The holy grail of public speaking

My interview with Matthew J Dowden went online this morning (click on the link to read it). Matthew is a very successful magician, who combines formidable technical ability with enthusiastic and engaging delivery. In the interview, he emphasises the importance of building up the technical skill before concentrating on the presentation – and I completely agree with him. Being funny and entertaining is no substitute for being able to do the moves smoothly and invisibly.

However, once you’ve honed your magical skills, you need to turn your attention to how you’re going to present your tricks for maximum impact. Practising your patter is as important as practising your moves. Without the technical skill, you won’t be taken very seriously as a magician. Without engaging delivery, you won’t be hired very often as an entertainer.

In his own words, Matthew described what I consider to be the holy grail of public speaking: rehearsed spontaneity.

You can read about how to achieve this yourself on my website Public Speaking Skills.

Never assume!

It's Mothers' Day and I'm remembering a magic lecture I went to a few years ago. The magician produced a bunch of flowers (or something - I can't remember the effect but it's not the point) and said, "At this point, I always say, 'You can give these to your mom'. Everyone has a mom and everyone's happy to celebrate her."

This is just not true, even in America. I looked at my friend Iain, whose mother had recently died, and along the row to another friend, whose mother is so critical and controlling that it's as much as he can do to tolerate her, never mind celebrate.

As magicians, playing to crowds of people we've never met, we need to remember that everyone is an individual with a story - and how easy it can be to alienate someone with a casual, well-intentioned remark.

Awkward situations may arise when we're ad-libbing, as happened to Michael Finney at the 2008 IBM British Ring convention. He misunderstood what a volunteer from the audience meant when she said she was a carer for her husband, and started making jokes about women waiting on their partners. Fortunately, Michael realised before he went too far but it was slightly embarrassing and a lesson to us all to check, particularly in an international context, what the person means before we start being funny.

This sort of thing has happened to most of us (I've done some awful ones) but what we can prevent more easily is gaffes in our scripted patter.

Thoughts after South Tyneside

The magic convention that's been held in South Shields, near Newcastle, for the past few years is going from strength to strength. There was an excellent line-up again this year and some of the highlights for me were:

Paul Daniels, who, as we all know, is an outstanding magician and entertainer and is also a very nice, straightforward man. Paul performed some wonderful magic at the gala show. It was the first time I'd seen him live and he was great. I was also lucky enough to be standing in the dealers' room at the right time and had a little chat with Paul about Manchester and the theatres he's played there. I'd thought he might be a bit scary to talk to but not at all.

Banachek, the amazing mentalist. During the gala show, he picked a few audience members at random and divined facts about them that he couldn't possibly have guessed. Unless he set this up in advance, which I know he didn't, I can't begin to imagine how he achieved this. I'm not normally very excited by mentalism but this was truly astonishing.

Paul Romhany, whom I didn't know before but whom I liked very much, particularly his lecture. He is from New Zealand, lives in Canada and travels almost constantly, so he knows a lot about packing small and playing big, as well as how to cope with airlines losing one's props. He gave us some nifty ideas for how to create the same effects with everyday objects rather than expensively gaffed equipment. Apart from the nightmare of losing one's luggage, this is handy for those of us who can't afford to buy pricey props in the first place.

Bob Sheets, who is famous for his three-shell game (find the pea under one of the walnut shells) but also does a lot of other cool tricks. I particularly enjoyed his lecture and was inspired to make my only purchase of the convention, a version of the three-card monte, done with jumbo cards.


John Archer was at his best compering the Friday evening show and his friend Tim Vine compered on Saturday. Tim Vine is not a magician but he is a great comedian. I went to his show at The Lowry Theatre in Salford a few years ago and John Archer was his warm-up. My friend and I had a drink with them afterwards, which was lovely. My sister really wanted to come to the show but she was in the middle of exams in Oxford so she couldn't. I told this to Tim and he wrote her a long and friendly note wishing her good luck. What a nice bloke!

Tim Vine (my own pic, not very good - sorry, Tim!)

Apart from the magic convention, I always enjoy visiting South Shields. It's a smallish town on the north-east coast, with a few good restaurants (we had an excellent dinner at Pacino's) and a relaxed atmosphere. I love the sea and it's also handy being 20 minutes on the metro from Newcastle. If I didn't live in Manchester, that area would definitely be my second choice.

South Shields park and harbour

Magic in fiction

My sister and brother-in-law are vicars and we sometimes talk about how sad it is that clergypeople on television are so often portrayed as perverted and sinister and/or spineless and grovelling. (The Vicar of Dibley is an obvious and welcome exception.)

I find it interesting also to see how magicians are portrayed in fiction. I don't mean magick fiction, because that's not really my cup of tea and I don't read it (although I do like magic realism but that's another story, as it were). I mean books and films about conjurors.

There seems to be quite a lot of variety as regards fictional magicians: some are rather foolish (Mitchell & Webb's Magicians, Adam Klaus in Jonathan Creek), many are ruthless (the rivals in The Prestige, Henri Lambert in The Magician's Wife, the magician behind The Magician's Tale), some are weak and a bit annoying (Marty Quick in 52 Ways to Magic America, William Wilson in The Bullet Trick), a few are downright criminal (The Vanished Man) and others are just weird (as in The Spirit Cabinet). The magician tends to emerge as more of a hero if he's based on someone who actually lived (Carter Beats the Devil, The War Magician).

In many cases, the magician's whole life is shrouded in mystery, and the fact that he has made a career out of conjuring is just an extension of - and a metaphor for - his living a life of illusion (Jennifer Johnston's Illusionist, Parsifal in Ann Patchett's The Magician's Assistant). I like this angle - as, I believe, does my friend Marc Oberon. He has lent and given me several books about magicians and is a somewhat mysterious character himself.