173 - Malin Nilsson - Why Art Still Matters when the World is on Fire - 1 of 2

When the world feels like it’s burning, making a show can start to feel absurd and even selfish. We sit with that discomfort and ask the question out loud: what is the purpose of magic, theater, and live performance when war headlines and daily suffering are only a scroll away? The honest answer is messy, but it leads to something solid: art, culture, sport, and shared stories are part of what makes life worth defending in the first place. 

I’m joined by Swedish magician and folk-circus force Malin Nilsson, and our conversation moves from big moral pressure to practical creative craft. We talk about the weird psychological effect of instant news, the “impotence” of caring about tragedies you can’t influence, and the climate guilt that comes with a touring life built on flights and constant movement. We also explore whether environmental themes can live inside an act in a way that still feels like showmanship rather than a lecture. 

Then we get delightfully nerdy about building stronger shows. Malin explains why she now thinks of a magic show more like a concert than a theater play: pacing, contrast, short bits and long bits, talk between “songs,” and the performer as the through line. And yes, there’s also a true story involving a real farm goat, fake horns, and a watch steal that teaches the painful beauty of simplifying an overbuilt idea. 

If you enjoy thoughtful conversations about showmanship, performance structure, and making meaningful art in hard times, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with a few words about what hit you most.

LINKS:

Find out more about Malin Nilsson here.

See Malin's act from Penn & Teller's Fool Us here.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:11

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 I am super excited to bring you a new incredible artist onto the podcast, a new voice. It is Marlyn Nilsson, an extraordinary lady from Sweden. And I had the pleasure of uh working with her towards the end of last year at her at this beautiful little Victoria Theatre in Malm, where she lives, and she has this tradition that's been going on for years, where she does a Christmas leading in a November variety show, and I got to actually work together with her and also with Jay Gilligan uh in the same show, and it was so much fun. So um we recorded these uh conversations uh a few months after when I was in uh when I um in uh Mad Apple with Sector Soleil in Las Vegas, but uh during the time that I was there with Jay when he was rolling up all those balls um that he uses the Eva balls, the special ending that he has to his act, uh me and him recorded five episodes as well. So that was uh an uh a few days of really intense uh uh joy for me. And I worked together with uh Marlin. Um we couldn't quite remember now if it might have been like 2013 or something like that. We we did um a sort of street festival in um it was actually first in in uh Denmark and then in Sweden. It sort of moved across uh to for from uh to a couple of towns, and in that uh on that festival, actually Tony Rook, the godfather of the Australian circus scene, he actually came um uh he was on that as well. Uh but uh I had uh such a great uh impression of working together with Marlin. Like, here is someone who is the real deal. This is like the listeners, long-term listeners and followers of the way know about uh the idea of what folk circus is, which by the way, I'm working on this thing to connect up, uh which will be one of these uh episodes uh with just me talking about the connection between folk circus and folk tales and fairy tales, but be that as it may, uh she is a folk uh folk circus uh um uh master, so great, like she is such so present with her audience, it is really impressive, as well as she's got magic chops, uh unlike like on par with anyone. She is so great as a technical magician, but she has made so many shows and so many concepts. I mean, one thing that just blew my mind is that once this uh conversation was finished, she started to talk about something that I only vaguely knew about, what she did under the pandemic. Uh, and it I mean, I I had seen it a little bit from afar, as we see from people we admire and look at their feeds and you see this, what they're interested in, what they do. But when I um uh when she was talking about that, that's gonna be a topic for one of our future conversations with Marlon. She is a source of endless uh imagination and creativity in her acts, but also in the way that she presents each show and the scope of what she has done, which you will hear a little bit about uh today, and you will hear a little bit more about it uh in the next uh episode. Uh, but uh we are barely scratching the surface of uh just of what she has been doing and uh her incredibly idiosyncratic and authentic voice in exploring magic as an art form. So um just before we uh I give you Marlin, I would like you to just uh go to wherever you're listening this right now and click five stars on the thing. It really does help. It makes it appear for more people who might be interested in this kind of stuff. And if you really, really want to do me a favor, then write some nice words as well when it suggests afterwards when you click the five stars. You literally just click it, then you can write a few things that might just guide a few more people towards the way. Well, thank you very much if you do that. And uh either way, here I am very excited to bring you Marlon Nilsson.

Does Art Matter In Crisis

SPEAKER_01 5:00

When the world is burning, literally or figuratively, do you question the validity of what we do, what you do in the perspective of life?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can yeah, definitely, for sure, for sure. Uh and I I I don't think that's uh necessarily uh a bad thing. I can question it even if there are not wars going on, but uh I'm wondering how important it is. Um and uh then I think you know it it can still be in yeah, I'm wondering if I should be doing something else. Uh something that has a direct, concrete action uh to help the other people uh or other people in uh different countries and different situations at the moment. Uh I just do not know what that is because this is kind of the only thing I know how to do.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

I am the same thing. Does it make sense? Or it makes complete sense. I'm the same. Like you you think, what could I do? And there is a threshold for um when everybody needs to join in. I think you know, countries you know, they just go to a neutral one, like the second world war. There was like I was going, well, the Norway was uh occupied by by the Nazis, and then what um what would I have done in that situation? And one of the things that I've been thinking about is like when you're reading books about the war, I think in my mind I have it a little bit like people are, oh yeah, and then for those five years, everybody was just at war or occupied, and they were like they were doing that. Was the main thing that they did, but it wasn't in a weird sense. Uh like some people were disappeared in the night. Some people were tortured, and there was terrible things going on, but the majority of the population were trying to put food on the table and making their lives work, and the cobbler was making shoes, and the bag maker was making that, and the and the farmer was doing like you still had to do those jobs. People couldn't all drop everything and then go in and do so, like and that's an aspect of the war that I kind of hadn't thought about that the world still goes, and that is actually the main thing that's going on, even in when it's all kind of happening.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

But did they have did they have this uh enormous source of information that the internet and television is today? Uh or did news traveling travel slower and uh they had different sources of uh of of information. I feel like we need we know a lot today, and we know it instantly. And it's so strange for me to to you know, you go, you read on a news site, and there is like some something about the war or the wars going on, and then underneath there is something about the Olympics, and I go, whoo, how can these two things exist in the same time within the same centimeters on a screen? It it it's uh I don't know how to really how to handle that because one thing is feels like it's so incredibly, incredibly important, and the other thing, yes, I know it's important because everything that makes people come together, like now I mentioned the Olympics, but it could also be you know art or performances or or um going to the museum, it's also important. But it just feels like one of these things are more important than the other. But then I also know that if we didn't have the culture and art and sports and all that, we didn't really have anything, we don't have anything to fight for.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

You know what I mean? That's exactly right. That's that I think that is a really, really strong point in our favor. It's that we are we are the stuff that people engage with when they are given time to do with it what they want. Like we are the choice that they make. They go and see shows, they listen to music, they watch TV, they watch a play, they uh read a book, they take in this stuff that uh is about the human condition and and the things that makes us feel good. So, in although arguments can be made of what any specific war is about, one part of the phenomena of war is uh that they're fighting for our right to do those things, whatever each culture says about it.

Living With Instant Bad News

SPEAKER_01 9:47

An interesting thing thought that I this to go that is worth reading if you haven't read it. Do you know the um writer Neil Postman? Yeah, yeah, he wrote that book called We Amuse Ourselves to Death, maybe in 84 or 86 or something. And in that book, he talks about the invention of the telegraph when that came to America. And talks in very interesting and he writes really well. And he talks about how when the telegraph comes into play, all of a sudden you know there's an earth flight and an earthquake and a hurricane in places of the country of America that they might not have known until it was over before. So now you know catastrophe, pain, suffering, and you know it instantly to people that you don't know in places that you might not even know I've existed. It's like on earth slide in some county in in a state that you hardly know. And so he says it gives a very peculiar sort of impotence of you you know about suffering, and you know suffering of people that you don't know, and you care now on the human level, and it changes the focus, but it also makes it very difficult to actually do anything about it or understand the situation. So I can't remember all of the details, it's a long time since I read that book, but just to frame that thing that there was a time because it's basically what you said in your last thing that we know about these things instantly, and we go like what are we going to do?

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Yeah.

Performance And The Climate Question

SPEAKER_00 11:28

And and uh also the you know the yeah, uh but there is also the uh another war that is a little bit, I don't know, it's uh that I think uh the war against um the environment uh and the nature, and I'm thinking about it every time I fly, and I'm wondering, is this something I can do something about? You understand what I mean? I mean, is it uh I I I travel the world and so do you with our with our job, but uh uh would it be enough, you know, if I if I if I if I if I stop flying and traveling, or what is how should I think about this? Uh or is what shall I do? You know, how shall I how shall I think about this? It's uh I think that's also complex.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

It is, it is. You know, the comedian Stuart Goldsmith, he talks mainly about uh that stuff now. He used to talk about everything. I mean, he still probably talks about everything, but now he really is like he is a stand-up comic, and his main theme is the environment and all all the issues that that we talk about. And I just thought of it now when you were saying it. It's almost like the material that he does and what he does offsets his carbon footprint. I don't know if that's like with with the messages or the things that we say or do when we do get there. Is there stuff that we could do within our acts or whatever? I'm thinking uh Trent uh Henry Birdman uh um doing he he juggles plastic bags. I don't know if you know Birdman and and he talks sort of about plastic bags in the ocean and stuff in in it, but in a way that it is so encapsulated into this absurdist thing. But all of a sudden the absurd thing just gets flipped a little bit, and that is a little bit about it that you just go, oh gosh, all of a sudden you you change that into that dimension. Maybe we could do something like that. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yeah, it's uh yeah, it's uh I don't yeah, I don't know when uh when I mean it it cannot be enough until it's better, but I don't know what ah, yeah. Yeah, so when you ask me how I am, that is about how I am. But uh but uh apart for yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you follow the news or does it get to you? Uh or or both, I mean you it can be both. It doesn't have to be one thing.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

It is both, and I'm following it um cursory. Like I read a couple of things, and I have a paper newspaper that I normally read the headlines on. It's kind of Australian or so, so then I get to know what's going on in Australia, but you also get a filtered version of the international news there. Uh yeah, so I so I keep a finger and then uh according to my feed on my my social media, I do apparently then stop and look at them because they keep coming up from different news outlets that just comes up with with stories because you know how it responds to it. But of course, now that there's so much stuff going on about it that I'm sure it must go into every single person's even in even in this time when we are all in our own silos. Because normally my feed is is uh only really show related or uh sumo wrestling. There's the things that I've got.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

You got sumo wrestling?

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Oh, I really uh have uh gotten uh very excited about sumo wrestling, and there's a tournament going on at the moment in Japan.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Yeah. Oh wow, I uh I uh yeah, amazing,

Teasing The Political Magic Project

SPEAKER_00 15:24

cool. If we're going to dive into the Northern Colt project, which is uh the political magic shows I made during a 10-year period, I like to think I want to have a little bit more reference material in front of me so I get all the names and uh and the stuff right. But I'll be happy to uh you know just talk briefly about it.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Yeah, yeah, we can talk generally, but of course that was something that I didn't know so much about and that I've just been looking at a little bit over the last couple of days when I was looking at it. So that would be interesting, but maybe that's even a topic to itself, because it's interesting that you're collaborating with people who are working on their PhD when you made that program for them. Well, like you made that computer thing and to yeah, so that's a whole question in itself.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Because it it feels like almost like chapters, you know. Uh the the the the first challenge was like, can you create a magic show uh that lasts for 30 days in this gallery after the magician has left the room? Now we have to start to think how do we do that?

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Um that's super interesting.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

So just this like it feels like a chapter, and yeah, and another one was can you make a show as a distraction, a distraction while we are um doing something else in the background. So we move all the people, you distract them with a magic show so we can do something else that they don't see. Um and then go, oh yeah, okay, what shall we do? It should all be about duplicating because we're trying to duplicate something that we're not supposed to duplicate, and maybe or maybe not display the replica or the original. And so it's it was like, ooh, okay, so how do we handle that? Um but yeah, so yeah, it was uh it's been amazing 10 years and to be part of this project. Uh it's uh yeah, but I I I've listened to your podcast a lot, and and Nicholas too, my my partner, he you know, he's a teacher and he teaches uh um sound and sound engineering for for for students. And he goes, Oh, I you know, I I I I learned so much. It's so interesting. I mean, it's there is it's also a way uh for creative people in general, I feel not just uh performers, but uh yeah uh the the whole episode about uh or um the shop the shopkeeper the coffee coffee shop no what was his name?

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Oh yeah who was also who was also who does uh who has a toy store that also and uh and uh all sorts of funny drinks and stuff, yeah. Oh I loved those episodes, yeah, and I love that he reached out, and I love to venture into other topics uh that I had never talked with before, and I would like to do that. In fact, I am currently I've had the idea for some time, but yesterday I saw this

Showmanship In Music And Concerts

SPEAKER_01 18:30

uh new Elvis movie that came out um with him talking, and I am interested in the element of showmanship in music. So I wanted to make an episode starting by talking to Michelangelo, and that would be the starting point of it, but maybe talk to a couple of different people about singing showman, kind of like people who are performers, and like it's basically like that the frontman of a band is kind of like often the showman. Also, where when you saw Elvis, or you're thinking of um maybe what's his core name from Mick Jagger from Rolling Stones or something, yeah. People who are famous for not just or like Freddie Mercury, somebody who goes on stage and just i i is connecting with the audience in a different way than a lot of bands who come on and don't wear a costume like they well, of course, anything that anyone wears in the show is is is that costume when you come on. But um uh but who go, Oh, I'm just having to happen to have this t-shirt on and I'm looking at my feet when I'm playing the music, and then you have Freddie Mercury at the other end of the spectrum that comes out and works the Wembley Arena crowd like like the best of the performers.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Yeah, and looking at concerts, and I'm gonna say looking at concerts now and not listening to concerts has really helped me to uh uh to create uh structures of magic shows. Because growing up, I I thought uh since magic is something you watch, uh it has to be connected to theater, something that you also watch. And so people, I I felt like people asked me what the show was about, because they it was magic on a theater stage. So they wanted to know what is it about, what is the story? And I tried to find, you know, the story, the red thread, the the everything because I got this question and I mostly performed on theater stage, just my you know, my whole life. So it was uh and and then you know, just trying to understand a little bit more about the uh concerts and how they are built. Uh I I realized that like magic shows, or for me, watching at a magic show, it's it's it's more the structure of a concert. And it's easier for me to think about shows as as concerts rather than than uh than than theater, because a concert also has these small little bits and pieces, like this is a ballad, and now it's fast, and now it's slow, and this is long, and this is short, and some talking in between, or some pictures in between, or something in between. And there is a beginning and there's a middle, and then there is an end. Um, so and magic, it was almost like it was ugly to say, oh, is it just trick on trick on trick? Is your magic show just one trick after another? Like that would be a bad thing. And today, you know, 30 years later, I can say, yes, it is. It's a trick and then it's a trick and then it's another trick. And it's, you know, just like there's a song and then another song and then another song, but within the song is a story. And the thing that keeps it all together is, as you said, the Freddie Mercury from Queens or Leonard Cohen, or uh, you know, and the theme they have decided for this record or concert. So that's how I feel about my magic. Nobody ask Leonard Cohen, you know, what's the story of the show?

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Isn't that interesting?

SPEAKER_00 22:05

I did not mean to compare myself to Leonard Cohen at all. But you know, um and and of course a a show can uh a concert can it can be about something you know this is a concert about love or a breakup or or the environment or a war or you know my life uh but it's more like a little bit fussy in the edges. You know you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Yeah I I totally know what you mean and this is so interesting because it's I I am also looking at it like that now that I'm making more kind of acts and I'm sort of more sort of more unapologetically making just acts uh that are necessary for the show. It's like well I need this and I need that I need kid to come up I need to have given somebody uh a balloon before this other trick because when I then give them this soap bubble thing in the end that's a reference. So I have just made a new act now that I'm premiering on Sunday. I'm doing this gig that Matt King is organizing here. So I'm doing a family show during the day and um anyway then I'm doing these new acts and and working on them I have really thought of this like the music as well where you have some of the tricks that we we need this and it needs to have this kind of flavor because you're shaping a concert. I'm about to do some shows in Norway in kind of concert houses and I'm like doing a 45-50 minute show for family audiences and I'm looking at the show that I have which is some taking what I had as a school show and and adding to it so that it goes from the school hour to to the cinema the stage hour or whatever. And uh I really have been thinking about it a bit like music and then you go you you make these songs and sometimes when you first start I think you make they're just the best tricks that you have or the band often like you have the best songs that you've just made and that's the first sort of exploration and you go oh this is the sonic universe that they create or this is the visual um uh universe of of you for instance when you're doing your shows like these are the themes that you deal with but then you develop them and then every now and then you make a concept album where all songs are like the wall or whatever where each song is part of a really quite direct story or whatever. And other times they're just loose but other times it's like I've been looking at um Bob Dylan a little bit so I um I'm like his music is not what speaks most to me but as an artist he is just so interesting all the stuff because he's great at this thing of doing a few albums where you have a career like where he started you have a career that could have you could have been the prophet of a generation and then that generation moves on and you would be nothing but he he went against the grain and went electric uh like that point and then he found Jesus and then he had terrible things happening with his life and all these things are reflected in in the albums uh as he goes like when you look at his life how it's parallels into his music so how do you have you got some cool examples of how or when life events or themes that you're interested in moves into it into your creations oh oh oh this this was a very very uh good question um I uh I think I've just been growing and not so much I don't I I I don't really like the world reinvent uh word reinventing um because that's not what I think I've done I think I've just been growing and growing um I have to think now I mean even just having this idea can I offset my flying can I do something now that's a theme that now is available to you and there's something that you're thinking about and I'm thinking about what's the relevance of offering escapism and just a really good reset good time during uh a time when the world is burning yeah and I see value in that and thinking about them it already frames what I do a little bit.

Building Shows From Life Themes

SPEAKER_00 26:34

No for sure for sure I uh I I see I do I do remember um a very very long time ago uh I think we was like 2000 and and seven I I produced a show and I I I brought in some material what I felt like for safety okay this is this is material that I've learned from from this book and it's written by this person and and uh it it it's yeah you know I've uh I've if I follow if I follow this description it will be great it sounds great it is great I perform it and uh and I had a couple of these pieces I think two or three pieces just because it made me feel safe because it wasn't my own and uh I played all season with this material and it was a material that I found out worked not the best for me. And it was kind of a really realization to go uh uh oh oh my stuff works my my own stuff works and I I could cut one piece and then I dare to cut another piece and then I dare to cut another piece and then I could look back at this uh uh full evening magic show and go shit did I do this and it was uh uh I'm not sure if this is a life event you're talking about but I I remember feeling I was um uh uh I was uh can I say secretly proud over what I had done yeah but very exhausted. Um so yeah and and not everything was good of course there was some terrible ideas I I I did a watch steal uh with a goat uh that was uh uh a very expensive trick that never became funny and it was like a 12 minute piece but you know a real goat uh yeah I had a real goat um it's uh uh uh terrible so the the idea was to uh oh shall I even talk about this it it's a terrible idea um uh uh maybe you can find a way to make it funny I I never found a way to make it funny and my problem is is always that I try to make something both a real magical act but also a real comedy act. Not so and and and what happens is that everything becomes a little bit in between. You know it's not really funny it's not really magical but the idea was to uh to to bring a goat on stage to try to find a card that was completely lost uh some 10 minutes ago and and I and I and this goat had really nice fancy horns on it and then it would just hang around on stage. So and it's not like a pretty little you know circus goat but a real farm goat. So and so she was hanging out on stage and then I brought the man up or a lady up or uh or or a person up on on stage to do um uh to do another trick and as an encore to that trick I I I wanted to to to give give the person a gift and they open the gift and in there there are the the the horns of the goat and on the goat there is the watch. So it was a very elaborate and really like a watch steal. So the idea was that oh the I I've I've you know I've taken the horns of the goat and the and the watch from the person and then I mix them up in the switch. So there was too much too much layering going on.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

But um I the the too much layering meaning that the audience didn't quite understand what was going on or didn't get enough of a reaction compared

The Goat Watch Steal Disaster

SPEAKER_01 30:05

to how complex it was or oh oh all of the all of it I wasn't sure I I knew what was going on. I don't think my co-workers knew what was going on they just went along with it because they uh they uh you know I I sometimes I feel very strongly for an idea and uh um yeah uh so we were four people in the ensemble and one goat trainer um for this trick uh yeah yeah I don't that's amazing it was also it's I read in a book I think a book was called when vaudeville was king or something like that and there's someone it was just a quote oh I think that's where it comes anyway just quote going like if um like the when we're at distractions like this if if uh if a woman in a bathing suit comes on stage this is no time for um for subtlety so then just go straight to your song and dance number like it's good with big distractions and a a goat is a little bit like a woman in a bathing suit. Somebody comes if you bring a goat on stage it's almost like you people I would imagine having seen you and thinking that when you bring a goat on stage that is such an overpowering thing. Big farm goat is on stage it will disturb the image so much that I it would probably need a very strong clarity for you to understand the effect because because it's so weird to bring on a goat like I I would be shocked in the most best of ways because the idea is that awesome to have a goat on stage.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Well it it was um um um I I I don't specifically work with with animals and I don't think I would do it today but in this countryside theater in this setting uh I I and also I could put an ad in the paper and you know magician seeks goats it could be a whole whole thing you know whole event and I could interact with the public around the theater and and and and you know ask if anybody but then I found uh uh a person who actually trains animals for movies and theater and she uh she said uh um uh when I talked to her she said no you can't just rent an animal you can't just rent a goat you have to come here and you have to visit Agatha which was the name of the goat and if she likes you you know then we can work together so she had her own you know it was like a pet for her like a dog so I went to audition for the goat and uh the goat approved of me and then she she uh she agreed to to train the goat to wear the fake goat horns so it wasn't even the goat's real horns because of course not then then I can't then I can't steal them it had to be yeah um and and uh and then she came to every show with with this amazing um uh animal that became friends of the whole ensemble and uh no problem you know it it all felt like really nice and friendly it was a house coat like almost like a dog so yeah but I I don't this is not a trick I would do I mean we're talking a really really long time ago um yeah but um but it is super fascinating as well like because it's a great example of when you have an idea that goes really far and you're just pursuing it and once you you know as it always is you you have an idea and you start investing in it in with time and effort and and then it can be really hard to let go of as well like you go through a lot of stuff and then you just go this doesn't for some reason this whole bit that was maybe part of why you did it in the first place that the key bit of it the goat is the bit that isn't working.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Maybe the watch steel is like actually stronger on its own that you're gilding the lily so to speak or where where where where were you back then?

SPEAKER_00 34:23

In 2007 2008 I would have needed your insights I would have would have listened though but um the so the idea back then I had the insights to to share either yeah like the um the the whole idea was that we we we had you know we had a there was a card lost and for magician it's very important to find the right card so uh I had the different ways throughout the show to not to actually find the card of the lost card but I wanted to convince the person who had taken the card that uh I can't really convince not convince but I wanted them to agree in some way that uh that the card that was going to be produced next was their card. So I wanted a lie. They if they would lie for me I would I would stop my desperate attempts to find their cards. So there was everything from the you know the cutest little four-year-old child coming up from a ladder from under the stage to smoke in light you know bringing out the card and going so Kevin is this your card and and then this very honest person in the audience would go ah no and then the whole audience would go oh so it was almost like a running gag or or so that you're doing the show was going on and this thread of finding that card was like the red thread that went through the show or yeah we're trying to get this person to agree that at least one card would be their card so we could stop it. So it wasn't really about the right card. So any one point I brought in the goat because you know we don't know anymore what this person uh will you know so yeah yeah so it was uh uh so this was a part of the goat's part was to come in and find a card and then it just was on stage for the next bit and it's just one of all the terrible ideas that has been worked yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

But it is so interesting though it's also when you say oh and there was a little girl that came up through the floor uh with smoking light and brings out the card then the goat to me anyway all of a sudden makes all that much more sense now that you've of course shaped that out because you've uh thought something through where it starts with you doing I don't know but I'm guessing that's just all you you get give the feeling that you've genuinely lost the card. That's the feeling that and then you have you probably tried a few times in the first bit where the card has been selected and you can't find it. So you're just dealing with that kind of failure. And then by the time the girl comes up from the floor now now we all know that okay this is now a real big thing and and you play it off as well we don't need to be the right one we just need you to agree. And but but everybody knows now that now you actually do have to find it because everything is about that now and then how do you escalate that so it's a beautiful idea of how it then escalates it off.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

There might have been some nudity and the biker on Harley Davison as well oh wow yeah and this was a this was a real biker from a from a from a friendly gang from a you know friendly yeah nude biker no no no not no not nude two two separate occasions your powers of persuasion impresses me quite a lot I wait I wish that would have been an image no yeah yeah but it was um it was um it was kind of I mean I like I like when the magic and the the pictures go beyond the stage so when I started to look for a biker I wanted to have a really cool um motorbike and I also wanted to to it to him to look the part as a biker would do in a Hollywood movie.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

So I got in touch with some people and and then I I I I talked to uh to a person here around uh my hometown and and he went like yeah yeah we do this sort of things all the time and I go yeah yeah we were in a commercial uh not so long ago and then he sent me a picture of uh from uh from Ikea where uh where him and his uh uh uh um uh uh a child is making ginger cookies with with skull with like a skull-shaped gingerbread cookies so I thought okay this is safe yeah yeah um and uh when you have such a strong look like that it's a in the region where I am from there is uh there's a bunch of people who do it's not quite role playing but that do Viking themed stuff uh and uh there's people with certain look that just gets booked you see it if you watch Vikings and some there's some Norwegian shows and Game of Thrones and there's some of those people who just look like that like so there's you become a character actor and if there's a Swedish person that really looks like a biker but that also is really nice and can interact with in this way then that there's a role for them as a as a sort of character actor in in plays and in yeah and this is and this is not the this is not but it surprises me that you find them that's what's so awesome oh you're oh yeah you're you have an idea and then you find a goat and a biker and a four year old child and then you put them in.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

How what the show that you did was it then part of a season or or yeah it was part it was part part of a it was a part of a season we're now 2007 I just wanted to say that but I and my point with the biker was that um so his name was Lhasa and there he came with the whole gang the whole group to see the premiere so at the premiere when there was also some press and some people there were 40 Haran Lee Davidson in the parking lot and this is amazing for for a countryside theater it's such a nice sight.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

You feel like something is going on but you don't know what but already in the parking lot it looked and this was something I couldn't imagine or see in front of me but it's kind of nice yeah so I it's super nice it's so awesome some of these gigs that you do and a little bit in the countryside and you got people and then you deliver a show of like it's so interesting that you are doing that in the countryside uh theater where I'm like this is the this is the stuff that is like only at a fringe festival where you get the weird and the strange and all that that there that sort of sort of stuff is almost expected that somebody is doing those kinds of shows or exploring the limits of what performance can be but there you are in a country town. But I'm also and and that just blows my mind in the best of ways. But that brings us a little bit to where you started because you did a lot of shows in that theater because you had a very and so then you have two things one like why are you doing it every year shows in the theater in the middle of nowhere like why are you doing that and then that's why also you have escalated into this stage where you have people on Harley Davidson and kids and all this sort of

Small Town Theater Origins

SPEAKER_01 41:57

stuff. So like that's it's a natural evolution of it.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

But that brings us also back to like why were you doing several shows over the years in that one theater um it's uh it's all thanks to my my father actually he uh he helped rebuilding uh an old barn into a theater and this theater had a big room with uh oh like 250 seats and then there was a black black box with about 150 and then there was a restaurant with a with uh uh more like a a stage that was perfect for storytelling and poetry and and some maybe some jazz music like smaller smaller events so the theater housed the three different stages and it's a part of Sweden where you uh you get um you get tourists and you get people who come during the summertime so the summer season was June July and half of August uh and my father was building he he was uh he was a he was a carpenter and he was an artist and he was building things um he built the stage sets and uh also but you know I still use the magic one that he he's not around anymore he he died in 2015 but I still use some of the things today in my shows that he had had made and I started working there by just you know as a summer job as a kid you know I was cleaning the toilet and I was sweeping the stage and I was hanging out with the people that passed through and to me it was uh I I never I never felt the urge to be an actor or be on stage and do something like they were doing uh uh amazing things but I didn't feel the connection to it I felt the connection to the stage and I felt the connection to the magic and my father was an amateur magician so the magic was all around the kids when we grew up uh at at home mostly uh and then eventually at the theater so I I was Just all around the theater doing everything during my childhood and teenage years. It was uh the thing that fascinated me was the things I get to see that nobody else got to see. I got to see the uh the big sheets of fabric and paper laying on the floor in a random room that the scenographer was painting. Uh, I did see the half-finished stage sets that and I saw people working, you know, month and month and month for something that was just supposed to be one and a half hour long. And this, I mean, I know it sounds pretentious, but it doesn't make it less true. This whole process was was just astonishing to me. And I felt like I was let in on a secret, the making of. I saw, and then I saw the nervous actors, you know, backstage, and then they were super cool and did their thing on stage. And I got I I just felt like I was let in on a secret and in the secret world, and this was just amazing to me. So I want I want to be at a theater. And uh when I think about work and a job, I I mean today, now I didn't know I was thinking about it back then, but I probably was in some strange way. I think about what place do I like to spend time in. Uh there are rooms and buildings and houses and places I don't want to spend time in. Uh, and that is, for example, a hospital. So even if the nicest thing I can think about being would be like uh a doctor or a children's doctor, something like that, I do not want to be in a hospital, but I love museums and I love art galleries and I absolutely love theaters and I don't care if they don't have windows. Does it make sense that the the place where I thrive is you know backstage and also on stage, of course, but yeah, I like I like seeing you unpack your stuff. And you know, when I we were working with uh J. Jillian just a few months ago, and he opens his bags, and the bags look amazing. And I feel like, wow, we should take a picture and hang it in a gallery because this is so this is like this is uh this is art also, but it's all but it's just for us who are backstage. We're so I can't really describe it in words, but it's it's yeah. So the all the things that takes to prepare the few minutes we do on stage is amazing to me, still today.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Absolutely, and I I love that, absolutely love that as well, it was just why we connect so strongly and and I those people like Nick Defat as well, who who care so much about all those things that he owns the pet suitcase of the stuff from Tom Mullika, and he owns props that other magicians have used that was influential on him, or that he's interested in the thinking of them, or whatever. I find that kind of passion for the craft. I I I I love that. And it's so interesting that for you it started out with your father actually building a theater, because then you get to see and I love that you saw actors or musicians or poetry readings, like this sort of stuff would then be going on when you were a child, and that you could see that all of those things are interesting and connected to the magic of this theater, which is so it seems to me almost allegorical that we have the big room where you have big shows, and then you have a smaller room where other things are possible because it's smaller and it's a black box setup, and then the fact that you then have a place as well out in the cafe, which is a much more informal, and each one of those um affords a different kind of mode of performance. Somehow, if you put it on a 250-seat stage, someone and you're having an open mic night for people who are reading their texts or the poetry or whatever, then different expectations sort of come by the size of it. But because it's in the cafe there, so you were in this very rich environment. And just maybe uh uh say a couple of things about just the the town and and where this is, because you're obviously talking about the kind of school holiday uh time of it.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

We're in the very, very south of Sweden. And uh it's uh this village where I grew up is called Schwillinge, and it's a it's an old fishing village, really. And we I think we I'm guessing now, I think we're talking about 800 people uh living there. And if you stand in the harbor and you look out, you see all the fishing boats and uh and the small ones, small fishing boats, and if it's a clear day, you can see Bonnholm, which is an island uh from Denmark, straight ahead of you. And uh if uh and if you could see right through through through that, you would probably, yeah, I think Poland on the other side. Um so oh yeah, or Germany, uh somewhere in the between. Um so it's a very south of Sweden, and uh this is it it's also a beautiful area. So people from all over Sweden and Germany and Denmark, they come here and they make holiday. And uh this is where um the the actors who started the theater had this idea we should have a theater that played the classics. It's also important. It was like we want to make a production every year that is a you know classic theater play. So it was Shakespeare and Chekhov and uh and uh yeah, uh and uh then also some alternative programs, and then that's when the variety came in uh and uh and some music and and something like this, but um but uh yeah, so there was not so many people living around the year, but there's uh nowadays there's a really famous theater in this small fishing village, so it's easy to involve the locals. And I think you come maybe from the same kind of place as I as I do. Um but if if something happens, people know about it, and there's one local paper, uh, not not in a busy city where there is many, many, many. Uh so if you talk to the local paper, you know, then if they write something, everybody will know it. So it just felt also like an easier time. It's a little bit different now, but it's 25 years later, so it's of course it's different.

SPEAKER_02 50:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:51

But um uh since I was practicing magic and doing little shows around this area, I got the request to do one performance, one piece for uh an evening soaree where there was a mix, you know, there was music and there was some poetry and there was some little bit of everything. And this was a really big thing for me because it was a first performance on a real theater stage. And I worked really hard with this, I think, rope trick, I can't really remember. Uh and I and the next year I did two pieces, and the year after I did a little bit more, and so it just grew. And then when I got the uh quest, the the request to do an a family program, I you know, I just jumped on it and uh I created an hour, and then suddenly a few years later, I did the evening program and I involved other people, musicians, um a light designer, and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

And so how old were you when you did that when you were asked to do the first trick? And how old were you when you were asked to do the first uh one-hour show?

SPEAKER_00 52:06

Oh, I know I have to think about how old I am today. Uh I think 14. Wow. Uh 14, 14,

Magic Family Roots And Craft

SPEAKER_00 52:17

15, yeah, yeah, something like that. 15, I think. Uh I turn uh I turned 45 this year. Yeah. And uh I've been uh working uh professionally for 25 years, I think, 2001 or 26. I can't remember. You see, my um I I have had for I have had the fortune to have very supportive parents, and I recognize it because I know not everybody in our industry has had that. We we we all know and have close friends that had to really fight for being an artist or uh working with culture or uh and uh even have the family try to stop them and so-called get a real job and all that. So I'm I'm I'm really fortunate to have uh you know a mother that said, Yeah, sure, of course, you can start a company. It's not so difficult, let's do it tomorrow, because she was working with economy and and numbers and and these things. It wasn't so strange for her. Um, and a father who drove me around to my gigs and build props for me. So it's uh it's been uh yeah, so great. They were my biggest what what do you call it?

SPEAKER_01 53:35

Like cheerleaders, yeah, cheerleaders and also collaborators as well.

SPEAKER_00 53:39

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 53:42

Um and when so you you mentioned earlier that your dad was an amateur magician. Do you have like an image of like the first times when uh he did magic, or at least did the magic in such a way that you went, This is what I'm interested in?

SPEAKER_00 54:00

Um no, I I don't really have an image of that. I just had had an image of that it was really annoying and a little bit embarrassing to bring home friends because my dad probably wanted to show them a trick or something. Um so uh and he wasn't really a performer, he liked to uh collect things, and uh this was of course before before the internet you couldn't order things uh online like you could do today. You had these physical uh catalogues from you know Tannan's magic or or and you had to you really think about it, and yeah, and uh from around.

SPEAKER_01 54:37

Yeah, because there was uh back then there was a uh quite a few. I don't know. That guy called that was in Braumella.

SPEAKER_00 54:43

There was Bernando's Magic, of course.

SPEAKER_01 54:45

Bernando's Magic and uh El Duco, of course. Yes, in the I just bought one. Oh, I bought my second one of his reels. They've started this guy, I can't remember his name, started to re-release his reels.

SPEAKER_02 54:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:00

Very, very good uh craftsmanship. And anyway, so there was a strong kind of magic shop community. And Guy Junberg had the Yiklub, and they also sold magic, and he produced a bunch of stuff, still does still do, still does, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:17

Yeah, so that was all uh all around me and uh my uh I think also my but you know, my dad built some illusions in his spare time, and he went around to conventions and he always came home with something um like they do. Um, but I do remember the more uh the performances of his friend and where he got his inspiration from, which is uh uh uh a man called Paul, and he lived in this fishing village in in Quillinger, and uh and Paul was this will ring, this story will ring, ring, uh, what do we call it? It will ring bells. Um he was a watchmaker. So he watched a local watchmaker, Paul, and uh he was also, of course, a magician. And uh and we would watch him at the children parties when it was our our birthdays, and this is where my dad got the uh inspiration from to uh to uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:18

This is just it it is just so uncanny because I my father is uh is an amateur magician, and uh I got my start with him and he his interest rubbed up on me. But he his teacher, the one that got him into magic, was his uh great uncle. So I don't know what that makes it. It's like the brother of his something, it doesn't matter. And um he competed in FISM and he did mainly manipulation and stuff, and his name was uh Sartini. And Sat Sartini he took that name because of the watch Satina. No, okay, yeah because uh Alfred M Olson he was a watchmaker and he made watches and uh had a watch store uh in the main street of uh hometown, but his passion was magic. I mean he loved watchmaking. But so that's just so weird that your dad's inspiration, Paul, also is that same thing.

SPEAKER_00 57:26

It's just the what some levels of of uh coincidences here, or or is it or is it, or maybe it also gives us a little signal about how difficult magic is that you need these super skills to create some things, um you know, some of the things from that time that I look at today, the mechanics and how they are made, it's like oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:53

I mean I just was speaking of El Duco's real. I like when I bought that, it comes with you know, like it always does when you buy it, it comes with a video thing of it, and he's talking about it. And my lord, that that was already a good reel. And then the way that this dude has, I should really remember his name and put it in the show notes. But um, like the way that the the amount of work that goes into making these little things. I mean, our friend Charlie Caper has done some real work on making reels. Like, holy moly, then the level of work that goes into these things. And also it makes me think of Mike Kavanier as well in his book, where he talks about making contraptions that he uses for his um for his chicken and cutlery and whatever craziness that comes out. And you it all looks totally crazy, but then when you look at the heart of it, what makes this uh seeming madness happen that produces a chicken and all this sort of stuff? And then you look at these crafted things out of brass and stuff like it. It is just so incredible. I can't believe the coincidences of uh of how our paths were similar with magic enthusiast fathers, including the next generation uh being a watchmaker. Incredible. Those kinds of synchronicities are really uh really fascinating when that happens. So many great things already coming up here, and I was wondering whether I was gonna leave in this bit where she basically says we can't talk about uh all of them uh or she wants to have more details in front of her, if she wants to talk about all this uh the political magic shows and all that that she does. But I just left it in because I thought it was um it was such a wonderful teaser, even in the in just saying, well, maybe we should talk about this in another chapter as a whole chapter in itself. But I thought it was such a great tease of what it was that she had uh actually uh done with that work. And I thought that we'll leave that there for you to um to uh get excited about. And uh yeah, if you want us to continue that conversation, why not um drop uh me an email? Send it at uh the wayof the showman at gmail.com. And again, if you want to know when each episode comes out, why not follow and uh subscribe to the to the podcast? I mean it really is the thing that makes me uh most kind of excited when I see that I drop the episode and it just I see that it is connected with all these people that are listeners. So if if if not for yourself, uh then for me. You don't have it to that it needs to download so that you have a hard copy on your phone in case you're on a plane and realize you haven't downloaded a movie to watch. But uh if you just uh click it so that it gets registered, that it's sent to

Closing And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_01 1:00:52

your box, it makes me so happy. So, until next time, take care of yourself and those you love, and I hope to see you along the way.