the Way of the Showman
Philosophical and esoteric perspectives from a modern day Showman.
Each season is different in its approach. S1 is essays. S2 is one book length attempt at Understanding Showmanship, S3 is conversations with remarkable Showfolk. The brand new Season 4 explores the relationship between Showmanship and Play.
The host, Captain Frodo, internationally renowned circus performer, director, writer, husband and dad lays out, in great detail, his practical performance philosophy for performers who seek to deepen the conversation with their audiences and themselves. You can find him, and more of his writing at: www.thewayoftheshowman.com
the Way of the Showman
160 - From Poolside Jam to Cabaret Juggernaut with Paul Dabek & Captain Frodo
We trace the unlikely arc that carried poolside pandemic brainstorms into London Calling, a high-velocity variety show that’s genuinely all-ages without sanding off its edge.
As the Pandemic hit Las Vegas Paul Dabek and Captain Frodo dreamt by the pool of acts, podcast, and shows. As it turned out these dreams all came to fruition.
We get specific about how the show grew: a clear adult-facing voice, visuals that enchant kids on contact, and design that marries LED world-building with just a few tactile anchors—a lamppost here, an oak bar to sell entire neighborhoods of London. We talk quiet-loud pacing, compress-then-expand staging, and the power of a loose narrative frame (train rides, stations, quick jumps) that keeps momentum without burying acts in exposition. Think Covent Garden street magic flowing into Wimbledon athleticism, all while the ensemble’s micro-moments—prop handoffs, shared looks, quick riffs—telegraph trust.
Paul Dabeck opens the hood on the growth curve: from small houses and street pitches to winning pick of the fringe and selling five-figure ticket totals. He shares the marketing pivots that worked, why “family-friendly” is a tone not a label, and how sweat equity turned Facebook Marketplace parts into automated scenic that looks West End-ready. We also dive into his Vegas warehouse: a black box, workshop, and filming space evolving into Make It Rain, a community hub for artists to prototype, connect, and protect their mental health. It’s church-without-religion, where the faith is craft and the sermon is showing up.
If you care about showmaking—stagecraft, culture, and the long game of compounding relationships—this one’s a blueprint. We leave you with blunt takeaways: risk with purpose, design worlds with one tactile anchor, market like a story, film your late refinements, build a culture of generosity, and ship version one before you feel ready. Subscribe, share with a friend who builds in public, and drop us a note about the project you’re making right now. What plate are you willing to smash to make it sing?
You can find Paul at all the usual social media platforms and at his website @ PaulDabek.com
...
After a long abscence our Merch Shop is back! Check out t-shirts, hoddies, and hats! Show yourself as a Follower of the Way of the Showman.
You can also "listen" to the Way of the Showman at youtube.
If you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.
If you want to contact me about anyhthing ou can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.com
You can find out more on the Way of the Showman website.
Follow the Way of the Showman on Instagram.
If you're compelled to suport the showes and have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo
Greetings, fellow travelers, and welcome to the Way of the Showman, where we view the world through the lens of showmanship. I am Captain Frodo, and I will be your host and your guide along the way. And today we are talking to my good old friend Paul Dabeck. And how he has not ended up on the podcast is a little bit of a mystery that I've been doing the podcast and he was there right when it started, when the pandemic uh hit. Me and him were both in Vegas, and we were pondering what to do with our lives as uh the showbiz world died, as I described in episode one of this podcast. And uh um yeah, we talk about it uh I think I'm not even sure, but I did meet uh meet Paul for the first time when we did a gig together in uh Cape Town in South Africa, and we shared a dressing room down in uh wonderful theater there, and uh really connected quite deeply. Peculiar circumstances and things uh going on all around us, and uh we just uh yeah, really found a very good tone and it has continued and um as you will hear we our collaborations uh continue and because we've sort of been working a lot together the last uh few years or so on uh London Calling, um we keep thinking that okay, once we get uh to once I get to Australia I will record some episodes, but we have not managed to do it until my second time uh in Vegas in 2025. And because of a full schedule, I didn't manage to uh squeeze him into 2025, but here we are, straight off the bat, into 2026 with my good friend Paul Dubeck. When we have been doing projects together in Australia with your show uh London Calling, then it's uh you're doing so much that it's just never been uh We've never managed to sit down.
SPEAKER_00:No. Which is wild also because I was thinking about it. I was like, also, I think I was around certainly, or one of the people we would be jamming about the way of the showman podcast when I mean it's very much been a sort of solo quest journey, but I can remember as we've just sat here and done, uh you know, we seem to have this lovely shorthand. I remember us kind of talking about it and you just sort of sometimes just speaking it into existence to someone is enough. Oh yeah, and you jamming on the book your book and the the podcast and what have you, and what it could be, and obviously the time it came, grew, it grew very much out of the kind of poetry that we almost had to have at looking at the world at that time. It I remember listening, I haven't managed to catch an episode for a little while, but I remember listening to that first season, as it were, which was very emotional almost and thought-provoking, and people really found it a kind of a balm on the the kind of scarring that the industry was going through. But it really did come out of that time and when we were here together.
SPEAKER_03:And important things like uh I've spoken about on the podcast before the plate spinning act that I had been talking about. Yes, and what we jammed out on sitting by the pool there, or like or the couple of times when we talk, that really became the kind of cornerstone of that show that I did, which to me was like the only big uh cr uh sh uh uh presentation of new material or so when I got back to Norway. And yeah, that's right. Shows got cancelled left, right, and centre, and I was in town, and they went, Can you come in and do it?
SPEAKER_00:And it's so funny, actually, also what that at least because obviously uh I haven't seen it in English. I don't have even seen it in Norwegian, but you know, I we talked about it after it happened, and it also had a weird poetic element of what was going on in the world because I was like, Oh, it has to be all crashing around you. It has to finish with it all just yeah, is that how it finishes with everything falling down?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and well, it finishes with me, and it was the it like that first session that we had where it went from being um about like because you always with plate spinning, you got the plates going, and then something else is going on.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but usually spoons and glasses or a juggling thing, or yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So there's there's some other thing that you want to do so that uh it has an ending or something because that's what I was after.
SPEAKER_00:You keep going to you keep ha there needs to be it's almost like the uh whatever the trick is, is like the last big plate that you're going to, and then you have to put it down because you've got to go and keep fixing, and that's the it's the um it's the uh not friction, it's the every good story needs conflict or like conflict, but it's a conflict.
SPEAKER_03:To me, it's it's the it's the you have once you start doing the plates, uh then there is an inevitability about it. You have a stack of plates, yeah, and then we go, okay, well, so we know what the Okay, we know where this is going on.
SPEAKER_00:I always felt like that about dove acts when when you see a a magician and there's a a cage on stage, and in the first minute they produce a dove, and you go, Well, I don't know how many or how slick it's gonna be, but I can see a dove. I know that, and maybe it's a magician thing, but I see a birdcage on stage. And I always thought that was so weird. And when I used to do a dove act when I first started, all I did was turn the birdcage around.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So the front had the bars and the back had the cloth at the back, so it just turned the other, so it was just a black box on stage. And then I I would never produce my first dove till a minute and a half into the routine, into the yeah, the routine. And when that first dove appeared a minute and a half into this magic routine, the reaction was huge. And then I would just turn the cage round and put the dove in, and then obviously there's a few more coming. But same thing with the plates.
SPEAKER_03:So it's inevitability, and I'm going the the ending that we're always after, I think, is inevitabil inevitable, yet surprising. Yeah. And it's the yet surprising thing that came in once I cracked together with you that it was like, oh, maybe the the whole thing about reading the poem is what we are trying to do. Once that came in and then the burning book and all of these things.
SPEAKER_00:That gave you the um that gave you the uh license to to do that. But the great thing about that compared to other plates from the act, is that it had surprises in each time that you came back to the book, instead of almost being a mini, like the spoons and the cut uh glasses, great trick. But it's all m again, it's got an inevitability and you're kind of doubling down on the same thing.
SPEAKER_03:Now you do one trick and then you do another trick and then it's done. But the the thing about the that was so genius that that uh we sort of fla hashed out in two two main sessions by the pool is what then happens in the end when you are standing and you're reading the poem and the plates are coming smashing down. Where like that's also a a real a real turn.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a it's a it's a turn that you saw. It's so surprising. So then it goes. And yeah, it's so well also because there's a slight um there's a s there's a slight kind of indulgence because you've got to crash a bunch of plates, you know. Um that makes it just so wonderful. It's like the difference of like Yeah, it's just there's something about that, you know, uh whatever the tricks are that use, you know, uh things that you can never use again, you know, mouth coils or whatever. But there's something about exactly that in the slapdash way in which you I just watched, I just was on tour with Piff All-Star. So it was Piff and four four other acts.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And uh they'd licensed the human fountains from um America's Got Talent, which is a bunch of guys, you know, spitting water out. And it was so interesting because I'd seen it on TV. I was like, yeah, novelty act, whatever. When I saw it done live on stage, it was so great because it's so silly, but there was one thing that made it so wonderful, which is they do not put down a tarp or a paddling pool or anything. They're spitting water out onto a live stage. And if they'd have literally put something out, even if you just saw a little moment or whatever, it just wouldn't be as good. It's like your confetti. It's the it's the opulence are just doing it. It's it's not funny if it's if it's uh if it's not uh potentially gonna short the the stage, or you know, I don't under really quite know how to put it, but I think it's the same as a lot of clown bits where you steal a drink or you put some water out of the thing and spit some water on. There's something about the chaos and the and the oh my god, I can't believe they just splashed water on the stage. Something we wouldn't do normally that makes it work.
SPEAKER_03:When I just did La Clique with them in July, and they uh have a bit where he's he's drinking the beer and then spits it back in the audience. It is so simple. Somebody gives them a free drink later, someone's just paying attention, and it's like but the shock of of this, or like he he's nude, yeah, and he puts his balls in someone's drink to hide it, yeah, or whatever.
SPEAKER_00:And it it just just like And you cannot have the audience see what you know will happen, which is somebody come over and give the drink or or say, you know, like this my biggest pet peeve in shows where they do something like that, and then they'd just the the moment the lights go down, you see an usher go to them and sort it all out, and it's like just wait a little while.
SPEAKER_03:Just wait until the focus has fully fully uh because it's so great. Yeah, yeah. Like there's a lot of people. What's something about that that makes it anarchic and kind of punk?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Even though we are like everything is taken care of, no one is being out of business area. If it's a someone has an issue, then the drink is organized ahead of time. Whatever it is solved.
SPEAKER_00:You know, there's an old bit where yeah, and uh you pick up a child and turn them upside down, you've got a handful of change, and it looks like you've just shake shaken them for change. Yeah. It it the reason that bit kills and is so inappropriate in lesser performers' hands is that you have to literally treat the kid like a prop and send them back and then not go over and go, is everything okay? Oh, that wasn't really his money and whatever else. And yet it all, like David Devant, has to be done with kindness. Yeah, and so it's like that's why that bit is so great, because you never see them go over and go, oh, everything's okay, and check in with the kid, which is what you as a good citizen should do. Yeah, yeah. But it again, it's that absolute commitment, commit to the bit. Yeah, anyway. So you smash the plates around you, which was what I wanted. But anyway.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and and it's like that was an idea from the very beginning, but of course, uh the pragmatist in me goes, it'd be good if you didn't smash the plates. Yeah, like because you go, because as a result, made that act, did it, and it was epic. And then I thought, okay, I had this other potential to do it. Uh uh, or I had a gig uh at a um uh festival that had a poetry component. I thought, this is just great. Yeah, but I was part of a program and I was on, and then there was a ban right after, and to smash 12 plates on that stage, and the amount of logistics that was involved in making sure that there are not now because it's so much once I when I did it in that other show, and how far it sprays and all of this, it's like this is probably a thing that I should do when I'm doing a show where I can then afterwards make sure that everything is cleaned up, not as part, I mean it's not a lineup show, but it was I'm doing something, and then the people had bought tickets, and there were several components to it. So they are kind of watching, and so anyway, uh but that be that as it may, what I was gonna point out was that around that pool and in this time leading up to the pandemic, and then it solidified during the pandemic, um we also spoke about the podcast. So those things that we were talking about around that time, it all now.
SPEAKER_00:I think London Calling was something we'd I'd uh conceptualized a lot during the pandemic and was gonna be a very different thing. I didn't have you in mind, I didn't have it was gonna be a variety show that basically I could be the star of that was all British themed, and I was thinking of the English gents and mainly other British acts.
SPEAKER_03:That was the that was the angle, and and it was only that was after the pandemic, by the time you were like that was coming back up again or whatever, and in one of our sessions, which I think was just on the phone, but maybe with Dom and uh you and I and Charlie. That was it, but just that the gong it could just be from the city of London, which now that we both have a connection to Matt Apple, I mean you much more than me, of course, for being part of the creation and everything, but uh for us to be to be a show set in a town where not everybody is from New York, because one of the key features of New York from the history of the people coming in and seeing the Statue of Liberty, but the same is for London too. Yeah, it's a metropolitan international town, and once that and of course when you talk about that now, it seems like such an easy leap of logic. Such an easy leap afterwards, you also but but but such it is always with great ideas, it feels like this is inevitable. Yeah, like of course this was what it was supposed to be.
SPEAKER_00:It was so I think also because it came from a more I won't say selfish, but like it came from me wanting to create a vehicle to be the star of. Because I was like, okay, well, I can't get on TV as Paul DeBec, but maybe, but I have been on TV as the host of the illusionists, and you know, uh so I was like, maybe I should create a vehicle that I can be the star of, which would be easier to sell to improve my career than um, you know, uh being a uh trying to do it on my own. So I was trying to, especially having moved to America, play off that British thing.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh ironically, I've spent less time being a Brit in America than I have pretending to be American. But um because in Mad Apple, you know, maybe we could do another episode with Nikki. Yeah. So I'm sure he would love to. It'd be a lot more entertaining than my ramblings. But um uh that was what I thought, and so of course it was oh well like maybe I can use the English gents because they do they they're Australian, but they do a British themed act, and I was thinking of British themed acts rather than acts that are synonymous with London, and then as I started to go, but really I just want great acts, and then I was like, I can't remember the day that I suddenly went to Wimbledon anew and just went well the acts, it's there, and then you and and I think that that really helped I already had this idea of this journey and train stations and travel, so Antya I had worked with for 20, like it when I was 21, like yeah, nearly 20 years ago now.
SPEAKER_03:We had a show at the magic circle.
SPEAKER_00:We did the magic circle, I was 21, uh, and we did a variety show. It was myself, Jeffrey Durham, Antiea Poder, David Kaplan, uh the great Kaplan, and uh who was the other person on that show? Scott Penrose uh was in the opening, and I can't remember who else. There was somebody else in that show. Um but yeah, it just stayed with me. Oh, Danny Cole. Danny Cole and Stacey. So two of my oldest friends in in show business, uh Danny and Stacy Cole that I met there, who I now still just saw Danny and I go over to they live in Hawaii, and uh incredible, incredible magicians. Um and Antia. And Antia's act say with me. I don't think I spoke to Antia for about 11 or 12 years, just because it's one of the people I worked with, yeah. And and I just had that act in my mind of just like and she loves it because she's like, You built a show around my act, because it's you know, the opening. It's hard to imagine anyone else in that spot because the opening is just not only such a great act, but just so of the feel of this journey we're going on that I wanted, and these characters, and then once that started, it just flowed that you know, and I think we've had a couple of shows where there's been two British people in. Yeah, most shows there's been one, and we've got you know, we've had Germany, Mexico, uh, Australia, Norway, Sweden, yeah, yeah. Uh a few folks from the UK, and it's a wide and and it's so much better for it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and the and the concept then it's like there was it's also now seems so easy. It's a journey through London.
SPEAKER_00:But the concept people that live there or have travelled there.
SPEAKER_03:Performing there, or that was brought there for some reason.
SPEAKER_00:And the irony is your career started on the streets of London. Mine certainly uh star a little bit later. I moved to London, but certainly progressed in Covent Garden on the Streets London. Antier I met in London doing a show in London, yeah, you know, um and I solidified myself.
SPEAKER_03:It's like so London's been a part, and then I did my act, uh my tennis act uh inside with Sir uh with with the Happy Side Show and did it the 10,000 times in Street End there, and then came to London, played at uh Royal Festival Hall, and then the year after at uh Queen Elizabeth Hall with Circus Oz. Right, and before that people had gone, oh it's great, and we got on Rove Live, like the main television show, the Letterman Style Show, and through him seeing us at a club, and he came up afterwards. Hey, I'm Rove, and we're gone, you know who it is, and I want you guys on my show, and which anyway, the act was good, but when I then came to England that first season in a 3,000 seater, as opposed to being on a fringe circuit or on the street or whatever, then two of the reviews uh used the word genius to describe it. Being able to put slapstick on that stage, being seen like that, and there was like Tommy Cooper and all these uh uh equivalents were made in reviews, whereas like the first time when it came sort of as a full package, and of course it is I m notice it now too at Mad Apple when there are Brits in there, yeah. They understand how uh that being as stupid and clumsy as I am that that's a skill.
SPEAKER_00:Well that there's uh that there's a um that there's a uh mm maestro, there's a high level of skill to it. I mean it's uh Uh just a mastery. There's a mastery involved in slapstick.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Which is which I which I think the British understand most. So for me as well, that and then of course ending up spending two and a half years there over the years with uh La Clique. And then playing the the Hippodrome Roundhouse. So that was LaClique, Roundhouse, all these big venues, and then big Spiegel tents down on the South Bank. So two and a half years of solid shows there. So definitely made me, it was such a big impression.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you feel like a Londoner. Yeah, yeah. And when you go back, yeah, you might not have been born in London, but it's like we all have this affinity to it. And so it's it that's another layer that's so beautiful. You know, of course, Antia, uh her partner, amazing uh magician, Richard McDougall, is London-based as well, so she spends a lot of time there. So it's not needed, but it's a wonderful extra layer of love for that city that is layered into something that's quite a simple concept and also quite a could be a very cartoony, you know. I play, we play with a lot of the iconography, the things you expect from London, and then you know, I'm trying to also add in little layers of oh yeah, I didn't think about that, or that and you know, uh really want to explore more of the multicultural elements of both London and Chinatown and Curry Mile and you know, all over the place, and all those parts that are more about London than maybe the pearly king and queens and stuff now, you know? Yeah I mean you just what really great, you know, other cultures and you know, I would love to add more of that into the show. But yeah, ultimately the all those little things that you never even thought in the first concept that have made it so rich.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. And then so you've done uh three big seasons and uh of the where you where you're producing it and upscaling it, and some sold ones in between that are maybe a little downscaled compared to the big and it it has grown so much and found such uh such a great audience in in Adelaide from that first year where as all shows we had we knew we had a killer show, but we were on a very new, or was it the first year, or anyway?
SPEAKER_00:First year of the hub, a time that was not necessarily suitable in that we wanted the show to be family friendly. I mean, I was very, very conscious that I wanted the show to be family friendly, but not necessarily advertised as that, or not necessarily I I wanted it be, it doesn't say on Wicked, family friendly, it doesn't say on Jersey Boys, family friendly, but you can take you know, it doesn't say on so many musical King's show.
SPEAKER_03:Right. It's a it's absolutely suitable for families, but when I just saw him in LA at the Magic Castle, and then you realize the laugh count, yeah, the interaction count. It is relentless the way that he would be.
SPEAKER_00:The show's broad in the best sense of the word.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, but when you're there watching it on uh on a Thursday uh at three o'clock, i then and there's families there and whatever, and paying attention, everyone's going like this is this is amazing. It's for everyone.
SPEAKER_00:It's for everyone, as opposed to being advertised as often I find that family friendly on some marketing, even though you want it to say that in some way, shape, or form, can then skew it to being a children's slash family show.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And that's why I think the genius, and a lot of I have to pay massive dues to a lot of the a lot of the good choices I've made, and I've made some bad ones too, but a lot of the good ones come from watching, listening, and learning what Simon Painter and Neil Dorwood and everyone at the works did. And also being uh lucky to be able to pick up the phone to those people and ask for advice to basically attempt to duplicate a albeit different flavour but similar style of company in the uh the way it was set up and the shows were set up. And and so what the illusionist was brilliant at doing was having a very dark, kind of moody, classic magic aesthetic, so they could strap fun for the whole family across it, and you didn't think that it was a kid's show because the aesthetic was more uh more adult. I decided London Calling to go a little more cartoony and not put family friendly on it because the visual kind of leads to that, yeah. And so then I hit it with Stars of the Illusionists and Cirque de Soleil, and this is a non-stop, and so the m the verbiage attempts to bring in the adults, but ultimately what I wanted was the thing that I kept saying when I would do media for the illusionists, and because I was sort of hosting the show, I would often be the one sent to do the early morning press or whatever else, and you know, you just kind of get used to pitching the show and knowing what to say. And my thing was, you know, a lot of shows say they're for the whole family and all ages, but this truly is a show you could bring your kids to, or you could bring your uh grandparents to, or you could bring a date and you'd all have a great time. And I always felt like that. I want somebody to come in on a first date in their 20s or 30s to see the show and not to be sat there looking around and going, Oh, we've come to a kids' show. And I don't want people that have brought their kids to be coming in and going, oh, this is a this is a this is gonna be an inappropriate show. And I want those two groups of people to coexist like they do before the music starts at wicked, or and I use musical theater because I think that's a really good example, and I don't think variety is kind of caught up to selling that way. It seems very much this is a family slash kid show, or this is a naughty, sexy, late-night show. And I wanted to find that middle ground. I think illusionists did it so well and did it with Circus 1903 and did it again and again and again with their shows. And I think that that's what I love about London Calling. It is absolutely appropriate to take your kids to of any age because the visuals, if they're so young that they don't understand the the comedy, the visuals are so strong to keep a child kind of wide-eyed and starry-eyed. The comedy's so strong that the the the adults and the kids are enjoying it, and then the skill set of what's happening is amazing. And um, and I think that that's what we've ultimately nailed or are continuing to work on. And I think that there's a that's what the market has responded to because there is so little of that in that variety space.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I think that that's ultimately so far what's been, you know, what took us in that first year where we, like you say, we knew we had it, but we were testing in a funny time. Sorry, it went off on a tangent. That's where we were at.
SPEAKER_03:Starting from where we are literally like uh fringe shows where we were doing shows, mini street shows in the garden, which of course had the great effect of people then want to fly out. Yeah, because they see what is being done. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh our little our little step right up, step right up. We were working the show before us was very busy, yeah. And it was at the prime time, and our friends, it was our friends' show, the lovely guys from Headfirst Acrobats, it was gods, and it was their second or third year, and it was killing. And we would just go out and just entertain their crowd before we fly it. We had that, and we had it down, and you know what? That was what was so lovely looking back at it, is like you have Antia, who I know I'm so glad you guys got a chat and have you know, go back and listen to Antia's um story and excuse me. Um, but you know, Antia yourself, myself happy, yes, of course we love to not do it, but happy and actively enjoying and ready to go to see that that little 20 minutes of doing something in the garden and just getting around the people is not gonna turn our season around. But every night that's gonna mean that we have a nice audience and we get moving because you got people that could have a could have the kind of deverish, oh no, I don't do that. Just pitching in and being like we were all pulling together as a cast. Nobody in that cast ever complained about small houses or uh hard work lifting that huge telephone box up and down onto stage, uh, all those uh refolding bunting that had Union Jackson, whatever it was, because we all just knew I think that we had something special, even when we had those 30, 40, 50 person crowds mid-week, and we were you know in the early hundreds uh at weekends, but even with what should be a really tough crowd, you'd hear Antia do that first number, and then you were just like, This is gonna be a lovely show with 40 people, and it's gonna be even by your introduction in it as well.
SPEAKER_03:Like you go, okay, this is this is of a of a level, and even then when we there was just the phone booth of as of hard equipment apart from suitcases, you come in and you go, This is operating on a different uh level. Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Like Yeah, the the the the the same thing that we're talking about having to let those plates drop, this is operating on a basically pain in the ass level. There's like two or three things here that are absolute pains in the ass for this company to have to have or do, but the the I say the equation has been done. Basically, I've set my heart on something, and that extra mile is compounding, and we've seen that with the show now because those that that that first year of like those two or three things that you're like, oh, we'll just cut that phone box because it's too heavy to lift up and lift down. And it's no, we're all gonna turn up and we're gonna put it up there, and that same ethos I think has just compounded, and every you see it with every act that comes and joins the company and thinks and I'm still learning to manage people and things or whatever, and it's all a bit crazy, and I'm a bit of an idiot and trying to work everything out, and then that opening night happens, and you watch those new people go, Oh, this is something special on the shoulders of everyone that's been before, and it just seems to be it's so fun to watch the cult the culture is what's carrying that company forward, and ultimately bringing in people that are, you know, way better acts than I can afford, you know, because it's like, yeah, it's I think they can they can see we were talking about this before. It's hard to sell people on that. If like probably because we'd sat and talked, you took a chance on coming out and a pay cut to come and be in that first show, and you need those people that see your vision. Once you get a little move forward, it's easier. It's been so much easier having had you and Antia and people long-term with the show, and you know, people like Matt Ricardo and John come in. And you know, this year we had, I think, three artists that have been in Cirque du Soleil.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh you know, Antia, who is like one of the greatest, not just variety acts in the world, you know, and uh, you know, just wild to think of those.
SPEAKER_03:Also, within the people that have seen or heard of the show, which at the moment kind of means that you need to have been in Australia uh for the fringe shows. But uh then so much heavy lifting is done because you go, Oh my lord, you you're then you want to be.
SPEAKER_00:We went in two years, three fringes, from and and I'm this is not a boast because um I wish I I mean we've just talked about my personal uh you know situation with business, I invest everything back into it. But we went from that first year going to Australia, we sold 2,000 tickets, which sounds like a lot, but over the course of 27 shows is you know less than 100 tickets per show. And I think that was our yeah, that was our sales. I I slash we, if you want to look at it of that show, lost 50,000 US dollars on it. I never saw it as a loss because I knew it was development costs because this was this was not the end game, was that run in Adelaide? And in two years, or three three fringes, but two years sort of, uh, and with very little development in between because we only did the fringe, we went from 2,000 tickets sold to 15,000 tickets sold,$50,000 lost to a gross a ticket, a box office of half a million, which is incredible growth over two years anyway, if we'd have been touring the whole year. But that's in just going back once in 2025, uh 24 and once and then back in 25. And 24 was we still I think we sold 12,000 tickets. So and and a big part of that, a huge part of that, and allowing the show to develop and become bigger was Matt Tarrant coming on board and taking over a lot of the mark well, all of the marketing and being a yes and guy with me and some of my crazy ideas, and also knowing where to put his foot down as well, and just pouring gasoline on the the show. You know, that was incredible.
SPEAKER_03:Going back to just that first one, too, as much as we were out there trying to sell tickets to sell an additional 20 tickets with doing basically street shows. Yeah, we also at the end won the pick of the fringe because in the beginning you go, oh man, there's so much competition, 1200 shows. Yeah, it's so hard to sell tickets, so hard to break through when you uh you have a great product, but when nobody knows about you, of course it picked up towards the end, and the word got out there.
SPEAKER_00:And I had no idea where to spend the marketing money to, uh, and and some of that was badly allotted. And I I my vision was purely on building this show and a certain scenic element and weird thing. There's weird things that now you look and you go, why did you have that thing? But if you see the show now, you see it was like a our little screen, it was a placeholder.
SPEAKER_03:Did we have a have a sh have a stretch sheet?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, a little stretch spandex above the hanging in the roof above the door that was kind of, I don't know what you would say, two by two meters by a meter or something above the door that had these scenic elements on it. So it was almost like looking at a TV that had got a little logo for the scene that was about to happen.
SPEAKER_03:It's related to the thing, but of course things were promised, and then for fringe reasons they changed like and then it would there was nothing you could do, but then it just sticks with it. So now you see where it started and you see where it was this uh uh this year, earlier this year, uh in uh February, March uh 2025, yeah. Of where we then for the first time had that first time I was there anyway, that screen and those and the and the projections on it.
SPEAKER_00:And twice the size of the one we'd had in 2024 where it had all started to come together, but we were using a rear projection screen, and then but it was still a screen even though it was kind of big, but this year it really became part of what was my original vision of it being the set, yeah, and then bringing in and for 2024 and 25, we brought in uh polymorphic um uh and Steve Tilling and uh Luku, and they just did uh such an incredible job, and so it was so satisfying to look this year at again, you know, having had a huge success the year before, and thinking we were just gonna come back with the same kind of thing or whatever, and then everything geared up and everything started to really fit, and we talk about this a lot, but you know, we have a bar scene that you would swear you're looking at painted set.
SPEAKER_03:It is incredible, and also where we were on stage and you're just focusing on then you built because you are that was one of the things that you've always done, but that was another thing that escalated during the pandemic where you're you expanded and made yourself a workshop in your garage, yeah, and the level of the stuff that you were making just became incredible.
SPEAKER_00:So I mean I was living with undiagnosed ADHD. Now I understand hyper focus and the kind of like dopamine of what me falling into an idea I've got has, and we're sitting in it at the moment. It's like, oh, this might be a good idea, and and and and in some ways, I think for some people they'll kind of go, when does it stop? You know, and I think you've probably gone through a little bit of that with me, seeing that. And but then in another way, it's that madness that allows that allows these weird things to come to fruition.
SPEAKER_03:But that was my point, was you ba you were building those skills, and then when you built like a physical bar with like taps, uh with with we the the You dab hand with the spray paper massive. Well, painting on it and whatever, but like you built that thing and with uh it and the combination was Mom point now. Having a uh LED screen that's ultimately flat. Flat and but with the visuals on it of a British pub looking so great, but when you then put a three-dimensional that looks like an oak stained bar at the front of it where bottles and things and actual glasses and drinks are being poured that are being used for parts in the and you were doing your bear swing, so there is an actual bear coming out of the bar and it's being poured and it's being used in the act. It wasn't really until we started to see people who had or for me anyway, people who had seen the show and had taken pictures where when you saw video snippets and pictures from the front of what this actually looks like, and you go, it looks the sum of these, and it was on tables where some of the cast was sitting on tables and stools and stuff, so they were sitting in, and it just is incredible what what feels like relatively little added up to just a full theatrical experience, and we were just spending ages now talking about just that scene of how you can actually have a whole uh coming together of all the artists, and because that was that was what happened, but that's the scale of where it's actually could be three acts actually happening within the same space because we've gone you go for to Wimbledon on the bus and you go take the train to the Charing Cross, so all of these each move for each act, but then you could actually have, like you said, it's the opening. An on the ensemble.
SPEAKER_00:We kind of have it in the opening of the show, you know, that little tube ride again that's kind of this groan. And and you know, a big part of that vision originally, and why we had that tiny little lycra screen that didn't kind of fit was a conversation I had with Charlie Caper, which was using video and augmenting it with very physical old school things. Theatrical elements. So originally we had an idea for a steam train thing, and we were going to do most of it on the screen, but have a little panel of the LED that opened with smoke, that real smoke that came out. And how suddenly, instead of using, you know, we used to use suitcases as the seats on a plane to represent, but suddenly just adding not a full set of something, but little really well curated pieces. And the bar is a perfect example of that because 95% of the scene is sold on the LED screen, and then a hat stand and a bar and three chairs and tables suddenly make you believe you're looking at a full painted West End set.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and many menu did that even on that uh first uh season where uh Charlie Caper being in the role of and then we go to Covent Garden, we get off on the tube, and here we are, and have a light lamppost on there uh so that he can set up his street literal street show gear with his table, and then he does puts and balls on the street. And it's just that moment where because he is just one of the most stylish men in the business.
SPEAKER_00:He does he didn't need that lamppost, but boy, did it uh frame him nicely. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:So then you have you have that he comes through the audience with his gear and he was putting it down, and I was just like those things was and that's why then uh out of those 1200 shows that we were going, oh, it's so hard to be known, but the judges and the people who then came and looked at the show saw what the show was, and it felt like even though at the end, like you say, you'd lost money, getting that stamp of getting the pick of the fringe, which is like the highest.
SPEAKER_00:Amazing, and that ultimately helped us come back the next year and really go on the side.
SPEAKER_03:Well, it could have ended with just being a very expensive uh test stack workshop. Fun project.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um but no, it's um and look, it's I think like I keep using this um uh this term compound a lot at the moment because it's really I've always known it, but the m it it's almost with like uh I I know I wouldn't say wisdom with age because you're learning all the time, but it is interesting seeing these relationships compound. It's like, oh yeah, well my friend just came and did that. I'm like, no, I met you in two like 2014 or whatever it was, which is now nearly 10 years ago. No, over 10 years, sorry, yeah, yeah, 2015 was it? Yeah. Or 14. Or maybe later. Yeah, maybe. Maybe it's about 10, 10 or 15. But I mean, like, we're looking at this in Cape Town. Yeah, in Cape Town, yeah. And I'm just it's not only the compounding of friendships, it's the compounding of skill sets, it's the compounding of you know, if you actually look at it, we've got visuals made by the same guys I worked with in The Illusionists and a lighting designer that I've literally our friendship and our careers have paralleled. He's him and I met on a tour bus doing uh a Christmas show, and as my career went up, his did in his world, and he's ended up being the lighting director on a bunch of things I've been in: Mad Apple, uh Wana, which I worked on for Cirque du Soleil. Uh now he's doing Cirque Alice and is just killing it. And I mean, like it's not just the acts, it's ever all these creatives that are now stepping in, and I'm able to hire, and lots of them do me favours too, but I'm able to hire and go, okay, what do we do? And that just that thinking about the set and the lighting, it seems so trite to sort of go, oh well, yes, we all collaborate and isn't everyone great, but it's so easy to forget what how creative that part is. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And and when there's a true collaboration between those uh often the lighting designers and the set designers or whatever work very separately to the artists, but we work very closely because we're still a team where I need to work with my sweet spot as well, though, like how it was with La Clique and Las Rare for so long, where you the everyone from sound light follows, but which was Miranda for the part of it, my wife, and uh like that it was what that was also partly why it could function, because it could function on relatively low uh overheads and it could make it happen compared to the things it was in competition with, exactly, you know, so when we were still a probably in the variety space, a very expensive show.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. But in comparison to the shows I've just mentioned, Wicked or Phantom of the Opera or the other things it's competing with, incredibly mobile and modular. That's exactly the same thing I loved about illusionists, yeah. Uh was how modular it was.
SPEAKER_03:Well, it's a concept that uh that can change, but of course, what happened with La Clique and Las Fare was also that it settled in to be a core team of uh performers, and which is sort of what you have as well as a great roster. You have these are the people in it, and it's uh for for all sorts of reasons. The way that the idea of um of um how the show scaled with like the first year where we already had a bit of green that I was on and a net, but how that scaled up then when the when the screen came on, and and again looking at pictures taken of the act, it is not just a a tennis man and then there's there's nothing around it.
SPEAKER_00:The shows the the stage is unrecogniz I even I who designed it and put the kind of deck together of what these scenes and the great thing about not making the having a loose theme is like you get to it's like watching a play that goes to 20 completely different scenic places and you don't have to go back, oh now we're back in the mansion, now we're back in the it's like you come out, you've got a a uh I I really like this idea, Frank Lloyd Wright talked about it as well, and I'm kind of doing it in this warehouse space, which we should talk a little bit about too, but um compressing before you um expand in a space, and so how by taking an audience and making them either figuratively or physically compressed before you bring them into something grander, how it doubles the the scale the um impact of something.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the emotional experience it's like the pixies uh and uh copied even more famously by Nirvana in uh um Smells Like Tea and Spirit. Ding ding. Yeah. And you you do the quiet so that you can do loud, quiet, loud, or quiet, loud, quiet, which is the name of the the Pixies documentary, which is like what they did. These small, intimate and and you're doing it in this show here, where it's like you get the feeling it's just you in the beginning, whether it's you telling the story.
SPEAKER_00:We're inside, and and and you know, my vision for the the larger, you know, because we're still heading towards this bigger production is that exactly that that the set and everything becomes we're in this tube station and much smaller, and then that arrival into London, other elements wheel on, get revealed, whatever. So now bam, we're in the centre of London. Yeah. And then the great thing is, because this is a variety show, we can go wherever the hell we want. And it is literally like, oh, and we're getting on the bus now, and ding ding, we're in Wimbledon. And it's like it does not need super clever narrative arc to take, it's like we're on a tour, yeah. So we're seeing different things, yeah. And and and I think that's why it's so great because it doesn't have to suffer from that thing of like too much exposition when you often theme something too much.
SPEAKER_03:But this is what we talk we talked about a lot, also, how the shorthand of gong. If you want to make a successful show with story, then the show needs to somehow be a show. Right. If it's all set in like here we are on a North Pole and uh oh look at this uh icicle, I'm gonna do what it's a now comes a poll act on this like and you A show about a show.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, once you have a show about a show, then cabaret, the musical cabaret, yeah, yeah, a show about a showroom.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? So fun. But anyway, let so I uh because you got people coming in here using this space. Yeah. You're living in Las Vegas. Yes. And uh you have I when I came here, I've been here twice this year working.
SPEAKER_00:We are we are turning out to be at least six months of the year sharing stages or sharing roles. Yeah, yeah. We're i we're all we are the couldn't be more different acts, and yet we are each other's understudy.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so would you worked in Mad Apple first, and then when that And then I left. And then you left, and now And then sort of came out. Well now you and you're playing the same exact role. Like you're doing two months next year, and I'm doing two months next year.
SPEAKER_00:And we did have the joy of the end of my when I was sort of a more permanent part, yeah. You were in that variety spot, and I was doing my shadows and playing Nikki, the the general manager, so we did get to be in the show together. Now it's more that we're not in the show together because we do the same role, but then with along with longtime friend of the act, Nick Defat. Yeah, but then the other week uh one of the comics was out, so I went into that role and we ended up being on stage together. So that was we haven't man we haven't managed, we yeah, there's not been a me, you, and Nick in the same show, which would be so much fun.
SPEAKER_02:That but that would be difficult because only two spots in the show.
SPEAKER_00:You'd be comedian and you'd have to be in comedy or variety, or Nick would be in comedy variety, which could happen because you don't do magic, so you're not the same thing. And I'd have to be called in to cover Adam, I guess. But then there'd be no juggling.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah. Anyway, we yeah, so we've been in we've been in those.
SPEAKER_03:We've been here working together with uh Cirx Matt Apple, and but then you are you have this other and started out, I guess, as like you had some project and needed a warehouse to store some stuff. I needed some storage and uh phone booths and uh taxi cars. Still haven't made it onto stage yet, but uh uh that related to uh to uh the new projects and also uh to London calling. And now so you have a warehouse, and tell me how you have transformed that because this was just an empty shell when you got it, and now it's uh so exciting.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I'm really I'll try and go quickly through this and and and skip over the boring parts, but I'm really passionate about we we're okay, we've got 20 minutes before someone might come. There, we've got over 20 minutes before someone might come. 345. Um, so I'm as just a side note, I was sort of really fortunate. I I came into Bad Apple, I was part of the creation, it was kind of chaotic, it was a great show. There was almost too much comedy in this show, it was nearly a hundred minutes, and it was a bit of a difficult situation. Uh, and I had a great time, but after three months, you know, it was decided that I would leave. And then uh things changed a little bit there, and I got invited back, and things got really good. And part of the point of going back was I said, I need the space to go and build this London calling and do other things because I've, you know, I've I haven't just been sitting at home doing nothing, I've organized other stuff, so I can't come into the show. Fast forward, I ended up in a really great contract for maybe 12 to 18 months where I was able to book off big stints of time and also be in the Vegas show. It was a real dream situation, ultimately to go and do London Calling and some other things. And what that allowed me to do was take big risks with London Calling because I had a steady, well-paid job to come back to, and also because of the way the role was in the show, ultimately sit in the dressing room and build elements of London Calling on paper and designs and edit music and um write Chelsea's act, which is a crazy hula hoop airline number, what have you, and put that stuff down, go on stage and come back. So I got to build something with the security of another thing looking after me. Having a safety net, basically. Yeah, and I'm really passionate about helping others in this town do that because I think people work for a company in the golden handcuffs, save up all this money, and then it's a big risk to take that money and risk it on this thing when they leave the company. And so I'm really into helping people find creative ways to maybe not on the scale that I did, but be able to start presenting, workshopping, trying things that they might like to do after or during or whatever the show. So I really wanted to have help people with that and share my journey of doing that because I think that a lot of incredibly talented artists feel very chained to their work, even when they want to do something else. And I don't think it has to be a choice to leave something financially or kind of uh time-wise. So I wanted to kind of help people with that. Uh, I needed space because a lot of the reason I think London Callings had its success is that I was able to uh bumble my way through building a lot of physical infrastructure that would have cost a lot more money had I employed a carpenter and a this, that, and the other. So we have automated pieces of set on a fringe stage that go off and on that look like a piece of West End kind of, or maybe not up close, but look like a little piece of West End uh theatre magic, which is you know an a$500 secondhand 15-year-old wheelchair motor and some casters and and it was a big lesson. I remember Matt, my co-producer, looking at it and just being like, What are you not on this stage? What are you? And he's looking at this clapped out wheelchair I've bought on Facebook Marketplace, and I'm no and it didn't get in the show straight away, but I was like tinkering away, uh tinkering away at it.
SPEAKER_03:A couple of uh of uh deck chairs with with boxes attached to it, but then once it actually came in the show, it was incredible.
SPEAKER_00:It looks like a really high-end developed piece of scenery that that would cost 50 grand to have a magic because of course you're you're a magician. It's just sweat equity, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's uh yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so that is all consuming and tiring, but ultimately, I think again, has been a big part of the success is that I'm able to go and learn to do something if it's practical for want of the show. Now that's sometimes gonna be hard because sometimes you're better just to hire someone because it's quicker and we only have a certain amount of time. But anyway, I've managed to learn a lot of stuff. And uh so I needed a space to kind of build some of those things. Plus, I realized I really enjoy being a creative producer and I'm not, and I had not built a show for me to be the star of. In fact, I built a show that the sooner I'm redundant, the more successful I've become because I actually don't do that much in the show. I kind of am there to guide the audience, but I built that role still not as funny as maybe some of my other acts because I wanted it to be able to be something I could cast someone else in or be a different flavour.
SPEAKER_03:And as many acts or skills, because that also limits it down to who can do it.
SPEAKER_00:Do my hand shadows, but there never really did my magic in it because we had Charlie or what have you. So also it gives me a great bonus that if shit hits the fan, I can cover two, like we could lose two to three performers in the show. Uh maybe logistically it might be a little difficult, but from a point of view of acts, I could cover those, and certainly up to two, you wouldn't know that that there was missing acts because I do shadows, I do magic, I do kind of a juggling and comedy bit and narrate, and they're very different things. Yeah. So that gives there's not many producers that can take risk knowing, well, if it all goes tits up, it's gonna be me and Frodo and Antje, and we'll still put on a great show, you know.
SPEAKER_03:Everyone gets to do three acts.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, but it's so that's that does help Bullsey.
SPEAKER_03:And the people who come in will it by no means have a bad experience because those are the shows where it happens during the fringe, and uh we know that it happened where there were shows that couldn't happen because gastro hit in the other end of the site.
SPEAKER_00:And I think also when you're just taking the risk of your own money six months out to put on a show and you might not have found the right cast yet, or people that you want aren't available, or you might maybe have to take someone who is a little cheaper or local or whatever else, which has also ended up being great in the end anyway. But I'm just I'm just don't worry about it because I'm like it will come, and if it doesn't, I can cover it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um anyway, let's have a gone to I ended up with this warehouse space to build a lot of those things, and uh I needed some space to do that. I'd also started pitching other show concepts here in Las Vegas, and one of them became a very uh interesting project, and I needed space to build that. So I took on this warehouse space, and originally it was just gonna be a test kitchen for my projects and a workshop, and then one of the projects I was working on kind of fell through that was gonna pay for the rent on the place, and I suddenly went, Oh, I have to turn this space into a better facility because it's got to now cover its back a little bit more, and so I put in a kind of black box, it's about uh I can I'm I'm plagued by only being able to speak in feet since I moved to America, which I hate, but uh it's 25 feet by 35 feet, it's about 900 square feet. Uh I think that's 80 something square meters. Uh sprung dance floor, 60, 15-foot ceilings, and then it just grew. I mean, you've watched it.
SPEAKER_03:I ended up I mean, that's just a the that's an 80 feet, that's just the bit that has sprung dance floor.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so that's that's whole thing that's that's a less than a third of the space. So it's three and a half thousand square foot facility, uh 16-foot ceilings, and then one third, just under a third of it, is this dance, sprung dance floor, curtains. With curtains all around, curtains all around, black box. So you can do dance uh and uh rehearsals. And now we're in a place where it's sort of growing alongside in parallel some other things, which I'm sure we'll talk about on a maybe another day, but the my kind of non-profit about supporting those artists both kind of professionally and just for having gone through things here in Vegas, seeing that there's a real gap in the uh support for people's mental health and just the things that come out of community. And I think the main community here for artists is attached to who they work with, and I think that you know there's much more to be done to connect people and have people's um. I mean, you know, as I was just talking to uh Petra Massey about this, who is another incredible artist here, not from Vegas. I was talking about her and how close you and your family were with her and her family. Had there not been Spiegel World that you happen to work at the same place, these two wonderful kids and artistically aligned families might not have met. And then you're in Vegas with a child who doesn't necessarily have other contemporary kids and families that kind of subscribe to the same, you know, they went to the same sort of school together and whatever. And I'm like, that needs to be available to people that don't work with the set, because there's probably a family over here working for Cirque, and there's a family who's a visual artist and carpenter in town that need to meet and have no reason to meet. And so ultimately, make it rain is this nonprofit I'm starting, which aims to kind of like help connect people professionally and socially and support the arts community just as a place to mix and to be around like-minded people, and then there's kind of a professional development side and a more social uh development side, and so that's existing in the skills.
SPEAKER_03:And then but uh being here when we were here permanently with uh family, like having a place where you go, okay, we're gonna go there each Sunday and before work or or at a time like that, it's such a good thing to be and to have meet other kids, and then you are there maybe with other performers and creatives that you don't know because they're in different shows, and you having already worked in different, you know, using your like you say, the come the compounding of of the conceptships you've made and relationships means that you can pull together these people and uh Yeah, and I've put together these sizzle reels for different shows and concepts again that are like you know, friends of mine that are world-class performers that are so gracious to be, yeah, I'll come and this this looks fun, you're doing that.
SPEAKER_00:They know I'm taking a swing and not earning any, you know. I I'm taking a swing on something, and they know that I always pay everyone, even if it's uh peppercorn, you know, I always like to try and pay everyone as much as I can for anything that might be a commercial endeavor. But the people, the deals and the you know, the way people come together because they're excited that someone's doing it. And I just felt like with this the same thing with this social make it rain and support, uh everybody's saying we need this, but no one's doing it. And I get why I'm lucky and unlucky, and that I don't have an immediate family, as in wife, kids, that sort of thing. So I'm able to take a swing and be risky with things, and I did that with Mad Apple, and I'm doing that with this space, and ultimately this warehouse is going to be a hybrid of a community space, and I keep using the term church with no religion, but we kind of do have religion, it's making art of some description, you know. That's what we worship. I'm not really religious myself, but I do miss when I grew up around a very relaxed church in the UK, the coffee afterwards, the two kids that are playing together, the the Mrs. Jones, who's 80, who doesn't have any kids, but someone's checking in on her. That's the great part of church, temple, synagogue, uh, mosque. That's the great thing about those places, is they're coming together for something higher. Okay, might be religion, excuse me, but it's not coming together for a dance class or for a there's no distraction. They're there to be with other humans. And I think that's one of the things that I want out of this space. The other is to be a lab and creating hub where people can test things, where I can test things, and so that's why we're putting in trust. I've learned how to rig, I've learned how to put down dance floors, and then also we have the element of like my company, my production company storing stuff, uh, the offices and Kitty who works with me, uh, who I poached from Cirque du Soleil, who she's come in and working on the business side, and uh, and then the workshop. So the idea that an artist or a friend can come here and we can jam like we used to, and then step into the workshop and make a quick prototype for something and get back on stage and then film it in front of proper curtains or do the aerial routine, all of those things under one roof, albeit on a smaller version. I just love that idea of this kind of like anarchic desk kitchen where shows and solo acts and my own things can all be done. And I guess the fact that I'm sharing risk between my company, the non-profit, and just artists coming and hiring the space when they can, um, and and hopefully some more commercial stuff, that this little space, this little crazy little lab of variety can exist.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Oh, it's uh it's so amazing. And uh as everything is with you, it's I have come into the space and you're going, Yeah, it's great. I'm just uh hanging up these curtains and then we're ready to go. And every time I come in, it's like going, Yeah, I'm just gonna quickly build uh Prosarge Theatre, and then uh it's just that left now, and then we're building these like the seats are gonna go here now, and it's like oh it just keeps uh expanding. Yeah, as a result, every time you come in, it is uh it is so much more than what it was uh last time, and uh I uh I'm so excited to see what it's like when I come back.
SPEAKER_00:Uh and it's been so interesting that um you know keeping talking about this compounding thing, like the old term of like bankers and real estate's going, it's all about networking, it's all about networking. And networking just felt like such a I'm going there to network. Here's a business card, and it felt so snake oily and so weird for me. And and yet now I'm like going places to network, but the it's it's so different because I'm realizing networking is what we all did organically. It's making friends, it's doing projects together, it's hiring your friends for stuff when you can, you know, and paying them properly or as much as you can, and whatever you think is going uh Gary V, uh Gary Vaynichek talks about jab jab jab right hook. Giving value, giving value, giving value, then asking for something. But most people don't give value, give value, give value willingly. His point is give value willingly and and have that be your focus, and then when you do need help, you will get it. Not do three things for people, then ask for something. Yeah, yeah. And that's what I'm finding is like the more I lean into just doing cool stuff, working with people I like, and the less I ask of them, the more I'm getting in return because I'm creating stuff, and these people are just starting to step forward. I just got donated this beautiful set from a show that is now we're putting this beautiful proscenium in.
SPEAKER_03:What are we talking about when it was like proscenium theater and it's well like it's the stage and everything, but uh exactly that.
SPEAKER_00:It's and that wouldn't have been offered up if not all of this other work had been done with no real I made a video anything if you go on the Make It Rain Studios or Make It Rain Vegas Instagram, I think there's a video, and I was trying to vlog as much as I could in the build, but ultimately it's genuinely been me here alone putting up trust and crazy OSHA would go nuts stuff. And but I did make a little one where I was feeling particularly um influencery, and I made this soundbite, but it's so true, and I said, No, uh no one's coming to save you if you want to build your dream, you're gonna have to build it yourself. And then I went, So pick up a fucking hammer, because that's literally what I was doing, and ultimately it's so interesting because by doing it on my own and just doing it, more people came to help after the fact when I'm going, Oh, you I wish you'd have been, you know, couldn't you have offered me a bunch of free trusts before I spent$10,000 on it? But it's the fact that I spent$10,000 on it and people went, oh, you're really going for it, that people show themselves and then suddenly the generosity of time.
SPEAKER_03:They were getting rid of it anyway, but because you're in their mind, then it's like it becomes a possibility. Because even giving away stuff that's not immediately next door, it means there's trucks, then it means there's so much. There's so you just go, okay, we're already on a roll. Are we gonna separate this out because this is but when you start working and you start creating something, like it's amazing the stuff that is in here now. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And the people that have come forward out of nowhere because they ultimately just go, Oh, you're you're you're running at it. It's so so many people these days, I think Showbiz is a lot about it, is like an idea and a pitch deck, and now some chat GPT, which can do an amazing job of like what would cost you thousands in either a sizzle reel or a visualization render, and then they're going for the ask for the money. And just build it. Like it might not be the perfect thing you wanted, it might be that first year of Adelaide. Yeah, and I never thought we would still I'd in three years in be going, Oh, it's still not a thing like when we have the big show, and I might we're selling like 900 seats a show in in Adelaide, and I'm going, yeah, but when we have the big show, because yeah, we're selling 15,000 tickets, but we're still bumping in and out in 15 minutes either side. Imagine what we could do or what we did when we're in a theatre where we're the only show there every day, you know. So it might not be your absolute perfect situation, yeah, but if you build it yourself or get with your friends and build it, it it's just it's just never the road you think it's gonna be, but it ends up being better.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. It's so easy to jump onto a train that's uh already moving once, but in you gotta make the train first to make it rain. And then people will come and they're jumping on.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:No. It's so amazing.
SPEAKER_00:And it's so it's almost quite um emotional to sit here with you in Vegas talking about it, really, because everything here, the last time maybe you and I have sat just the two of us like this, would be pre-Way of the Showman. Yeah. Pre you coming back, you leaving Vegas and thinking that that's it. My new friend, this new amazing talented friend I have that's that I just moved to Vegas and I was struggling with some like visa things, and and and he's going now, and and then to be spending six good six months of the year in each other's company. It's amazing. Doing all these things we were just thinking about is very cool. And it's and it's not like we're special, it's just so interesting. Yeah, when it's just uh I had a a contractor come here and he's just like failure is not an option with you, and uh and that sounds like oh you're so good at something. I think no, it's not that actually means you're a madman. Like you know me sawing bits of wood before we go on when I'm still in costumes.
SPEAKER_03:Sometimes it's a terrible idea. Pictures of you there and me going, Are you sure you know where your dog leash and everything is? And then like going, oh, because I was like, I did see one when I was looking, yeah, that you use for your spinning, uh spinning the beer. Stuff that you are literally, and the audience is coming in, and you're using a circular with your necktie up around but on the back so that you won't. And I'm like, because if you don't, then then you're like, no, no, no, no, I got my head around it, and then five minutes later you're out. I don't know where that is.
SPEAKER_02:So I'm like outsourcing your prop for the act for the yeah, because you're so you're doing my presets because I'm trying to finish a set piece because they're just gonna build the just gonna quickly finish this thing, which is in the show.
SPEAKER_00:But it's so interesting to people because also, like, that's it. Adelaide and the fringe has not been just about putting the work on stage. We don't have time to have a week of workshops together. We don't have these are like super busy performers, so it's a Q2Q and a quick tech dress and uh a little meeting in a meeting room that isn't big enough for a rehearsal, but we can talk it through. But you've got these guns for hire that are like, what do you want me to do? Yeah, no worries. And the first three shows you know is gonna be chaotic or whatever, but no one's gonna fall apart. And 95% of the show is gonna be these fuck, excuse my language, but effing legends doing this compounded skill, this act that has just been so distilled and amazing that a little bit of chaos in those first few shows is going to just pay off because the show's gonna be so incredible and it's already incredible, even with the eggy bits. And so, like for me, I get to spend the next month every day still adding these little elements because we're building something for the long term. So it's it's not just four weeks of shows getting slick, it's four weeks of developing this product because at the end of four weeks, we added I added stuff in the show in the last three days because I'm like, now it's there for next time.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and for the video of it, yeah, yeah. It's like so that you go, We wanna next time be able to look at that video and all the little details that you think of towards the end as well. You want them to somehow be on the tape so that when we look at it, what was it actually we did that? Ah, that's right. I used to do that little flourish or that little moment with you and Roberto where you would steal the bike came in the last week or something. And it was just joyous. All of a sudden we solved the thing that needed to happen. Yeah. Because the bike needed to disappear. And made it a moment.
SPEAKER_00:And it made a moment, and and then that changed the all the interactions that we had before, because there was those, and it uh the where we fool everyone into believing well, and it is an ensemble show in its spirit, but we fool everyone into believing this is you know, people come and they go, So where have you guys been touring? They think we're together all the time, the show looks so slick, but actually, what it is is performers that are amazing and at the bare minimum turn up and deliver in their own act, but also open and minded enough to go, Oh, yeah, we'll jam that on stage, let's do it.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you have the idea of going, okay, I do this, you come there, and then you go, Yeah, great. And then you go out, and over the week that goes from uh an idea you had when you walked back home to the apartments to it being a real texture that is added to that bit.
SPEAKER_00:And that first year we everyone thought we were an ensemble and we fooled them into thinking it because we just brought each other's props on and off in a good way. We didn't have stage hands. So at a necessity, Captain Frodo was setting Charlie's lamppost, or you know, and and that now has become one of the that now has become one of the biggest selling points of the show, yeah, is that all these big set pieces are happening, but we still have these great moments that you could put a technician or a stage hand on, but you don't want it because you want to see those little moments between people.
SPEAKER_03:And it and it's if I come on, if Captain Frodo walks on and they have seen me before, I take all of that with me and I'm intruding on someone else's act. So to make that okay, there needs to be a moment of relation between us. Because then it's like they come in and they give a tiny reaction to me, and I'm grabbing their proper whatever, and just that little thing adds so much texture, but it also makes me feel it's not just I hand in the pop, it's now a little bit, even if it's literally 15 seconds of changing.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and because everyone's so gracious and we uh do seem to genuinely all get on, yeah. The audience it you just can't fake that. So there's so much empathy on stage with each other because there's very few people, there's no competition because we have all these different styles and everyone knows what they bring. Uh there's so much empathy to sharing that stage. And I think that's so interesting. Like I would say, I was just like thinking, I was like, it's like you downstage them, you know, you upstage people sometimes, but with us, it's almost like you're doing something upstage, and it's almost like the person whose space it is is calling you downstage to like do the shtick, you know what I mean? Because that's what people love. Um, and I think, yeah, it's all like I say, it's the whole experience and the whole success of the show so far is on the shoulders of that, which I thought was very magical to the cast we have, but I it has I've it's shown itself that that is like a um the momentum of that is you know very interesting that it seems to be that it just keeps itself, but it's also it's like perpetual, it just it people come in and it's like the sourdough uh sourdough thing where it's you who are doing everything, and when the person who is hiring you isn't just standing around telling people what to do, but is working harder than anyone, that is also contagious, and then me and uh like Chelsea, uh Chelsea and and Antjea who have been in all of them, uh and then when I am in as well, and you have a core of the performers who all also deliver 100% on stage, but that also just goes the reason why this is happening is because all these people are doing all this additional stuff, and that becomes a culture, and that's the culture that La Clique and Las Ferrey have. It's so addictive, you know. It's so interesting because those people that have now joined for one run, Roberto and uh um Oscar, uh you know they now carry that on, yeah. And they talk to people and I've had people come and they want to be in the show or whatever, because like you can't fake that.
SPEAKER_03:Because you hear the other you hear the other things as well. That's exactly right. And we go every after the show and you go out and you and you have that because that is the reality of this, what you're doing here with uh make it rain and with the warehouse and and with our lives, is that you can't be slumming it or thinking I just have to get through this contract, and then it's gonna be the but because the sum of all these contracts and the sum of all these relationships that you make that is actually your life. Now that I'm looking back at my right my whole life, it is it's weather don't be a dick.
SPEAKER_00:Really, that compounds too, you know.
SPEAKER_03:And you've just been good and you make it happen and you overperform, you go, Of course I can do I I'll do The act, and then you get there, and then you are oh when I was my friend in Norway who I work with, where we on the first time when I was working with a Danish circus family, and we're they're doing rehearsals, and for whatever reason, it just is Norway, so it's raining a lot and it's flooding. And I I get a spade out and I dig a ditch so that it comes out to die in the water, and he's like, You out there in your rain gear digging a ditch to drain the water when no one has asked you, and you're just seeing a problem and you just deal with it. It's like now that cemented that relationship so that we now, I mean, I'm working with them. I leave here tomorrow on Monday and Tuesday night. I'm doing a show with them, and I have to do a five-hour drive to get there. So I stretch myself to do that, and they were reciprocated. So you do these overperforming kind of or like where you just have to do it.
SPEAKER_00:And it's so funny because like that story is something that you're like it's so open to interpretation because like the fact that you are there doing that, and then telling people that as one of the greatest variety acts, which I know you wouldn't say, but I I if anyone they can't be listening to this podcast and not know that you are one of the greatest variety acts in the world. But um that's right, I got you on to say that. No, but I don't think I'm the only one that would say I think everyone would have said that that's uh here. Uh, the fact that you're leading with, and then I was digging some ditches in is exactly so much of the ethics of like way of the show and and and going for what is life rich versus like someone else's story would be I went to work for this circus and I was supposed to be the star act, and I ended up having to dig a ditch. Can you believe I never want to go back there? It's like, oh well, that's a real great way to a lonely, very, very one-dimensional, you're only as good as your act, life.
SPEAKER_03:But and loving and and thriving in that act of creation too, the organic thing of where, yeah, you're just there and you're working on a wage sometimes, and it's not your your best gig. But then something happens and you go, you get out of it what you're because if you come there with resentment, they're going, okay, well, like we were just talking about that, someone we're needing to hire you, and you're you get into the inevitable negotiation thing, and then you go. But then when you get there and you and then you actually go, Oh, somehow the the fact that this was a it's a friend style gig gave you a different freedom when you were working and you discover something new that you could do with your character or with your like whatever. So it's it's to be able to see that uh the potential for growth in any of those situations.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and just and in and layers in so many other areas of life. And I've learned so much through this that I thought ultimately was actually kind of a if I'm honest, even though uh even though I would have loved to work with everyone, was quite a selfish thing. I want to create this show and ride this talent and this this theme to being the star of this British themed cabaret, to actually finding out I am enjoying as much as performing, I'm enjoying stepping back and creating and collaborating. And I built this show that actually I'm trying to step out of in a way from on stage, is very much how maybe it's to do with me finding out about my neurodivergence as well, which happened rather late in life. But it's also how I'm feeling about my life and the people around it and everything. It's like, you know, I landed a if I wanted it full-time Vegas gig that was about as good as it gets for someone who's not famous, and couldn't stay there full-time, even though I loved it. And so I've chosen this kind of, you know, we're sitting in this warehouse, I'm gonna say full of shit, but also it is full of infrastructure that costs a lot. And some of it's been gifted, and some of it's but you know, we're around acrobatic truss and lighting and uh hydraulic lifts and uh pieces of set and chairs. Who would think that, you know, correct theatre chairs cost a fortune? You know, it's like, and I look sometimes look at it, I'm like, oh, this is the sum total of my net worth at the moment. It's this thing that if you tried to sell it, you wouldn't get any money for, really. But it's what can be done in here that's kind of it's impressive. I don't know whether I'm a whore whether I'm a hoarder or I don't know, someone said something to me about uh London Calling, and I I kind of joke about it, and I don't think I'm truly either of these things, but I said the cast, don't worry about the cast. I said this to my friend Hugo on the first day because he said some of the casts seem a bit stressed, the people that hadn't worked with me on London Calling. And I said, Don't worry, this week they think I'm a bad man, and next week they'll think I'm a genius, and I'm neither. It's just that when the show hits, everybody goes, This is such a great thing, you know. And it's like it's not that they think I'm a genius, I'm kind of kidding, but it's it's the it's the the craziness of it. And once you've done one with me, it's still stressful, but you're like, we know what we're going to. And I think that's also like a beautiful thing for life as an artist. It's embrace the chaos and embrace the the, like we say, the gigs. Go for those high-end, the gig that's gonna pay you well and the and the whatever, but don't lose the chaos. Because I think when you lose the chaos, that gig's gonna be a poison chalice. And I think we talk about it. I never thought it would. Again, it's why it's so beautiful having this conversation now. You leaving Vegas for me and that job and everything was all kind of very sad. And I thought about you in Norway is gonna go back to Norway. What? And now you're living this world right now where you're coming and doing several months in Vegas in a great high-profile show, and then you're going to something equally beautiful, but a beautiful, bespoke circus living in a trailer, caravan, and then you're coming to Australia and meeting all these people that you've known, new people that have never seen you before, and people that you've known from years, and all that thing. And it is the way of the showman.
SPEAKER_03:Sure is.
SPEAKER_00:And I think that everyone I talk to that gets the dream gig, if that's just what they sit with, it's not long before it's some you see it in Vegas all around without mentioning names. But you know, you get there and this is the it's oh my god, I uh it's my you have to embrace both ends of the spectrum and the amount of artists I know on that dream gig that go, You're out at the fringe trying new things, that looks so cool. And I'm thinking to myself, yeah, and I'm about to lose X amount of money and this, that, and the other, and you have three houses or whatever, and it's like and also you don't want to be just down that end either. So I think it's embracing the spectrum of all that, and trying not to take on too many projects.
SPEAKER_03:Once you work out how to do that, you've got to tell me as well. Yeah, I'll work it out one of these days. What a pleasure.
SPEAKER_00:Ah, great, so great.
SPEAKER_03:Thanks for coming on.
SPEAKER_00:I loved it.
SPEAKER_03:All right, folks. It's uh time for me to remind you that uh I forgot to remind you in the beginning of this episode to click subscribe, find me on Instagram at uh The Way of the Showman, and you can uh send me an email at the wayoftheshowman at gmail.com. Tell me what's happening. Tell me what you're thinking. I'm really interested in what you're thinking. Maybe you're developing something incredible, and I don't even know about it. I would love to know about that. And until next time, take care of yourself and those you love, and I hope to see you along the way.