Musings about the Edinburgh Fringe
5 Dos and Don’ts about being a magician
Here’s something I wrote for the Evening News in 2009 to publicise my 18th Birthday Fringe show. I still stand up most of it 🙂
Five dos and don’ts about being a Magician. By Ian Kendall.
1. Do choose your performing name wisely. Uncle Chuckles may seem out of place if you do Bizzarre Magik or mind reading. Similarly, Zander the Knower of Men will make you stand out in the Kids’ Party circuit. And not in a good way.
2. Don’t force your magic on unsuspecting strangers. Yes, your family may be used to you starting every conversation with ‘pick a card’, […]
Things that go bump in the dark
This is a clip from my 2008 Edinburgh Fringe show ‘The Golden Age of Magic’. It revolves around the Davenport brothers, who performed spiritualist seances in and around London in the mid-19th Century.
It’s Fringe time again
So, where have I been?
After the usual trip to Spain to visit the in-laws (which is always fun) we are now back in Edinburgh doing the magic thing. The Fringe, which some would say is my raison-d’être, started yesterday in its unofficial capacity, and tomorrow officially.
This year I’m doing only one show, on the 21st, and the rest of the time I’m doing street magic shows on the High Street. This means I get time to spend watching the world on this frighteningly crowded road instead of manically flyering as I’ve done for the last fifteen years and more. And […]
The Lenny Henry incident
The year was 1997, and it was time to be a magician in the Edinburgh Fringe again. This would be my first year in the Southside without my friend Mitch Benn and to make things more interesting I was also planning to do a show in the Lab with another friend Stuart Potter called Science Made Easy. Things were not to go to plan…
The Lab was Southside maestro Lance Buckland’s idea to make the Edinburgh Fringe more accessable to ‘experimental’ shows. Based in a very small room in the new Southside ‘over the road’Â it had twenty seats, basic […]
A new thunk about the Edinburgh Fringe
Since the Fringe is about the land on the city like a huge alien robot foot crushing hapless National Guardsmen in a 1950s horror movie I seem to be spending some time mulling over the last couple of decades, and how things have changed in recent years.
One of the more quoted facts about the Fringe in general (apart from it being the largest arts festival and how good the ticket system is now) is that anyone can take part. While this is true in principle, the reality is a long way off.
Yes, if you can stump up the three hundred […]