Musings about magic, performance and the like
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 […]
Ah, the Sunday papers
At the start of the week I was interviewed by Peter Ross of Scotland on Sunday for an article about the magic scene in Scotland. After a while of getting the various photographs taken (which involved springing and then picking up about three hundred playing cards) we had a lovely chat about magic in Scotland, and how things are changing.
Peter was most interested about the various skill levels involved, and the teaching aspect (at least from my point of view). We talked about Gordon Bruce and Roy Walton (Gordon was another interviewee) and the current problems with performing shows for […]
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’ it had twenty seats, basic […]
A wonderful magic birthday in Carnoustie
On Saturday I drove up to the rather splendid Carnoustie Golf Hotel in Scotland for a surprise 50th birthday party for Derek. His wife had planned a full weekend with eighteen of their closest friends, and I was asked along to perform some magic for them.
I arrived and had to hide in the car park until they were all in the restaurant before I could take my stuff up to the Hogan suite (more on that later), get ready and come back down for the close up magic session. I approached the table, said hello to Derek and quickly lost the […]