A GOOD MAGIC FRIEND OF MINE has just come back from a magic convention in South America. He says it was a good event but what stood out was the number of magicians all doing the Racoon Routine EXACTLY like David Williamson. Complete with munchie, munchie, munchie, the Tonto and Madonna impersonation and “live animals not allowed in this restaurant sir!”

This is the awful legacy of the internet and DVD’s where magicians the world over are buying the work of a famed performer and repeating it exactly, rather than finding their own interpretation and injecting their own personality into a routine. It’s sad.

Paul Daniels always said he read the instructions of an effect he’d bought, threw them away and then worked out his own routine that echoed his personality. One look at his high speed chop cup routine will confirm the wisdom of personalising a trick around your personna. It’s unlike any chop cup routine that is done by the thousand every saturday night in a restaurant somewhere.

To be a successful magician you have to sell yourself first and hang your magic on your personality. Channing Pollock did it. Fred Kaps did it. Ken Brooke did it. (I once saw a London magician do a Ken Brooke routine and unknowingly slip into a Yorkshire accent Awful.)

So many magicians copied Don Alan’s magic routines and very personal patter and material that he abdicated from the magic world and didn’t appear at a magic convention for ten years To be succesful and connect with your audience you must develop your own personality. Read chapter 19 of the new book “KISS”

Filed under: Magic Miscellanea