Road Mage: Dear Geoffrey,

I'm currently studying Drama and Theatre Studies, at Trinity College Dublin - under the kindly tutoring of your friend Chrissy Poulter. Anyway I've become very interested in the relationship with Theatre and Magic and the ways in which the two art forms meet - I was wondering since you worked on the magic side of the new Tommy Cooper stage show in London, in what ways do you feel magic and theatre could meet. Do you think it might be possible to say make illusions work in a production of classic plays such as Macbeth for example.

Thanks a lot!

Geoffrey Durham: Hi Road Mage

Thank you for the message - and please give my best to Chrissie Poulter when you next see her.

Well, absolutely! I think that magic and theatre are inextricably linked, and they have huge amounts to learn from each other.

Working with actors as a magic advisor has been a big part of my life for over twenty years now. I have worked on TV shows (Dr Who, for example) and stage musicals (Oliver! at the London Palladium, Jesus Christ Superstar at the Lyceum among many others), with comedians (The Fast Show, The League of Gentlemen etc) and on a lot of straight plays. The show about Tommy Cooper is the latest of these. It is unusual in that I worked with just one actor, and my brief was to teach him a huge amount of material. In all, Jerome Flynn learned about 90 minutes of magic, of which about 75 minutes ended up being used in the show.

It was also unusual in that I was teaching actual tricks - magic with a beginning and a middle and an end. That's very unusual in magic advising. Normally I am required to work with actors on effects - appearing in a flash from nowhere, shooting flame from the fingertips - but not on actual tricks as we know them. But poor old Jerome Flynn was learning the Die Box and the Multiplying Bottles and the Tissue to Flowers, and having to learn the timing and come up with the goods every night.

And he's done brilliantly. He's acquired a real understanding of how magic works, and he's a real whiz with a thumbtip!

Funnily enough, my first ever magic advising job was on Macbeth. It was a production about 20 years ago starring Deborah Findlay as Lady Macbeth, and it was directed by Roger Michell, who later went on to direct Notting Hill. I had to make the witches disappear, which we did using a big hessian cloak and a stage trap, cause apparitions to rise from a cauldron (Okito Floating Ball techniques worked very well for this), and make Banquo's ghost turn up at the feast (a sort of reverse De Kolta Chair). It was wonderful be in the audience watching my own tricks! And even better to hear them gasp!

It can be frustrating working as a magic adviser. Actors can be lazy (I sometimes believe that they think there's such a thing as magic!) and directors can take you for granted. But if you come to the production early enough, and learn to work well with designers, it's a very fulfilling way to work as a magician.

There isn't much written on the subject, but one of the introductions to the Tarbell Course has a wonderful little article about it. Look it up. It is worth your time.

Geoffrey

Road Mage: Dear Geoffrey,

Thanks very much for such a fascinating and long response. I will defiantly take a look at the article you mentioned and will of course give my regards to Chrissy.

Thanks once again,

Owen

Graham: Mr Durham,

Anyone who has witnessed the work of, say, Eugene Burger or Ricky Jay will have seen that by concentrating on the framing of a piece, a basic "Pick a card and now I will find it" effect can be raised to the level of a miracle. The emotional investment of the audience brought out through the narrative skills of the performer.

Tuesday's "Countdown" demonstrated this with your talking about "impossible objects". Making the link between a coin in a bottle and optical illusion prints. Brilliant!

So now the question. Framing: what are your points of reference and inspiration?

kind regards,

Graham Nichols

Geoffrey Durham: Hi Graham

Thank you for your question - I have greatly enjoyed your input this week.

I'm not sure I'd call it framing (I don't know what I'd call it!) because it is really just an instinctive response to the challenges thrown up by any given piece of material. Nobody ever wanted to see a trick, so you need to give the trick life by giving it a context and place to be.

When I decided to do the Coin in Bottle on Countdown (an intellectual quiz show let's remember) I knew that I couldn't put the money in and then take it out in the usual way. The rhythm of the show somehow wouldn't allow it. It needed to be given a context of some kind.

So then I thought about putting the coin in and not taking it out, and I experimented for a while with the cap in the bottle instead, but reckoned the coin was stronger... And then I realised that the coin in the bottle is actually an impossible object, which can be handled by the spectator.

So then I tried putting it into a little piece about impossible objects, and it began to look a bit more promising. I tried about four or five different ideas for impossible objects, until I finally came to the conclusion that to make the coin in bottle the climax of the piece, I should use two pictures of objects and make the last one a physical artefact that could be examined.

At last I had a context in which the trick might have some life.

So I commissioned Peter Crush to make me a £2 coin that could be seen in close-up (i.e. without a grooved edge), and it arrived two days before the recording and I went ahead and did it!

To be honest, I'm quite surprised that you liked it. I thought it was a fairly commonplace little spot without a great deal to recommend it. So I'm especially grateful for your kind remarks.

As I've been writing this, I've worked out that I think I would prefer the word "hook" to the word "frame". I think that (exactly like a song or a joke) you need a hook. You need it for everything in show business. It probably doesn't matter greatly what it is, so long as you've got it. A witty or interesting little context for the trick to live in. That's all.

Geoffrey

dk_the_magician: Mr Durham,

Saw your lecture at Watford some time ago and took a great deal away also got me thinking liked the use of the old footage of magicians. It was so refreshing to see a lecture that was not all just “me, me, me” and give room to some of the masters we younger magicians will never get to see.

We had a long running thread on when things go wrong and outs etc some time ago. Judging by the number of shows, and years you have been performing, Murphy’s Law states there is a high possibility something has gone wrong while you have been performing. I fine we can learn so much about how a professional plans for all eventualities, I’ve heard of magicians that carry a complete back up of there whole act.

Questions

What was the worse moment you have had while performing?
Have you any back up plans or precautions you follow for the “just in case”?
And lastly do you think you can over plan and over rehearse?

Darren

Geoffrey Durham: Hi Darren

A very good topic, and yes, of course, things go wrong all the time!

At the end of Magic As a Hobby, Bruce Elliott alludes to this, and says, "But these things will happen and the time will come when they won't upset you in the least, when you will be able to turn the worst accident to your advantage."

Oh, I wish!

I guess I have occasionally managed to turn a mishap round in that way, but it's been very rare. The most I can say is that at least two or three things go somewhat awry every time I do the two hour show (how could they not?) and I honestly don't think the audience ever knows that anything is amiss.

I'm on my summer break at the moment, but the last time I did the show about ten days ago, my beloved old Egg Bag (with which Ken Brooke taught me the trick in 1976) split at the seams while I was in the middle of the trick. I was worried enough to check afterwards, but it did appear that nobody in the audience had noticed anything wrong.

You ask if I have contingency plans. Well, yes. There is actually a ready-set-up Egg Bag on the side every time I do that trick - but that is because I do it with a fragile blown egg, and I need to know I can reach for a new prop any time I like. There is also a spare of every trick I use in the show in a flight-case specially set aside for the purpose. My Stage Manager looks after it, and can come up with the right new prop at a moment's notice.

Nothing utterly disastrous has so far happened in theatre show. I think the worst experience I've ever had was on a live TV about twelve years ago, when I performed my 4 pint Hydrostatic Glass over a TV presenter's head. The whole thing went wrong (I still don't know why) and he got absolutely drenched. Not only that, we were at the beginning of a chat show, and the foam-filled sofa got utterly waterlogged. Every guest for the hour after me was sitting in a quagmire.

There really is nothing you can do to save that situation, except to say, "Does anybody want to buy a trick?"

You ask if a magician can over-plan, or over-rehearse. Over-rehearse, definitely. Rehearsal can only take you so far, and after that you need to need to get out there and learn your craft with real people in real situations. Over-plan? I'm not sure ... I think planning is a very useful thing to learn. If you have a plan for when things might go wrong, it's common sense that you'll handle it better when they do. But like everything, it's possible to take it all to far. Spontaneity is a vital ingredient in every good magician's work, and we must never compromise that.

Geoffrey

Aged Magician: Many of the people who watched the TV presenter get soaked were convinced that that was part of the effect!!

dk_the_magician: Thank you Mr Durham, some great advice.

Darren

Huw Collingbourne: I just received an email from Dover books to say that they have now reprinted Scarne's Magic Tricks:

http://www.doverpublications.com/mg0703/

The publishers add: "We're always interested in publishing more books about magic" and to that end, they want suggestions for other out of print titles.

Dover, of course, already publishes many classics including The Royal Road To Card Magic, Bobo's Modern Coin Magic and Annemann's Practical Mental Magic. Over the past few days you have recommended a few out of print books. If you were Dover's commissioning editor, which titles would you want them to reprint?

Best wishes

Huw

Geoffrey Durham: Hi Huw

Well I have no idea who owns the copyright on this stuff, and I'm not sure I'd want all of it in regular bookshops, but here is a small selection out of the top of my head:

MY BEST J.G. Thompson Jnr (a delightful book consisting of the best tricks of the leading magicians of the day - round about 1945, I would guess).

MARVELS OF MYSTERY John Booth (an excellent volume of cabaret magic by the then unbelievably young and precocious magician.)

PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATIONS Al Koran (His first book, and probably his best.)

AL KORAN'S LEGACY Hugh Miller (a lovely book of Koran material published after his death.)

THE FINE ART OF MAGIC George Kaplan (The best-kept secret in all magic - a fantastic book. Vernon's thinking before Vernon was published.)

OKITO ON MAGIC Theo Bamberg (An excellent book by one of the great old-time masters.)

LESSONS IN CONJURING David Devant (The title says it all.)

HARBINCADABRA Robert Harbin (All Harbin's articles for Abra written from the early 50's onwards. A goldmine.)

ROUTINED MANIPULATION Lewis Ganson - 3 volumes (Another goldmine - the best stand-up and close-up tricks of the day (1960s?) written up with a brilliant attention to detail.)

And finally

THE MAGICIAN'S OWN BOOK W.H. Cremer (Written around 1865 at a guess - a wonderful, hilarious volume of stuff good, bad and indifferent. "To Make Boiled Crabs Walk Out of a Dish". "To Blow Off Your Hat". "To Hold Up a Pail of Water on Two Knives Thrust into a Melon". It's a treat - and I'm actually doing a trick from it on TV quite soon!)

I hope you get something from this. I'm sure there are lots more I could have chosen.

Geoffrey