle for a second series of the show because there just aren't that many actually in in truth.
Speaker 1:Um, and one of the one of my favorites that we did was Burned at the Stake, which again, isn't really a magic trick. It was a bit of a stretch that apparently killed somebody, and what I loved about the trick was the ending. The trick was the ending, because I encourage you to watch it on. I think the episode's called Trial by Fire and the ending of it is that he's chained to a stake and there's a circle of almost like a fuse of flame that's coming closer and closer, burning towards him, uh, and he's got to get out and and it hits him and he, he catches fire. So he's actually on fire, uh, but he does manage to escape and he walks clear of all of the fuse and everything, uh, and to a position where there are people there ready to put him out and they blast him with CO2. And for a very short amount of time, they just hit him with CO2. And when the CO2 clears, he's gone and it's just a really cool vanish.
Speaker 1:It looks like a camera trick, and that was a method that I came up with. Um, and that's you know if if I could sum up or really distill what I love, I loved performing magic, I really did, but but the thing that I love most, uh, and it's not, it's really not limited to magic the thing that I love most is is having an idea and then making it happen, like manifesting thoughts, and so that was a really great version of that, because it looked like I wanted it to. Uh, it was. It was a really, really great ending, a really great disappearance, and I'm really proud of that one yeah.
Speaker 3:So I remember watching the entire series when it came out and it sort of harkens back to your crossbow routine because I think, from from my recollection, every one of the escapes or things that happened at the end had some sort of twist. There was always something that happened which you weren't anticipating or expecting. Much like your crossbow routine when you said you had the second assistant inside the things. So when you were writing that show a second ago, you mentioned the car off cliff that you either create for camera or for live audience. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you had live audiences. So how do you go about that? How do you go about working something for the camera in that situation, which I'm guessing would have been quite a heavy part of that process, but also that live audience, um I.
Speaker 1:I think that that routine particular in particular was, uh, it would have worked for for both, that that that vanish will have worked for everybody standing there, and the camera too, um, and, and that's, you know, that's a, a factor of you know, making sure that your sight lines are right and that, and that everybody's standing where you, where you need them to stand, which you know sounds controlling, but that's no different. Uh, you know, the seats in a theater, um, and making sure that all of your sight lines are correct and that nothing's going to be exposed. So that one particularly was not a challenge. I think that there are different nuances and elements that we have used in the past to kind of bridge that gap, something that works for, you know, for the camera, but not the audience and whatnot. And how you solve those problems. There are different techniques that are used Most of the time.
Speaker 1:I would try and stick to Bongo's philosophy of making sure that what they experience is what they feel like they watched on television. Sometimes that's not always possible, but I think that's the best kind of TV magic, because then you get real reactions and ultimately, as Blaine and Stephen have demonstrated, the most important magic doesn't work on television particularly well, because now we're savvy and we know about editing and we don't quite have a sense of wonder that we would have if it was happening in front of us. But what they have, what they realized, is that you can live that moment vicariously through the people that are there and if their reactions are real and they feel like they're losing their mind, well, now I'm enjoying it because I'm enjoying what they're experiencing and you live vicariously through their experience, which is really smart of David, and you live vicariously through their experience, which is really smart of David, and it's given TV Magic a bit more of a life, I think.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that's a great one to close out your list, and you know we said at the top of the podcast that it was going to be an interesting list and going through it we started with Brainwave, the Fish Slap Prediction that's hard to say Crossbow Routine, the Blackstone Float and Lightbulb Moretti, carball Box, no Bull Car Off Cliff and Burned at the Stake. I can honestly say we're never going to get anyone that says a list like that again. I think that's a very much Jonathan Goodwin list, but it does bring us onto your three curveballs. So of course, we've given you eight tricks, but now you only have one each of these. So let's start with your banishment. What did you banish from your island?
Speaker 1:I'm, I'm going to pick. Ah, this is tough because I'm gonna upset people, but I uh, sorry I'm, I'm gonna ban, uh like silent manipulation routines is what I'm going to ban, and I think, if I can justify that, I have good friends that do those routines, but I don't quite get it. They feel to me like magic for me is always about a sort of a two-way relationship with an audience where I, in order for me to really kind of enjoy and engage with a magic trick, I need to feel involved or connected to it in some way. And I think that the baseline of magic is the magician who is essentially going look at me, I can do something you can't do, and that's what those routines do. You know, they're not really involved, involving me or connecting with me, other than going, hey, look at me, aren't I clever? And then, beyond that, a lot of them are artistically. They feel to me like an exercise in time-wasting.
Speaker 1:You know, if you go all the way back to the late great Channing Pollock, who's arguably the godfather of these kinds of routines, he would produce a load of doves, one at a time, put them in a cage and then at the end of the act he'd make the cage and all of the doves disappear. And that was the act Essentially. Why don't you just not, you know like what, what? Why, if you, if you're gonna produce something, I, you know here's, here's something that I didn't have before and I've, and I've made it appear and then at the end I'm gonna make it disappear, or what was what was the point? What was, what were you doing? You know there, um, and other than just showing off, you know I, I and and so, but you know, channing is very charming and and and slick, and and so he got away with a lot.
Speaker 1:You know that that clearly it was original and it took around the world, but, but, but people have taken that idea and their sort of version of creativity is to not change the act but to just do the same act with something else. Like I'm going to do that act with and you know, he, he, I'm sure would not mind to be saying that doing, uh, doing that manipulation act with spitters albeit, he was a kid when he was doing that it just, it doesn't. You know it's. That's not creativity, um, uh, it's, it's. I don't, actually I don't know what it is, it's, it's, it's a little bit like magical juggling, I guess is, is, is what? That is um and uh. I, I I just feel like magicians are trapped by the format and and that it's you know what.
Speaker 1:What. What would be great is they can use creativity, not just to change the, the, the sort of, the nuances of, of of the objects that they're apparently, you know, doing magic things, magic things with, but change the format, do it in a different way. You don't need to have that like eight-minute sort of act structure where you're standing on a stage with a table and a thing and producing and banishing stuff. You know, don't just change the content, change the box that you're in. There you go, there's my banishment.
Speaker 3:Well, I think you've. So there are a couple of really interesting points which harken back to other episodes that we've had as well. So we had someone's banishment on a previous episode be karaoke magic and I think that maybe that is sort of part of the point that you're making. Maybe that is sort of part of the point that you're making.
Speaker 1:I think that magicians need to ask themselves the question and this is not just magicians that do that kind of performance, but the question why? Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? And and if your answer is anything other than you know, if your answer answer is essentially because I like it, or because you know, or because I saw someone do this and I thought it was cool, so I want to do it, then then you're that you that you need to think again. You know the the because, that why question is that's the first thing that the audience is going to ask themselves. And if they, if you don't know, then how can they possibly know? You know? Um, so I think, I think that that that having your work make sense to you is a really, really good rule of thumb.
Speaker 1:And you know producing CDs, or you know, I mean, it's just arbitrary, isn't it? It's like doves is entirely arbitrary. Why? Why doves and not cucumbers? You know it. It doesn't. It literally doesn't make any sense. Um, not least, you know, I think I think we should move away from dove magic now. Anyway, because you know it's it. I think, I think it's reasonably cruel. I think that tucking a bird into a tight space is something that we can leave in the previous century and we can be more creative. So, yeah, I've not made any friends saying that, but I think maybe these are the harsh truths saying that, but I think maybe these are the harsh truths.
Speaker 3:I would like to see one day a manipulation act mixed with a danger act, where the things that they're manipulating they start with set mousetraps and then they work up to crossbows. I think that would make it more interesting start working on that.
Speaker 1:I'd wait to see you do that well, that brings us to your book.
Speaker 3:So what did you put in your book position?
Speaker 1:well, I think I would, and this sounds really bad, but I, you know, I haven't performed magic in 20 years and and so if you'd asked me that question 20 years ago I would have, through nostalgia, probably picked the royal road, because that was my first magic proper.
Speaker 1:You know, proper magic book and and you know it's, it's, it's a lot of people's first, you know it's, it's. It's important, that book, um, now I think I'll probably pick my book, and the reason I say that is because you know it's got it's it. The first third of that book is is like a little biography, um, with with loads of pictures of, of, you know, pete and ali and monkey and and you know, and all of that stuff. So, you know, trapped on a desert island, it would be a good aid memoir, um, not just to you know my, my life, but then also the routines and stuff that I, that I created there's. It is literally that book is everything that I ever came up with um and and performed from from the beginning of my career. So it would be a good little sort of sit down and reminisce on the desert island well I.
Speaker 3:So I was going to mention this at the end of the podcast, um, but we have had this book referenced on the podcast before, so we have had people reference uh, this. And I distinctly remember being at blackpool, um, and someone saying to me you have to get jon Jonathan Goodwin's book. And I said, oh, are the routines good on there then? Are they like his escapology, what is it about? And they said no, no, I haven't got to the tricks, I've just I'm halfway through the biography.
Speaker 3:But they said the things that they've learned in your biography for them was worth the price of that book, and they hadn't finished that. So it's just a testament to how you really must have just packed this book with so much. I mean, even in this podcast, I mean we've been talking now for an hour and a half, for an hour and a half, and the stories, the behind the scenes sort of look at things, the way that you think, some of the amazing things that you've had the opportunity to do. I can imagine that that book must just be like like literally reading through someone's entire life.
Speaker 1:It must just be like we're experiencing what you have vicariously through that book that was the aim of it really, and you know that I, I uh, you know, after I had my accident, I, I, um, I had basically decided, you know that that was my career, I was done, I'm retired, uh, and I'd sort of made my peace with that. But I wanted to find a sort of cathartic way to kind of put a full stop on it, and so that's why I wrote it, and so it really is the book of everything that I did. And, yeah, people have been very kind when you put yourself out there, and in a very total way. That's quite a difficult thing to kind of. You know, you hope people are going to like it and people have been very, very kind about it. So, thank you, that means a lot.
Speaker 3:Well, we haven't mentioned the book's name yet, so why don't we mention the book's name, just so that people can look for it and hopefully pick one up? Sure.
Speaker 1:So it's called the Method to my Madness, and actually the only place that you can get it is from me. My website is thedaredevilcom and there's a little magicians and escape artists sort of only section with a password-protected area. The password is case-sensitive in two and I'll I'll leave it at that um, uh and um, and so, yeah, you can, you can, you can pick it up, um from from me and uh, and yeah, send me a little message. It's always nice to to get uh little comments and stuff when people get in touch, so that would be lovely.
Speaker 3:Well, that leads us very nicely onto your final thing, which is very sad, because I'm really enjoying listening to this and talking to you, but what did you put in your item spot?
Speaker 1:So this is a luxury item, right.
Speaker 3:It can be anything you want. If you really want, you can take Pete Furman so you can slap him with those fish.
Speaker 1:You know what An eternity on a desert island with Pete Furman albeit he's one of my best friends sounds like an absolute nightmare, and I know he would agree as well. He wouldn't want to come, so that's definitely not happening. I think I'd probably take, uh, I'd probably take amanda, I'd take my wife, um, uh, just because, uh, you know we and I know that's a really sloppy thing, but but we, I think that that, uh, one of the secrets to the life generally is to not take it too seriously. Uh, none of us are getting out of here alive and, uh and uh, we just make each other laugh all day, every day, and so that is something that I would really miss. And so, yeah, she's probably going to come along too well, I think that's a great choice.
Speaker 3:So let's just revisit your list again. We start with brainwave. The fish slap prediction said it right that time. A crossbow routine, blackstone, floating light bulb, moretti, carball box, no bull car off cliff burned at the stake. Your banishment was silent manipulation routines, your book was the method to my madness and your item was your wife. What a great list.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much. What a pleasure that was. That was fun. I enjoyed that, jamie, it was really good.
Speaker 3:I'm sure we've. Well, I enjoyed it, so I'm sure everyone else listening is enjoying it as well. But if people want to find more about you, jonathan, I know that at the beginning of the podcast you mentioned that you do still lecture. So if people want to find out more about you, about what you're up to, lecturing, your book, uh, consultancy, all that good stuff where can they go?
Speaker 1:um, well, probably social media is is the easiest way to to kind of keep up to date with, with what I do. My instagram, um is uh, jonathan goodwin, uh, official um, and my website is the daredevilcom um. So, yeah, please, um, we, we have a bunch of of different exciting projects that I'm, that I'm working on this year, um, that people will probably see my name sort of attached to this and that. So I'm very happy to work as a consultant. I'm doing that for a number of different performers at the minute. I enjoy writing and creating magic tricks and making things better. It's a lot of fun. And, yeah, look out for no Bull. And if you want a copy of the book just hit me up Amazing.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for your time, jonathan. It's been a great, great episode and thank you all for listening. Now, don't forget, we do have Stranded with a Stranger where you can send in your list of eight tricks, one management, one book and one non-magic item that you use for magic. Simply send your list to sales at alakazamcouk with the subject line my desert island tricks. That way it comes through to me and we can get one of these recorded for you. Of course, don't forget to put the reasons behind your selections and send your bio through to me as well. So thank you all for listening. I'm sure you'll agree. This has been an incredible episode. Do go check out jonathan's website. Do look out for no ball and, of course, we'll see you next week on another episode of desert island tricks.
Speaker 2:Goodbye when I perform at gigs, I look at effects that tick these three boxes. Is it super strong and powerful? Yes, will it last with your spectators for a lifetime? Absolutely, and does it leave them with a souvenir that perfectly captures the moment of magic? If that all sounds exactly what you're after, look no further than the liquid forks. These forks have been custom designed to be able to bend right in front of your spectator's eyes. It's so easy to perform, it's so visual and, trust me, they will honestly keep this impossible object because they've seen it morph in front of their eyes. It literally does the impossible.
Speaker 2:Not only that Liquid Forks comes with 50 of these forks in each pack and it comes with the full Liquid Forks routine taught by the world famous David Penn. Not only that, we have a subscription service. If you guys love these forks and you get through them at your gigs, we now offer a monthly subscription where you get sent a box through every single month at a 10% reduced fee. Like I said, you guys are going to be loving these. You're going to be performing them every chance. You can Trust me, the reactions are second to none. So, guys, head over to alakazamcouk, pick up a set of Liquid Forks. You will not regret it. Easy to do, leaves them with a killer souvenir. And, to be honest with you, it's not cards, it's not coins, it's not mentalism.
Speaker 1:It's something beyond belief. The leaf. Check out now, guys, the liquid forks.