Luke Oseland

Three objects vanish in full view, a phone, a ring, a driver’s license and hours later a sealed box an audience member has guarded all night reveals them all. That’s the finale Luke Oseland built to feel like a live heist, and it says everything about his new approach: relentless clarity, stacked moments, and visuals that travel across any crowd.
 
 We sit down with Luke to trace his pivot from publishing visual social media magic to performing 150-stage-show years across cruise ships and festivals. He breaks down the Fringe lessons that changed his pacing, why family-friendly shows can be both bookable and bold, and how he turns mentalism into a machine of multiple peaks. From a Wakeling-style sawing in half that puzzles long after curtain to a bottle production that buys instant goodwill, his choices reveal a framework: easy to describe, hard to reverse-engineer, and generous to participants.
 
 Luke also opens up about the routines that anchor his set. A spectator-led Out of This World that makes kids the heroes. Double Cross as the one-minute credibility hit he never leaves home without. A signature blank deck sequence built for legibility in low light. A “wrong drink in a can” piece that uses temperature and texture to shock the senses. He reframes Pegasus Page so spectators read each other’s minds, and he explains when he shelves powerhouse effects like Toxic to avoid overlap in festival lineups.
 
 Expect sharp takes and practical tools. He argues escapology often lacks believable jeopardy and offers a fun, life-ruining-stakes straightjacket alternative. He shares how FLIC buttons replaced expensive remotes for show control and why gaffer tape is the secret co-author of most stage solutions. We close with tour plans, accessible book design for neurodiverse readers, and the simple rule that guides his builds: if the audience can tell the story in one sentence, you’ve done the hard work.

Luke’s Desert Island Tricks: 

1. Sawing In Half 
2. Bottle Production 
3. Out of this World 
4. Double Cross 
5. Blank Deck Routine 
6. Too Hot To Handle 
7. Pegasus Page 
8. Heist 

Banishment. Escapology 

Book. Self Working Card Tricks

Item. FLIC Button / Gaffer Tape 

Find out more about the creators of this Podcast at www.alakazam.co.uk

Chapters

• 0:00 Designing The “Heist” Finale
• 1:30 Introducing Luke Oseland’s Journey
• 3:38 From Creator To Performer After Lockdowns
• 6:20 Fringe Lessons And Show Evolution
• 9:35 Comedy Vs Family-Friendly: Finding The Lane
• 12:03 Stacking Magical Moments, Not Just Reveals
• 15:35 Desert Island Trick #1: Sawing In Half
• 19:45 Desert Island Trick #2: Bottle Productions
• 23:10 Desert Island Trick #3: Out Of This World
• 26:35 Desert Island Trick #4: Double Cross
• 30:05 Desert Island Trick #5: The Blank Deck Routine
• 34:55 Sponsor Break: Alakazam Unlimited
• 36:10 Desert Island Trick #6: A Different Drink In A Can
• 40:55 Desert Island Trick #7: Pegasus Page Reimagined
• 44:28 Honorable Mentions: Tenyo And Toxic
• 48:40 Desert Island Trick #8: The Heist Explained
• 53:35 What To Bury: Escapology, With Caveats
• 59:20 The Book Pick And Accessible Magic Texts
• 1:03:20 Non‑Magic Tools: Flick Buttons And Gaffer Tape
• 1:07:50 Touring, Teamwork, And Show Resilience
• 1:11:00 Where To See Luke Next

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:00

We wanted to we wanted to pull off a heist in our shows, right? Like that was just a nice concept we had. We said, we want to pull off a heist. And originally we started talking about having lasers across the stage and the the imagery of like blueprints and the actual the all of the imagery behind the heist is is really nice to look at and there's a lot of theming that goes with it. At the start of the show, we hand out a box and we say that the contents of the box will be very important to three people in the audience. Towards the end of the show, we borrow three items. We borrow a ring, phone, and someone's driver's license. We hold them all in our hands and then they all vanish one one after the other, starting with a driver's license. The driver's license vanishes, the ring vanishes, and the phone vanishes. And then we say at the start of the show, we say the contents of that box will be very important. Box comes back up on stage, we open it up, and inside is a sealed mailbag. And inside that is a sort of concertina which opens up with the ring, the driver's license, the phone. Without any switches, these are then handed back to three audience members. And it's such a big kind of now you see me moment. And I think the item to impossible location is one of the best plots in Magic. It's so easy to understand, something vanishes and it's inside a box.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30

Another guest is waiting, this time just back from a cruise ship. That's because today's guest is someone making a huge name for himself on the cruise ship circuit. If you follow him on social media, you'll see. I was just talking to him, um, you'll see that there has been such a huge change in his style and his career over, I would say, sort of the last four to five years. And he's done some incredible things considering his age. He has consulted for Dynamo with Beyond Belief. He has been on Penantella Fool Us. He has had incredible hit shows like The Magic Hangover, which had five-star reviews, Drunk Magic, and is currently working on uh a show called Insane Magic, which I'm sure we'll get into. And now you'll see him all over his socials. I never know where in the world he's gonna be from one day to the next because he's always on a cruise ship somewhere. He's doing an incredible job on the cruise ships, and I know it's gonna be such an interesting list. I think it's gonna be different to what a lot of us think this person is gonna put out, uh, especially considering the books that he's put out and the style of magic that he's put out in the past. I think where he's now is a lot different. So I think we're gonna have a really interesting list, especially for those who are gonna be playing Luke Osland Bingo. Of course, today's guest is the wonderful Luke Osland. Hello, Luke.

SPEAKER_03: 2:57

Hello, how's it going?

SPEAKER_00: 2:59

Good. Glad to finally have you here. You're another guest, I say every week. We've been trying to get you on for ages, but like I say, you are everywhere all of the time.

SPEAKER_03: 3:08

Yeah, I quite like that. I quite like the fact that no one knows where I am at any one point. It's good, it's good to not be available, you know. That's that's a natural thing, I think. I think too many people nowadays, you're so easily available through social media or whatever. It's quite fun when when when no one knows where I am or where I live or anything. I like I like that, it's nice.

SPEAKER_00: 3:25

You you make me think we should do a version of like Magician Hunted, you know, like Celebrity Hunted, but just Magician Hunted.

SPEAKER_03: 3:31

I'd be pretty good at it. I wouldn't love to do anything. I could just stay in my flat and no one would find me.

SPEAKER_00: 3:36

Everything that you've done over the past five years and where you are now is very different to what you were sort of known for. Whereas now you just seem to be predominantly sort of Edinburgh fringe, you've done a lot of stuff with, uh, and now you're smashing it on the cruise ships.

SPEAKER_03: 3:52

Yeah, I think it's a bit of a jump that uh no one, especially not myself, was expecting. Um, I obviously put out a lot of for anyone that doesn't know me, I used to put out a lot of magic tricks. And when I say a lot, I mean like I think I've got 60 or 70 published magic effects um on the market, whether it be through a membership or a physical product or a download um or a lecturer or whatever. And I used to, that was my bread and butter, was doing these um producing effects and doing lectures and more social media consultancy and stuff like that. And then I think when the pandemic hit, I realized actually how important that sort of human connection was. And I think because it was taken away so quickly, I really wanted to get into performing um for real people as opposed as opposed to performing on a camera or something when you when there's no connection there. Um and I realized how important that was, and then and then just really really loved it, got a performing bug, and then before you know it, I was doing you know 150 shows a year, um, which has been really fun and I I enjoy it, it's the best job in the world.

SPEAKER_00: 4:53

I mentioned earlier on, obviously, that you have the uh series of shows, the magic hangover, drunk magic, and say magic, where you are now. What's that journey been like? So have you used the Edinburgh things that you've learned at Edinburgh on the cruise ship? Is that how you sort of transitioned over?

SPEAKER_03: 5:10

Yeah, absolutely. Fringe is definitely uh was a catapult for me performing, I think. I think because the there's nowhere else um where you can get so much stage time. Now, I'd been obsessed with the idea as when I was a creator, I was obsessed with the idea of doing a one-man show at some point just to see if I could do it. And the whole plan was I'd do the Edinburgh Fringe once, see how I liked it, and if I liked it, I'd carry on being a performer. If I didn't, I could go back to to publishing um effects and stuff like that. And I think initially I decided to do this show called Drunk Magic. I started writing it when I was actually like 16 or 17, and then um two years later or so, I think I was 19 or 20 when I when I first did it, we did this show. The problem is I can't really do that show anymore. The premise of the show was I would have a few drinks before I'd go on stage, and I'd have a few drinks during being on stage, and in the same um sort of excuse my French, but I'm quoting, uh, in the same way that Shitface Shakespeare does their shows, um, they have one cast member get drunk and the rest of them have to improvise around it. The difference was it was only me on stage, it was a one-man show, and I was getting drunk and doing the stuff. Now, the show I think was good. I don't know. I I think when I look back at it, I think it was really bad because of where I am now. But I think anyone would do that three, four years down the line. But I think at the time for what I was doing, it was it was probably quite good, um, even though it was just me doing a bunch of tricks a little bit tipsy. And I do think that I sort of used the maybe the alcohol as a as a bit of Dutch courage or leverage to get me on stage as well. So I think at the time it's probably the right thing to do. I can't do that show anymore. I can't, I couldn't, I couldn't go out and get I wouldn't want to get drunk before going on stage. Like that's just not part of me. Like if I have, I will never have like more than one drink maybe before going on stage. Um unless that's the premise of the show I'm doing. So so so it's not really something I'd do anymore. And also just actually, you know, getting older now, drinking every day isn't isn't really something I want to do. Um uh especially because I was going out like every night. And not that you don't do that during the fringe, but but it was definitely a bit much. Um but the shows we do now are the the main one is Insane Magic. So there's three of us in that show, myself, Cameron Gibson and Elliot Bibby. Um we've we've done that show for three years now, I believe. Um and it gets bigger and better every well, every month, but every year, really, when we bring it back to the fringe, we we scale it up. So we started, you know, downstairs, underground in a nightclub, um, performing for like a hundred people each night. And we sold out the first year we did it, and then we did another year in a similar size venue, and then this year we did it in a 300 seater, and we pretty much sold out the whole thing, um, which was unheard of at the end of the fringe. We actually make money at the end of the fringe, which is also a crazy thing to say. Um, so so we do that, that's our main sort of show that we do. And then uh this year at the fringe, I also had a show called The Magic Hangover, um, because I still wanted to do a bit of like a risk A show. I quite like this sort of whole late night comedy idea, um, like adults only, not to say it's offensive, but but definitely adults only, I think, whereas insane is very much family-friendly. Um, so so I did a show called Magic Hangover, and the premise of that was I'd woke, I'd I'd woken up on stage after a night out, and the audience had to help me work out what happened the night before. So very similar to the movie, The Hangover with magic in it. Um and that show was really well received, and I think that was definitely the start of a sort of new style of performing for me. There's a bit of storytelling involved, um, a lot of comedy and a lot of magic. I think what one of the most important things to me for an entertainer is to is to if if someone comes at my show and they said that was really funny and the magic was really good, that's all I care about. Like I think that's that's ultimate people are going to enjoy themselves, right? If there's a bit of storytelling or they learn a bit about you in the show as well, amazing. Um, but yeah, that show is really fun, and I look forward to doing more stuff like that. Although I think I might now start to delve more into the family-friendly routes, just because I don't know, you sell more tickets when you do family stuff and it's a lot more bookable.

SPEAKER_00: 9:03

So I knew you a lot for your visual tricks, and certainly I have both of your books, which are Visual AF and Visual AF2, and they they tended to be very social media friendly, very visual, close up, super clever a lot of the time. Uh, you have a great Christmas trick, which is great for this time of the year as well, uh, which is funny. Um, how has your shift in performance styles and the shows that you're doing altered this list? Do you reckon that your list would be totally different five years ago to now?

SPEAKER_03: 9:37

Yeah, I think I would have actually I think five years ago I would have struggled to put together this list. Not saying that I definitely struggled putting it together now, but I think I would have struggled putting it uh together last time because I wouldn't know what to put in because I didn't perform. Like I might just put in a bunch of little, as you say, visual tricks that they'll work for social media. Um, and obviously that's not the most workable stuff, and not in the sense that it's impractical, but more it's hard to make a one-hour show out of 10-second tricks, you know, it's 600 tricks or whatever. So, so so my list has definitely changed. What I will say is that recently in my shows, I definitely brought back some of the visual stuff. I think when I started doing shows, everyone was very much like, oh, this is not what I was expecting from you at all. Like I was just doing the classic, you know, five 10-minute routines um in 50 minutes. Like that was basically my show. And then now there's definitely a lot more woven into it. And one thing which is really important to me is having as many magical moments in a show as possible. So if you came to see like Insane, it's very fast paced, and in my shows as well, there's a lot of magical moments. So even if I'm doing a trick like um PK Touch, for example, I will, you know, that as a me and me and um Cameron were talking about this last night. That as a mentalism routine still has three magical moments in it, even though it's only 10 over 10 minutes. Whereas most mentalism, you only get like one reveal out of uh a lot of talking. So it's really important to stack up those moments. And now my PK Touch routine has actually about 12 moments of magic within it. And I'm at the moment like constantly working on that routine to see where I can add more moments of magic. So the sort of visual quicker stuff is definitely coming back into it. So I don't actually know how different my list now is from then, but though, but look at my list, there's there's none of these like quick social media tricks really in the list. So I don't know, maybe before it would have just been a bunch of flap cards or something, but uh but not anymore.

SPEAKER_00: 11:26

Okay, well, I'm really interested to see where this is gonna go. You sort of teased one there, so we'll we may have PK Touch in there. Um, but anyone playing Lucos Lumbingo, now is your chance to write down your guesses. I spoke to Luke before, and I don't really know where this is gonna go. I think we're gonna have more stage things, maybe a gag, because I know that you're you're really good with some of your gag items. Certainly, um, if you follow Luke on social media, he's got a great microphone um prop, which is absolutely superb. So I'm not sure where this is gonna go, but let's get into it. So if this is your first time listening, the idea is we're about to maroon Luke on his very own desert island. He's probably gonna get a cruise ship there. Uh, when he's there, he's allowed to take eight tricks, banish one item, take one book and one non-magic item that he uses for magic. Particulars, who's there, what's there, all of that good stuff. We do not mind. It's in Luke's own imagination. So that's being said, let's go then now, Luke, and find out what you put in position number one.

SPEAKER_03: 12:27

Okay, um, I these are not in any particular order. And actually, I've got just a list of like eight things here. I'm gonna pick them off randomly because I don't like the order they're in on my phone. Um, I want to kick things off with uh with soaring in half, more as a plot as opposed to a specific model uh or method of it. Um but the classic magic trick where someone gets in a box and you saw them in half and you put them back together, I think it's just such a simple concept to get behind. You know, when it when people first started doing it, I think P. T. Selbert was like the first guy to do it and originate it, people were blown away at the fact he was actually cutting someone in half. And I think that that mystery of you murdering someone on stage is now lost, and it's now obviously a classic and a stereotype of magic. Um, but there is still other ways, like you know, Copperfield's Buzzsaw Illusion again is such a an amazing image. The Elick brothers, they're soaring in half with a huge Grim Reaper. Like I will never get bored of watching someone, someone do a soaring. Um, and there's so many different ways of doing it, so many models and so many different ways it's been presented. I just think it's a really great sort of plot and and illusion. Uh, and it is genuinely one of my favourite illusions of all time. Whenever we perform it in our show, whenever we do, I like I come off stage after being like, and I tell the audience that's genuinely one of my favourite illusions of all time. We really we wanted to saw me in half initially, like that was the whole the whole plan. Because there's there's three of us in a show, so it makes sense. I get in a box, and I'm normally the if I fit in a box that we have, I'm normally the one in it. Um, so originally I was meant to get in a box and we'd separate into two, put them back together. Unfortunately, we bought a waking soaring in half, which is uh a really good soaring, I think, because it's it's much more of a puzzle that stays with the audience after the show's finished. A lot of soaring in half, they might go, oh, well, that's how it works. And it's nice in the moment, but then the more you think about it, you're like, well, that's just how it worked. Whereas the the thing about a wakeling soaring in half, if you haven't seen it, is it all kind of happens undercover and everything's examinable. So the audience members, you get them up on stage, they have a look at everything. You can do it completely surrounded. Um, so if you wanted to, and uh there's there's a magician, uh a Vegas guy, I forget his name, but he actually performs it with you know 20 people up on stage surrounding this illusion. Um and every as I said, everything's like checked out, so anything that people think about in their heads, you you immediately disprove. So it becomes so much more of a magic trick um throughout the rest of their day or throughout the rest of their year, as opposed to just one visual soaring in the moment, which I think you know, uh other soaring is like clearly impossible, is one of my favorites, where you can see through it the entire time. I think it's amazing, but actually, the longer someone thinks about it, the longer they can come up with their own method. And the method you the the way you think a trick works is probably how it works, or at least in the audience's mind, that's good enough for them. If they think they know how it works, they know how it works. It doesn't matter if they if they don't. Um whereas I think that the Wakeling has so many pieces to it, it's so it's so many pieces to a to a to a puzzle that it's quite hard to define it. So that's why we went with that one. I'd like to buy another one soon. I'd like I'd like to get a clearly impossible just to just to have and just to put into a show. I think it's uh it's a lot more flashy though. Whereas when we do it, it's kind of a slower talking piece, it takes about eight, eight, eight minutes, maybe ten minutes to do that routine, as opposed to just uh saw in half and then put back together. We talk about it a lot more and how impossible it actually is. But yeah, that's my first desert island trick. Um, although I don't know how I'd how I'd get it there on the island. I don't know who I'd do it with. It would be more just to admire from the corner, I think.

SPEAKER_00: 15:59

Maybe your luxury item is gonna have to be your performing mates. Maybe you're gonna have to take them with you.

SPEAKER_03: 16:06

Yeah, I'd take them with me everywhere. We also I I say this, I realize I said that it would be me getting in a box. Um, I don't fit in that one. We have an assistant as well who's amazing, uh, Laura from them from America, and she comes and does shows with us. Uh, and she's the one that gets in the box, and she's great at it. But yeah, she would have to come as well to to get in a box, and then Elliot and Cam could come along as well.

SPEAKER_00: 16:26

It's definitely not one that I had on your list. I'm not gonna lie. Soren in half was not the the one that I was expecting to come out, but a brilliant choice uh and a really interesting one in at number one. So let's find out where you're gonna go with number two. What's in your second spot?

SPEAKER_03: 16:41

I want to go for any any kind of bottle production. So whether it be a splash bottle or I do a bottle production which I believe handsome Jack kind of originated because there's elements of comedy built into it, and it's a really nice I have like my own sort of version of it, but it's a really quick, flashy opener. Um, it suits me to be. I always make a bottle of beer appear and I give it to someone in the front row, and that's such a quick way to get the audience on side. Um, I don't think I have to explain anything else about that. I just think it's such a nice, easy to understand trick. You know, you have nothing and then you make a bottle of pier. I am there are a few other uh versions I need to look into. Like I think Richard Griffin just put one out, which I really like the look of where you have a sort of see-through mesh um uh handkerchief and then you make a bottle of pier. And it looks, if you can get it right when you get the lighting right, it really looks phenomenal. Um I need to look into that. But yeah, any bottle production. I think it's just such a quick, easy thing to understand. Um, I have seen so many people mess up the balloon one, which I think is really entertaining, but you know, when it goes right, it goes right. So that's my number two.

SPEAKER_00: 17:49

Now, is this something that you do on stage and close up? Because it is one of those ones that it sort of just speaks for itself, like you you just mentioned. There's no real introduction needed to it, it just sort of happens, it's almost incidental magic, right? It's just this thing happens.

SPEAKER_03: 18:07

I I've never thought about doing a close-up. I guess I could. Um, my close-up set, which actually both I I only do like two or three tricks in my close-up set, and uh, I think they're both on on this list. Um, it's very easy to repeat because most of the time when I'm doing a close-up thing, I'm in, I don't I don't go off and reset, like I'm just bam, bam, bam at every table. Um, and I I cover as many people as I can in a short amount of time. So I think in the case that you have to, there's quite a lot of reset going on, and it also whatever bottle production you you do, some will say that it doesn't. I feel like you're always uncomfortable before you do it. Uh, you're always you're always a bit like you can't move as much as you can. And I'm quite an animated person, so even going out onto stage, about to do a bottle production, I'm I I'm a bit careful. Whereas normally when I come out stage, I sprint out on stage and I'm high-fiving people and stuff. And so you do lose that element, and especially when I'm approaching a table, I want to be as free as I can. I don't want to have to worry about where a bottle may come from. So I don't think I would do it in close-up. I might give it a go. Maybe I think certainly for a top table thing. Um, but also when you do close-up gigs, people are glancing around, right? People talk when when you're you're visiting another table and they go, Oh, that's a magician, I wonder if he'll come over here. If they see me do a bottle production, that kind of ruins it. Um, so I don't know if I would do it. I certainly wouldn't do it at every table. Maybe, maybe, we'll see. I think I you know where I would do it, and I have done it, is these gigs which are becoming more and more popular now, where you do magic, like kind of parlor magic, but you do a close-up set for 10 to 20 people, um, and then you move to a different table and you do the same thing. And I know that there's like the you obviously have like the magician's table um in London, and also Magic Circle have their one. There's one out in New York, but the the a lot of these gigs are popping up in lots of cities. Um, I do it there, I do it there, and I I have done it, I do it in a magic circle. When I did a magic circle secrets thing, I do it there as well. Um, I think that's quite fun to do it for like a small group of 10, 20 people, and that also becomes kind of like a set more so than than than walk around magic. Um, but yeah, I I do it there and I do it in stage shows. I don't do a walk around.

SPEAKER_00: 20:10

I remember many years ago, David Stone had a wonderful DVD set. DVDs, remember them? Um and uh in one of them he had a bottle production where it was designed for for close-up tables, but you stole it from the actual table itself when they were unaware of it, and then it I think it either transposed or it changed into his shoe. So then suddenly his shoe would just appear in place of the bottle. And I presume from what you just said, you're using this as an opening routine because you mentioned the running out and high-fiving people.

SPEAKER_03: 20:47

Yeah, I don't like to be uncomfortable for too long. So I don't like things being on my person when I'm on stage either. Like if I I hate the idea of having my pockets absolutely filled with stuff, and I I always say this, and it always ends up that that's what happens, anyways. Um, but I'm trying to get out of the habit of having like anything in my pockets, everything's in a case or it's somewhere easy to grab. Um so I'm not a huge fan of having like things on me because I like running around a lot and I don't want anything to fall out of anywhere. So it's always an opener, and I only do it in like on when you do ships, you have to do two shows. I only do it in one of the shows. Um, just so it's I'm free of it, and then I can be more animated elsewhere. Um, so yeah, yeah, bottle production. I think, sorry, any any drink production really doesn't need to be a bottle production, but any like if you're making a glass of champagne appear or a pint or or anything, I think is is good. It's just such an easy thing to understand. I talk about um big there's a few things I say quite often, and one of them is is big colourful shapes that it's really easy to understand as an audience member, no matter where you're from or or your IQ, for example, seeing a big colourful shape is is very easy to understand. And in take splash bottle for produ for for for example, blowing up a big balloon is a big colourful shape, and it's actually quite a quite a nice thing to watch someone do as well. Blowing up a balloon, it's quite a nice image, and then stabbing it popping again is a is a big noise, uh, and then followed by the bottle. So it's like three things happening at once, big colourful shapes, very noisy. You can be from anywhere and understand that instantly.

SPEAKER_00: 22:17

Well, in terms of big colourful shapes, we've got two very different ones so far. We've got soaring in half, followed by a bottle production. Uh, very different ends of the spectrum there. So let's go to number three, Lynn. Let's find out what you put in your third spot.

SPEAKER_03: 22:31

Yeah, I'm just choosing what I should go for now. I think let's go for a card trick. Um, I think the best card trick of all time, this is this is what I've put in my list. Uh I think is Out of This World, where you have um uh an audience member come up on stage, you they mix the cards, you mix the cards, and then you hand the pack cards to them, they deal some of the cards in a red pile, some of them in a black pile, you turn them over and they've they've done it perfectly. I think it is such again, an easy thing to understand for an audience. Um, I think it's fun. I think that there is definitely a difficulty in how to do it so it's not boring because it's quite a long process. I think I do it pretty well, and I think it's quite entertaining when I do it. But if you can find a way that it works, I think that that is one of the the best and easiest to understand card tricks of all time. And it feels so fair, you don't do anything, right? You you you're you're completely hands-off. Um, so yeah, and I do that in my stage shows and I do it in my close-up uh sets as well. It's just it's great, it's really great.

SPEAKER_00: 23:30

I think it's a wonderful routine, and it's one of the very few car tricks where, like you just mentioned, the focus is all on the participant. It's not really about the performer, it's not about them at all, it's about the experience of the audience member in that moment. Now, is this something that again you've somehow found a way to adapt this to stage, or is this what the one of the two that you said you always do walk around?

SPEAKER_03: 23:56

Um, yeah, I don't I definitely I don't do this at every table walk around. When I when I do walk around, I have um two sets. I have um my A set and my B set, and once I've sort of covered everyone with my first set, then I go uh off for a couple of minutes, I take out of my pockets a couple of things, and I put back a couple of things, and I go out and do my B set. For my favourite sort of tables um and the tables that I think responded to magic the best. I'll then go out, I'll do a couple of card tricks with uh with a with a real pack of cards. I might do like an ace production really quickly, put those cards down and use them for them to deal piles onto. Um, but it's very I'd say I maybe do it once, maybe twice uh a close-up gig for throughout a couple of hours. Um I do it on stage. Uh I do it, I also I occasionally get booked for these like parties where you're doing tricks to maybe 10 people um and they ask you to do a 45-minute show. I really enjoy those. It's one of my favourite things to do. It's so uh intimate as well. And I do it there, I have someone come up and do it. Um and I do it on stage. I do it with uh with a camera, so with live feed camera. I get a kid from the audience um if it's an early show, if it's a late show, I get a very drunk adult, because it's the same thing. Um, and I put them on a chair and I have them sit down and I sort of teach them how to shuffle a pack of cards. And that's the motivation for for shuffling the deck, and then we do the trick, and then the kid takes a big bow, and it's a really nice moment for the kid. And as you said, all of the all of the I guess energy is the right word to use for it, is on the kids, right? That's like that's that that's what people care about. I don't take any credit for it. Um, it's the kid that's been amazing, not me. And it gives the kid a really nice moment, it gives the audience a nice moment. The kid will be talking about it for years as well. So yeah, uh, I do it in stage shows, I think sometimes in close-up, but but mainly stage. I think Ryan Tricks, out of all people, might have been the first person to show me out of this world in a sense that wasn't uh I remember at the Young Magicians Club seeing a lot of people do it in like member of the month, and I think I disregarded it for ages, and then I saw Ryan do it just to some random person at a pub, and I thought about it, I was like, that actually is a really good trick, and and you kind of there's a lot of card tricks, especially that you forget about. And this is one that just I'd forgotten about for years and years, and I saw him do it. I thought, well, that actually is a really good one. Um, so I sort of picked up the handling from him. I remember Harry DeCruz showed me someone's handling, and it was great, and I can't remember exactly whose handling it was. Um, but I remember that being really, and I should probably talk to him and learn it because that was it was it was really good.

SPEAKER_00: 26:28

Amazing. Well, that's a great choice in a number three. Let's move swiftly on to number four. So, what's in your fourth spot?

SPEAKER_03: 26:34

This has to be on everyone's list. Um, double cross, it's just one of the most powerful tricks of all time. It's so again so easy to understand. For me, a good trick is something that people can tell their friends happened within one sentence, and and and double cross is just so easy to understand. Doesn't matter where you're from, um, doesn't matter what age you are. The idea of a cross going from your hand to their hand or someone's hand to their hand is so easy to understand, and it's just such a powerful piece of magic. Um, a lot of people argue it's overused. Most of the people I perform magic to have never seen magic before live ever. And and you'll find this most people that you perform to they've never seen magic before, so I don't think it actually matters. It does mean that the chances are if they've seen two magicians in our life, they might have seen you do a someone do a trick, but that that's so rare. And I think that the the cost of not doing it um outweighs the cost of one person in a group of a hundred people maybe seeing it before, you know. Uh I I don't mind. If someone says they've seen it before, I say, Oh yeah, it might have been one of my colleagues or one of my acquaintances. Uh uh, it's such a powerful trick. And that only credits you, I think, further as well, especially if that person was a good magician. Um, so yeah, I think it's really good. And every everyone does it. All the top pros will say, Oh no, too many people do it. They don't, they're lying. They will still do it, and they're just saying that so that more people don't do it and they want to keep it for themselves. I actually I once I've made the X vanish from my hand and I've signaled it's gone to their hand, I don't say anything. I I sometimes, if they if they haven't opened a hand yet, I sometimes just say, Surely not, and that's enough for them to go like, Well, yeah, surely not. They open their hand, and I think that's quite funny. Um, but it's my quick one-minute opener, really.

SPEAKER_00: 28:16

Well, that's all it needs. It it uh it's another one, it's a bit like your bottle production in that it just talks for itself, right? But the good thing about it, I I actually remember first seeing this trick, it was Dave Loosley showing it to a non-magic friend of mine in Alakazam years ago. And as soon as I saw what was about to happen, it was probably one of the only times since I've been in magic where something inside me just went wow. Yeah, wow, that's phenomenal.

SPEAKER_03: 28:51

Yeah, it's it's it's one of the best tricks you can do. Um I don't think I could probably I can probably count on my hand the times I've left the house without it. Like it's it's insane, it's always in my pocket. Um, I've gone through so many of them. Like I've gone through four or five. Anytime I have a big trip coming up, so for example, we're going out to Adelaide uh in Australia in February. We do it every year. We go out to Adelaide for the Adelaide Fringe Festival for a couple of months, and then we go to Bali for a week after as well, like on the way home. I've done it for the last two years, but doing it again this year. Well excited. Um, and anytime a trip like that comes up, I buy a new double cross as like a present to myself because I I take at least two with me, because if I lose it, I'm gonna be sad. And it comes out everywhere with me. It's such a good icebreaker as well. I do a lot of and I have done um quite a lot of like solo traveling. So where you go out um to a hostel or to a hotel on your own and you just meet people there. And people always ask, uh, like, what do you do? And I and I say I'm a magician, I need something really quick to show them to sort of uh stop that conversation quickly. Um, because I'm not there to talk to people about magic, I'm there to Talk about them or whatever or the islands that we're on. And Double Cross is something which gives you just really quick credibility to okay, you're quite good. And it gives that also believability that you do this professionally, because I find that if I've just met someone for the first time and I tell them I'm a magic I'm a magician, they just don't believe you, right? They it's like saying you're a dolphin instructor, right? People don't think it's a real job. Um, so I need something really quickly to give me that credibility, and Double Cross uh uh does just that. So it's always in my pocket, and that reminds me I do need to buy another one, maybe from Alakazam, we'll see. Um, but uh but yeah, I'm currently like there's there's a set of drawers next to my desk right now where it has all my kicking stuff, and there's a bunch of like double cross uh gimmicks. Apparently you can refill them. Um I never have. I think for the for the people say it's expensive as well. It's not the the when you realize how powerful it is, I don't think it is. And when I think about how much I use it, I don't think it's expensive. I've been through maybe five of them, maybe six, and uh every blackpool, I buy a couple more, and I I probably buy a few throughout the year as well, maybe I guess as well. But yeah, it's a great trick and it it's it deserves its place. I imagine a lot of people say that though. They imagine a lot of people put this in their top eight.

SPEAKER_00: 31:12

Uh I think we've had it a decent amount of time, but I don't think more than maybe 20 people. So we're still safe performing it. Don't worry. Um, we'll we'll we're still doing okay with it. But I think that's an absolute brilliant choice. I think it's one of the most phenomenal tricks to come out over the past, I don't know, 10 years. It's just such a great trick uh and a great entry in at number four. So let's find out where you're gonna go with number five. What's in your fifth spot, Luke?

SPEAKER_03: 31:41

Um, we'll stick with the close-up stuff uh for a minute. And I uh I do this routine in my close-up set, um, which I just I just call my blank deck routine, and it's a routine that I do with a bit of a double blank pack of cards. Um, I do it on stage sometimes as well. It's a good five-minute kind of spot. Uh, and it's effectively a routine with one signed blank card that is just jam-packed with magical moments. And I mean, I have I'll probably lecture this routine at some point, um, but I don't know because I'm I'm really protective over it and I don't want anyone else to do it really. So maybe I'll leave it until I retire it. But it is a routine which basically incorporates all of the best card tricks with assigned card that you can imagine uh into one routine, and a blank deck lends itself in in movement and motion in slides um to make a lot of the slides much easier, which I think is a close-up performance is good to do, so I can really focus on the people and my um my sort of banter with them as opposed to the actual trick. I want to make the tricks easy so I can focus on entertaining people. So, yeah, this routine, not saying that it's easy or anything, but um it the slights definitely lend themselves to using a specific pack of cards. It's just this routine with and I won't go into what the tricks are exactly, but I truly think some of the best pieces of card magic um and moments in magic are incorporated into this routine, it resets itself. It is just like a really commercial routine that I love, and it's I hold it very close to my heart. So, yeah, unfortunately, I can't really explain too much more about it because I don't want a bunch of people going to do it, but um, yeah, my my blank deck routine is is definitely that's probably number one for me. Like that's the that's the most crucial thing for me that I would take with me.

SPEAKER_00: 33:22

Amazing. Well, I think that sounds really interesting. We have had a couple of blank deck routines uh mentioned on the podcast, namely we had Point Blank by Greg Wilson from Pyrotechnic Paseboards, but there's not a huge amount of blank deck routines around. What made you go for this over a normal deck?

SPEAKER_03: 33:43

I think it was Simon Lipkin that showed me at first um that he used blank decks for for a number of tricks, which is which is really interesting. And I looked into it more and I actually realized that for an for an audience member, and especially the audiences that I perform to, um, that happen to be if I'm at a stage show, it's it's like all families and stuff. A lot of the kids don't understand packs of cards, whereas a blank deck, it's either blank or it has writing on it. Like there's only there's only there's only two things to see there. So it's really easy to understand for a kid. Um and then when I'm doing walk around, I'm quite I quite often do like cocktail parties and stuff. So same thing. I'm in a low-light environment, a little bit of writing on a blank card is so easy to see and and understand. Um there's no memory work involved, right? As I said, like the card either has something on it or it doesn't. It's just so easy to understand. And as I said quite a lot um during this, like colourful shapes and clarity to me is so important. Like the audience understands exactly what's happening. I think if you do a trick and they they don't really know what's happened, there's no point in doing the trick, right? Like I'm there to give people the best magic possible. And for me, having clarity with with all of these effects and not complicating anything is is really important. So, yeah, that's why I use blank cards.

SPEAKER_00: 34:56

Well, I think that sounds really interesting, and hopefully one day we'll all get that on a on a lecture or a project because uh I would love to see it.

SPEAKER_01: 35:07

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SPEAKER_00: 36:03

And it does lead us sort of towards the tail end. So we've got three more to go. Now, so far, you've given us a good array of variety here. You know, you've gone from soaring in half, which is this huge allusion, to out of this world. And I mean, even the two playing card tricks that you've got there. So you've got out of this world and a blank deck routine feel completely different. This, I mean, not that you would do soaring in half and a blank deck routine and the same set, but this in terms of a set is super diverse. So I'm really interested to see what you've got in your last three spots. So, what did you put in number six?

SPEAKER_03: 36:41

So, number six um is a trick which I've been performing, uh I found out recently for almost ten years. So, ten years ago was probably the first time I performed for a real audience. Um, and I have a video actually which I can send you to to put somewhere in this podcast. Actually, yeah, no, can we can we do it I'll send to you straight off the podcast? We can edit in a clip of me doing this trick ten years ago, maybe keep thinking of that drink, don't make yourself forget it.

SPEAKER_02: 37:08

On the count of three, nice and lovely and some microphone you're going to name out loud the drink. Three, two, one, orange tea. Orange cheese.

SPEAKER_03: 37:33

So that was me uh ten years ago performing. I don't know who originated this concept, um, but I certainly learned it from Kieran Johnson's Too Hot to Handle DVD. Uh so that's what's coming in at number six. Uh the this this idea of having a different drink inside a can of something. So um, there's been so many versions of this on the market. I think Can Sposed was another one that David Penn put out. Um, I believe it was David Penn, I'm not sure, or just uh World Magic Shop. The idea of having a different drink inside something. Kieran was the first person, I think, to do it with a hot drink inside a cold can, which is such an amazing moment having them hold on. They they think of a drink, tea, let's say, they hold on to a can and the can's hot. Like that's just just insane. Um, as I said, I've been doing this for 10 years. Uh, even though I haven't been a performer for 10 years, I did a I dabbled in doing a couple of talent shows or whatever when I was when I was a kid. Um, and and definitely in my professional working career over the last three or four years, I think this trick has made it into every show I do almost. Um, and and I still do it in my in my cruise ships and and everything today, although it's part of a much longer routine, which we're actually um releasing a version of. Me and my friends uh who have been working on this routine a little bit, we're releasing a version of this routine um because I'm not performing it. Well, I might start cutting it out of my show, I think, because I've been doing it for so long. Um, but it's a really fun, fun routine. And I have my own method of of making these cans with different drinks inside them, which I think we'll teach as well, uh, with Kieran's blessing. But yeah, I think it's just such an amazing moment seeing uh a different liquid come out of a can. I think I've often done it with like orange juice or something. Um, I've been playing around recently with doing it with a drink that's really cold. So like a like a pina colada is what I've been playing with. So they hold onto a can. And I think normally when you pick up a can, you expect it to be about room temperature, maybe cold. When you hand some can and it's it's like ice cold, that I think is is still a nice moment. Um, and also different textures of uh liquids, like like opening it and pouring out a sort of slushy liquid is a really nice moment. Um, I used to do it with uh in the in an adults only show, I used to do it with a certain uh liquid that I would I would force them, which wasn't necessarily a drink. Um it was oh I don't know what's the best way to describe it. Anyways, I used soap uh inside the can because it comes out with this gloopy texture, and that was just such an amazing moment seeing this this horrifying thing come out of a can. Um but yeah, I use I use uh it was either shampoo or clear soap or something, but it was oh uh an amazing moment in in the show. But yeah, the idea of having a different drink inside of a drink, I think is is just such an again an easy to understand concept. Um, and that's my uh that's my number six. It's in every show we do, it's in every show that I that I perform uh as a solo performer, certainly.

SPEAKER_00: 40:24

I think it's a great trick and and such a great choice. I remember first seeing it, a friend of mine, Dean Levy, who we've had on the podcast, um, actually showed it to me. And it's really interesting because effects like that, it's one thing seeing it on a trailer and going, that's that's such a cool idea, yeah, and then experiencing it for yourself.

SPEAKER_03: 40:49

I think when you when you when you hear the audience's reaction to it, I think it it it really speaks for itself. I know people that perform it close up, uh, which blows my mind. They'll though as Kieran does, uh Kieran's a prime example of this. Kieran will go out um close up with like 10 of these in the in thermoses in his back, and it will do the full tea routine uh uh to people, which which I think is very funny. If anyone does want to see the thing which we were talking about with the soap, I did an interview with uh with an adult actress uh called Lily Phillips, um, which some listeners may have heard of. And if you go on YouTube and you type down magic date, uh we did a pilot episode for this like YouTube show with a production company. Um, and the only episode which has come out, we filmed three or four, the only episode which has come out as a pilot was this one with Lily Phillips. Um so go watch it. Annoyingly, this she became very controversial after this video came out, and uh no brands would touch it, which is which is unfortunate. So we're still looking for a for a brand to sponsor that uh show so we can make more of them. Because it's a really fun concept for a show, and I want to bring it back, but I'm trying to find the the right brand that will happily let me use that as a as a pilot. But uh a lot of brands won't touch her, unfortunately. Um but yeah, if anyone wants to see what why that thought process was was that you can watch a video there, and it's very funny as well.

SPEAKER_00: 42:04

And moving on swiftly, so we've got number seven and number eight left. So what did you put in your seventh spot?

SPEAKER_03: 42:11

Number seven, I put um Pegasus page, which is a uh, if people don't know, it is a version of a book test um that sort of has elements of pseudo-hypnosis to it. I I can't remember, unfortunately, the originator of this, although I researched it the other day. Um, but the effect is you have someone, you have someone uh look at a book, they can examine it, and you have them remember a page number and also uh the first word on that page or a word on that page. Um you then give them the book and you're able to tell them what the page was, and you ask them to go to the page number. And when they go to the page number, they see that the page is missing and that the page was never there, it's been torn out. And then uh inside your your pocket or or an envelope or wherever, um you take out a page and it is the exact same page from that book. I believe I got the order of that wrong. I think normally you would you would show that you had the page first, and then it matches the um the tear mark in kind of in an angle Z moment, it matches the tear mark uh on a book. I believe, Jamie, that you've just googled to see who originated it. Um have you have you got an answer?

SPEAKER_00: 43:14

So it was originally in the jinx, and that method required you to take a uh a normal book and doctor it using um transfers, basically, number transfers without giving too much away. Uh and that was the original sort of method. And then I believe I know um Jorge Garcia had a version which I think is probably the most popular.

SPEAKER_03: 43:41

That's the one I use, I think. Um I think there's a little bit more to it in in algumists, but I think that's just that's the one we use. Um I know someone's put out if I don't think it was Michael O'Brien, but I think he presents it on a trailer. He's someone put out a version where you give them the book and they can like flick through and have a look at it, I think. That would be the ultimate. I know um Dynamo does, or Stephen Frayne, sorry, does an amazing version of this effect uh in his in his live shows, and I think he genuinely does the most powerful version of this effect, is combined with um some scripting from Luc Jermay, uh, which is a phenomenal piece of scripting, which I think he's out published in um some book tests that he's put out. Um, but yeah, I think Dynamo's book test that he does in his shows, I think, is uh the the best version I've certainly seen of um of Pegasus Page. Um when I do it, I do it as part of my PK Touch routine. We we did it for a long time in Insane Magic uh as an opener to our show, just a very direct version of Pegasus Page. Um but now I've taken it in and I do it in my in my live show with um with PK Touch. So I have them, I do all the touches, and then I also have one of them send the words and the page number to the other person. So it's like they're reading each other's mind, which I think is a really nice presentation of it, as opposed to me being the mind reader, the focus is on them for that whole routine.

SPEAKER_00: 44:59

Well, I think that's a great choice in at number seven again, very different to everything that you've put before it. So I think that's a great choice. Now we've got one more trick. So uh I'm gonna guess that we're gonna go stage again because you said we're we're going back to stage. So, what is in your final spot?

SPEAKER_03: 45:15

Can we do some honourable mentions first?

SPEAKER_00: 45:18

Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 45:19

We always love an honourable mention. Amazing. Before we get to uh to number one, um, I think all tenure tricks. Like if I was actually stranded on a desert island and you gave me every tenure trick, I'd be very happy just playing with them by myself. I I I absolutely love tenure tricks. I think that they're they are I'm a big fan of illusions, especially recently. Um, the the method to illusions as well. And I think that tenure is a great example of seeing the method of illusions without having to spend a budget on illusions, right? Because, you know, a lot of illusions cost 10,000, 20,000. Um, whereas a tenure trick is 20 quid, uh, which people think I think people think tenure is expensive, but it's for the methods you learn and for the enjoyment it brings me, I don't I don't think they're expensive. Um, but I love them. We we actually have so my flatmate is my business partner, Cameron Gibson. Um, and we have like a little shelf just with tenure tricks on it. So when someone comes around, we've shown them a few tenure tricks because I think it's just the most amazing, nice pieces of magic. A lot of people think the tenure is just for the person who buys it. I actually think that it they can be performed in the right moment. It's very much a when a friend comes over to visit, that's when the tenure tricks come out. Say, oh, let me show you some magic because they are some of the most powerful puzzle kind of puzzles, I guess is a good way to say it, because the method is just so out there and so satisfying. Um, so yeah, I I love performing them to like good friends, uh, and and also just it's such a nice experience buying a tenure trick and learning the method. If they did an advent calendar, that would make me so happy. Like imagine an advent calendar with like a little tenure trick in each one. I mean, it would be like£4,000, but I I'd buy it. I think I think growing up, my favourite was always um invisible zone with the pen where it goes in. And an element with that was that it was so hard to find it for such a long time, and I had no idea how it worked. So the idea of putting it, I just I just had no idea how it worked. And then I eventually bought one when when they re-released it, and I learned the method, and the method is it's as with any tenure trick, is so satisfying. A lot of tenure tricks, I I understand how they work because I can do them, but I don't actually understand them because they just work, and I think Invisible Zone is a good example of one of those. Um, another one is Mr. Danger. I still don't know how it works. I've got it, right? I know how to do it, but I don't know how it works. I don't understand how it's actually possible. Um, even though I've seen it from the inside as well, I've seen people, yeah, I've seen I've seen the the exposed version of it. I still don't really understand the the physics of how it works. Um, so yeah, that's a good one. Crystal Cleaver is an amazing trick. Uh, there's so many. I could go on for for hours about tenure magic. I love it, it's great.

SPEAKER_00: 48:04

Yep, I think you're right. Uh, I remember having Invisible Zone, I had the uh Marvin's Magic version, um which had the little red door, and I absolutely loved it. Now, you've given us tenure tricks as your honourable mentions. Do you have any others?

SPEAKER_03: 48:18

Uh yeah, I don't want to talk about this one too much, but um Toxic Plus is just if anyone doesn't know it, it's uh it's a trick with your calculator where everyone makes a sum together and your sum is something very special, like it's a very special number or whatever. Um I think that doing the date and time prediction as a calculator effect is the most powerful trick of all time. Um the only reason it's not on my list is because I have such a love-hate relationship in the same way that I spoke about Double Cross, where a lot of people do it. Um everyone, every stage performer does this effect, including myself, which is a shame because uh when I'm doing ships and I'm doing shows where people will likely only see one magic show in that year, let's say, I don't mind doing it. However, at a fringe festival, we will never do this effect because the chances are if people are seeing one magic show at the fringe, they're probably seeing a few, they're probably seeing two or three, and the likelihood of them seeing this effect in more than one show is quite high. So we'll we'll never perform it at a fringe, but that's not to say I don't do it um in uh elsewhere in other shows. And also I've started doing a walk around recently as well, not in every table, but as a top table effect, um, it's so good, or as a hosting piece, you know, when we've got to jump up and do something. Last night um we went to a comedy night just to support it. It was two minutes away from my flat um and we wanted to watch some comedy. We went there and the host came up to me and we we didn't we sort of knew of each other, I think. We didn't really never met before though. Um I said, how's it going? And he he was like, Oh, I'm actually really upset. One of my actors just dropped out. Um now again, didn't have anything on me, but I just said to him, I was like, Well, if you need it, we have like five minutes, it's ready to go. And it was our kind of comedy toxic routine because it's just on my phone. Um and and I was like, Oh my god, that's so that's so kind of you, but uh, but we we didn't do it in the end, which is fine. Um, but yeah, it's such it's just such a powerful piece of magic. You need no warning, you can do it at any time. I do think it is one of the best tricks of all time. The other problem is you can't top it, right? That has to be the finale because it's so powerful. And we we we did do it in the in our show in Australia. We did it as our like any of our shows always have like two endings. We have an ending and then we have an encore. So we have the the final, the finale, the final trick, which quite often is like a nice emotional piece where we talk, and then we we say our thank yous, and then we have our full circle trick, our encore, our big moment, which really wraps up the show, um, which I think is important for a few reasons. And I could again, I could talk about like staging uh for a long time, but the the the main thing is if people are clapping right at the end of your show and their hands are above their head, right? Like they're clapping with their hands above their head, that is the ultimate uh applause you can get from someone sitting down. The only place to go from here is to stand up. So if we can get them to there in our like fake ending, then they're standing up in a real ending. So so we always have two endings, and quite often Toxic Plus was our like fake ending, and then we'd follow it with a full circle moment. Um, the issue is Toxic is just so powerful that we have to move it after the the other ending, um, which is a shame, but it's now not in our it's now not an insane because as I said, it's too too much of a sorry, it's too much of a common trick. Um, but I do do it at tables and I do it in my show in a slightly different way. It's such an amazing effect, yeah. That's my honourable mention. But it doesn't make it to the list because too many people do it.

SPEAKER_00: 51:59

That's what I was gonna say. Like considering you just said it's a hard trick to top, we've still got one position. So you are about to to top that trick.

SPEAKER_03: 52:08

Yeah, so this last one is uh is actually what I was saying. We have we had to kind of move around toxic. So this last one is a routine which um myself, Cameron Gibson, and Elliot Bibby came up with as uh finale to our show, and it has been a finale to our show for the last year or so. I think we've done maybe 60 shows um as this as a finale, and it is a routine which we've worked on a lot, uh probably more than anything else in our show called Heist. The the trick is at the start of the show, we hand out a box. Um, and at the end of the show, uh at the start of the show, we hand out a box and we say that the contents of the box will be very important to three people in the audience. And towards the end of the show, we borrow three items. We borrow a ring, a phone, and someone's driver's license. We hold them all in our hands and then they all vanish one one after the other, starting with a driver's license. The driver's license vanishes, the ring vanishes, and the phone vanishes. And then we say at the start of the show, we said the contents of that box will be very important. Box comes comes back up on stage, we open it up, and inside is a sealed mailbag, and inside that is a sort of contatina which opens up with the ring, the driver's license, the phone without any switches, these are then handed back to three audience members, and it's such a big kind of now you see me moment. And it's also such a head uh well, it's a head fuck to be honest, I think is the easiest way to describe it. Um, the the the idea of something being uh in the box already, something already being in the box, but wasn't in there. Do you see what I mean? Like it's such a weird item to impossible location, and I think the item to impossible location is is one of the best plots in magic. It's so easy to understand, something vanishes and it's inside a box. Um, but the idea of something vanishing and it's already being in a box, which has been handed out, I think is is really cool. Um when we started doing this effect, we we we sort of premiered it, uh prototype of it in the at the Adelaide Fringe because we thought, well, we'll try it out Adelaide Fringe and see if we can work it in, and then we'll we'll rebuild it for Edinburgh and make it kind of bigger and better. And we we struggled with the routine of it for a for a long time. And before originally it was this the idea was it was this like wooden packing crate filled with sort of sawdust and um stuff. It was this wooden packing crate that would be crowbarred open and inside with the objects, which I think I really liked. We really liked the image of. So we built this packing crate um and the necessary other things to to perform this kind of mini illusion. Um and it worked quite well for for a while. Uh, and then we had this idea out in Adelaide. Uh I think I said to Cam, I was like, what if what if it was clear and you could see through it the entire time and it was filled to the brim with packing peanuts? That way it's so clear that nothing can get in, nothing can get out, because it's literally filled to the brim. Thomas Moore made us this kind of mini illusion now, and it's a clear case, filled to the brim with packing peanuts. Nothing's getting in, nothing's getting out, right? And then we we we pull out the items, there's packing peanuts going everywhere. I think it's such an amazing uh kind of product we've created, this routine. It's so commercial, so easy to understand. Um, and it is one of my favorite things to perform and that we do perform. We wanted to, we wanted to pull off a heist in our shows, right? Like that was just a nice concept we had. We said we want to pull off a heist, and originally we started talking about um that one of us would get into a box and we would vanish, and you would see surveillance uh imagery, funny enough, of us um, I think at the Louvre, which is pre-Louve heist, uh, but but we would be at the Louvre and we'd be robbing like a painting or something or a diamond or whatever. Um, which again kind of funny because now that was the whole premise of Now You See Me. Uh, but but we we were sort of talking about this plot for about two years now, the idea of pulling off a heist during our show, because we thought, well, it's a really now you see me thing to do, right? And that's constantly what we're looking at is we want to give people a sort of real live now you see me experience. Um so we talked about doing this heist for a while, and then we became kind of obsessed with the imagery of having lasers across the stage and having to complete this thing and uh the imagery of like blueprints and the actual all of the imagery behind the heist is is really nice to look at, and there's a lot of theming that goes with it. Um so we became obsessed with that, and then we started getting this thing made, uh, or we started making it, sorry, I should say, the original version with the packing crate, and we're like, okay, well, what could we have? What if it's if it's we steal items from the audience without them knowing? So we all pickpocket items from the audience, and then we open a box and all our items are inside. I'm like, okay, well, that's nice, but it feels a bit too like we're we're just stealing stuff, we're just nicking stuff from the audience, which we don't want to be thieves, we want to be magicians. Um, and then uh we sort of lost sight of the uh idea of a heist because we thought actually the the effect isn't isn't clear, there's no clarity as to what this effect is. Let's just dial it down to bare bones. What is what is the actual trick? Like, let's just forget the heist stuff. What is the trick? The trick is we borrow three items, they vanish, and they're already inside the box. Let's just perform it as that. Like that is the clearest version of the trick. And for us, because we perform to a very international audience as well, everything just needs to be really clear to understand. Um, so so we then dialed it down to that, which is a shame because we kind of lost sight of the the whole heist idea, which I think we will bring back at some point, um, maybe next year or something. I I still really like the idea of one of us ab sailing down. Like uh as an opener to a show, I would love for the three of us to just swing down on ropes, right? Or something. There's so much so much imagery and theming which could come with it. Um, that we'll bring it back at some point. But yeah, that was the original idea. And then we had this idea to do it with a clear case, and Thomas was the only person we could think of that would be able to create this, and he made it, and it looks beautiful. Like the the actual the product itself is is just a really nice piece of engineering, to be honest. And the and the effect is amazing as well. Um, we need to get it rebuilt actually before we take it. I think we're gonna take it out to Adelaide with us uh next February, and we're gonna give it back to him at some point because he needs to work on a couple of things, but then it'll be even better, which is great.

SPEAKER_00: 58:10

Well, I think it's a great way to close out your list. Uh, and just looking back over your list. So we had soaring in half, bottle production, out of this world, double cross, your blank deck routine, too hot to handle, Pegasus page, and heist. That's a pretty interesting list that I'm guessing, just putting it out there, not many people would have had down for you. I'm not gonna lie. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 58:33

Well, if anyone did get any of those right, I'd love to I'd love to hear which ones you did get right.

SPEAKER_00: 58:38

You know that Cameron is listening to this and he's he's got it all right.

SPEAKER_03: 58:42

Yeah, he probably has. I think he's pretty listening to it. I think he's he might have gone to gym, but I'm pretty sure he's just listening with like a glass to the to the walls. Yeah, okay. I didn't actually run through my list with him, but uh he he would he'd probably guess all of them correctly, I think. If he wrote if he wrote down what my top eight tricks were, I think he'd get every single one right.

SPEAKER_00: 58:59

Well, up until this point, Luke, we've given you eight tricks, but you're only allowed one each of the last remaining things. So I want you to imagine that you are about to dig a big sandy hole on your island and you're gonna throw something inside from our industry never to be seen again. What are you gonna banish onto your island?

SPEAKER_03: 59:19

When I was thinking about this question, the idea actually of uh of escapology came up, um, which I think will will annoy some people. So in in our show, I don't know if this would be the one, but I'll explain my thoughts behind it anyways. In our show, I I play a character, it's it's still me, but my sort of character trait is I'm the stunt magician, so I combine stunts and magic. So in our show, I've done things like uh my version of needle swallowing. Um, I say my version, it's not really my version, but but but a version of needle swallowing. Uh I throw a knife at someone. Um I've done the thing with mouse traps, which I did on Penantella Fool Us, like all of these things that I've kind of like the the sort of stunt um whenever we're coming up with new things the idea of um of escopology always gets floated and i think i don't know i don't know i think i really have uh like a kind of love-hate relationship with it i think the the real problem with escopology is everyone knows you're gonna get out of it it's just a matter of time right I think unless the jeopardy to it is kind of funny if it's life threatening people know you're still alive right people know you're gonna get out of it isn't there's no chance the first time you're doing it on shows like the Illusionists and as an escopologist and they're doing you know Mike Michael's Jaws of Death right we know you're gonna get out of it because you've done this show a hundred times this year already so I think unfortunately as an audience member it's just a bit of a shame um I'm not yeah so I think it might have to be escapology that being said I do do a straitjacket escape my straitjacket escape is quite funny though um and it doesn't take itself seriously but I have seen some people doing straight jacket where it doesn't look like you're escaping it just looks like you're taking it off and I I kind of feel that way with quite a lot of escapes you're not escaping you're just removing the shackles right like I just um yeah I think it's a shame I think comedy escapes I think it's a place for them uh we we open our show with uh with a uh kind of taking the piss out of escapes we say we say this exact thing we say the problem is you know they're gonna get out you just don't know when they're gonna get out or or how long it's gonna take them um I also think that there's there's some illusions uh like Table of Death for example where you're seen to be escaping and then the table crushes you but you were never in the tank to begin with and you're or on the bed and you're at the back of the audience. I think that ruins it. I think that if you were never there then there was no jeopardy and people think oh well you were never in danger were you we've just watched someone else try to pretend to escape for a couple of minutes. So I did I I think that whilst it's a nice moment of magic I think that actually when people think about it after a show think oh well you were just never there so you actually you were never escaping because you had to run to the back of the room um so yeah I think I've got I've got a problem with escapes. I don't know if I'd banish them but I think I've I've certainly got a problem with them.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:11

So in response to that because Jonathan Goodwin is also on this podcast and he will be coming for you. My question is do you think that the level of danger employed in an escapology routine would change it for you? Do you think that if the audience know that the person's gonna get out that's fine but the fact that they're being put under so much danger and it's still a really dangerous thing for them to do do you think that that would sway the way that you think about them so Jonathan Goodwin is genuinely probably one of my favourite performers of all time right I think there there's there's nothing he wouldn't do that that I wouldn't watch.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:52

I know he doesn't perform so much anymore for for obvious reasons and he's now focusing on consulting more and script writing and uh and this other this other stuff which he's doing as well the more sort of spiritual stuff too which I think is really interesting. And uh I think Jonathan was always very very good at making everything so so believable. Anytime he was performing you and you watched it you genuinely weren't sure if he'd make it out on time. Everything felt like it was the first time he was doing it which I think is really important as well and and it was all a kind of believable level of danger to the point where it did it didn't work sometimes you know um I think a prime example which he talks about quite a lot is his original escaping from uh from an iron I don't know if you've seen it that was on a sheet that to me is like the perfect escape right because everyone wants to see it go wrong anyways and I think that an iron hitting you is like the perfect amount of danger that you can escape just in time but it can still get you right and I think in that kind of escape that's what has to happen. I think I think Jonathan's a really good example Jonathan's someone I obviously aspire to and look I look at his material a lot as someone that um performs these kind of stunt tricks as well or stunts stunts I guess is the word for it as someone that performs these stunts as well like he is he is such an an icon of it and he definitely changed the magic industry a lot um and some of the methods to some of the stuff he does as well is just is just phenomenal so yeah he's I think he's a rare example however there is certainly this element of a of a I'm gonna call them a copy and paste escapologist right it's normally these these pretty jacked guys with a buzz cut that are on these big Broadway shows and they're escaping from it's normally Jaws of Death or or some other Mike Michaels uh escape like a scorpion or like a um he's got a table of death I can't remember the Grim Reaper that's another one um it's normally it's normally that and they escape from something in two minutes the thing crashes down and they're out and there is such a big uh such a large amount of these copy and paste gas copologists and again I don't think the audience buy it I think it's a really hard sell um I don't think they buy it I think that the everyone knows they're gonna get out so yeah I think it's a it's a shame but that's just how it is I do like escapes where where something kind of goes wrong. In my show the escape that I do is a straitjacket escape and the jeopardy because I think some people perform escapes without any jeopardy they just say I'm gonna get out within two minutes otherwise the time is going to end. You need to have something you need to have some kind of jeopardy um when I used to perform it in drunk magic I would have three people come up on stage I'd give them a beer each I'd ask them to do a boat race so one of them would start drinking the beer when they'd finish the next person would drink it. That was my jeopardy if they didn't drink if they didn't if they finished before me they won. If I didn't I won that was it and we'd always finish roughly at the same time normally I'd let them win I'd let them finish the drinks before I got out because it's better it's a better moment. So that was always my but but again it's still not really in jeopardy but it was more entertaining um I think DeCruz actually gave me that idea when I was working on drug magic as well um now when I do it in my show the jeopardy is that I'm going to send my ex-girlfriend a text crafted by the audience. So I have members of the audience come up with an idea for a text it's normally along the lines of I still love you will you marry me the last show I did the person said I shouldn't have slept with your sister which an amazing one great and uh and and I have that person then come up on stage I say if the timer they're the one that puts me in the straitjacket I say if the timer runs out you hit send um I'm working on at the minute it will I'm hoping it will be a thumb tip or a TT or whatever a thumb tip we'll call it what it is on a robotic arm that will take two minutes to hit send. I think that would be the ultimate of it. And the imagery of it of a little thumb tip is kind of funny as well. So yeah that I think is fun and it makes it entertaining and the escape is is not about me or whether or not I get out to die. It's I I say in the show it's not life threatening but it could ruin my life which I think is a really interesting um line to say so yeah I'm not against uh escapes but I do think they need to be believable and I think that these unbelievable copy and paste escapologists can get in the bin or they could be buried sorry buried they could be buried alive why not okay well I think you've raised some really interesting points there definitely something for us all to think about so you're gonna be the first guest with a banishment where we don't formally banish it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:39

What we're gonna do is we're gonna put it in the hole but we're gonna put a little white flag there so that we can come back to it when we've had a chance to think about it and to hone it. But I think you've made some really interesting points there and I I really really love the idea of the text. It's a brilliant brilliant choice in your banishment now we do have your book so what did you put in your book position?

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:01

Yeah I I don't really read I I can read um but I don't I uh which is so it's so unfortunate I've never got I've never really got the hang of it everyone I speak to about this says try audiobooks uh because I listen to a lot of podcasts I listen to you know a couple of hours podcasts a day um so yeah so so I unfortunately I've just never really got the reading bug I've never really got the hang of it which is such a shame because so many amazing pieces of magic uh are in books like um yeah uh so so that is unfortunate and also someone that's written a few books so again quite unfortunate that I don't I don't read too many books. Um but with that being said I thought about this in a more literal sense that if I was stuck on a desert island by myself and I got to take one book with me what would that book be? And it would probably be Carl Fulves self-working card tricks because I could sit there I could do the card tricks to myself and I could perform magic to myself so that's the only reason why I've said that book I've not read it um but I know as with all of Carl Fulv's books I've read moments of it but pieces in it but as with all of his tricks it's very much just as many tricks as possible hammered into one book and if they were self-working I could entertain myself for hours.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:15

So that's that's why I've put that in there in a more literal sense um I'm currently kind of trying to work my way through the uh Paul Harris Art of Astonishment books um but but again that's very much a thing where I'll just open it at a random page for fun and read something uh it's not like I'm I'm not reading it seriously or anything it's more of a coffee table book for for me okay well you know we've mentioned this before the idea that some people you know reading isn't their thing um they can't connect to it we all learn differently we're a very diverse group of people and that's no bad thing at all my question to you is what could the magic industry do when it comes to books to make them more accessible to more people because I like I said I have your books and I find the way that your books were written were really interesting.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:04

They were a bit more playful they felt more accessible to more people I would have said yeah so so that was really important for me because as someone that struggles with my attention span and reading especially um I I I wanted to put out a book because I felt like there wasn't really any magic books on the market um that were easy to read. I felt like they were all kind of tailored towards people that wanted to read a monologue about why a trick is a trick and a lot of theory and stuff. Whereas I thought well I want to put my tricks out into a book that's that's more digestible and so the things that were really important for me were that it was super accessible for people with um dyslexia and also ADHD as well. So what I did was I used I I thought about the books that to me were really easy to read and that I really connected to and as a kid it was books like Diary of a wimpy kid. I found them really easy to read because it felt like you were you were reading what someone else had written as opposed to text on a page. And I I used the phrase reading what someone has written as in it literally felt like you were reading someone's notebook which I think is much more personal and easy to connect to so that was a good one for me. And then I also thought about the um the scam school book which they put out which I have somewhere and I think it's such a phenomenal book and I think that everything they did to make it very easily digestible was was was great. Everything was written out in a very similar style to how my book is written out in a very kind of as you said very playful the words that are important stand out quite literally they're they're in a different font they're in a different colour um and and and there's a lot of pictures as well which is really important and also because a lot of the tricks in that book were visual tricks one thing which I don't like about a lot of magic books is that if you don't understand it you can't do it. That's just it. So every trick also had a video tutorial. So if you couldn't quite grasp the hang of something because he's a visual trick so you need to kind of see some stuff if you couldn't quite quite grasp the the hang of it then there was also a video QR code that came with it. So yeah that was that was really important for me and and everything with those books was was super important. I'm kind of working on a another I say working on it I'm working on the material at the minute I haven't started writing it yet but I'm working on a um a book at the moment which won't be out for I'd imagine a couple of years which will be more tailored towards stage magic and and comedy and stuff like that. And I'm just trying to work out at the moment a way that that could be written again that is very easy to to digest. It'll probably be a more or less similar style to this one uh to to my last two books sorry but um no video tutorials because the the stuff that's in there shouldn't need it I'm hoping um but yeah so so it's it's yeah but good point raised uh that was a really big thing for me was making it just easy to digest and sort of making the book that I wish existed um as a magician well I think that's a great book choice and leads us to your final object so this is your non-magic item that you use for magic yeah so I've got uh I've got two two things um number one which I I I would imagine this comes up a lot is flick buttons so a flick button to anyone that doesn't know uh is a small very very tactile button about the size of a two pound coin um and these were made for smart homes they're made these little buttons that are I think when you first look at them you think they're expensive but I think they're actually incredibly cheap when you compare them to the other alternatives on the market. But they're these little buttons that were made to put around your house to complete um simple shortcuts for your house. So for example you could press a button that would turn on your kettle um so you'd you'd you'd wire the button I say wire it's obviously um Bluetooth so it doesn't need wiring but you'd wire the button uh to a smart plug that could then turn on your ordinary kettle and that would be one button and there are people that have hundreds of these buttons around their home uh to just complete tasks in the house so one might be I don't know um a timer for the dishwasher or whatever it is all these different things and people have started using them in the magic industry to to actually complete shortcuts on their phones. Uh Tom Crosby is a great example of someone that has so many um uh things with shortcuts uh if you if you look at his shortcut projects there is such an amazing amount of effects with shortcuts and also a lot of inspiration of how to use utilise uh shortcuts on your phone and use them in your magic um but what I use them for is actually cues uh cues in a show I think when I first started doing magic in in stage shows um I I had no worries about tech requirements all I all I cared about was if people could hear me I didn't care about music being used in shows or or any other tech as long as people could hear me they could see me that was all that's important and I realized how stupid that was um after working with uh Cameron Gibson and earlier I realized how important music is in shows if there's any time without music it just feels so dead and there's there's not really any moments in any of the shows that I make now that we make sorry as well where there's not there's there's there's normally a track of some kind throughout the show. It completely changes the mood of an effect um it completely it fills time uh if needed before when we have an audience member come up on stage and we send them back there's walk on music and there's walk off music because it just fills that small amount of time and it makes it more of an event people start you know dancing along to it or whatever. So music is super important and also other cues like uh we use visuals on the screens a lot as well and I I always use uh like a flick button with either QLab on my laptop or go button and recently I've started using it with iQ Pro which is Jamie Allen and uh Joshua Riley's app which is really good I I I I sort of thought about using it for a couple of years and I've only started really using it quite recently in the last month or so. It's great it does everything I need to I can control the whole show from a flick button flick buttons are around 30 pounds. I know I said um some people think that's expensive I think I they're kind of disposable for me I go through them a lot I keep losing them because they're so small and I'm not I'm not the type of person that loses a lot of stuff but they do just get lost. But they're the you know considering they're 30 pounds your alternative for queuing your own show is a device like an audio ape um or a media monkey or whatever it is and they're gonna run you 500 600 pounds. So when you consider that that's the alternative I think that 20 30 pounds for a little flick button um is great. That was my first one my second one um is gaffer tape. Everything every show I've ever worked on is built with gaffer tape. Like we're talking about Cam said as a good example to me yesterday you know there's multi-million pound shows we've worked on that are all held together with with duct tape and and gaffer tape. You can make anything out of it if you have to make something work it's a really good device to have there's there's not a single time where gaffer tape's not in our like uh we have we have a box called like an O No box um and like a prop box there's always gaffer tape in there it is so useful I'm also a firm believer of make something work before you make it pretty um gaffer tape is a really great way to make prototypes really quickly if we have an idea for something we can really quickly knock it up with with gaffer tape uh as opposed to 3D printing or sewing stuff together you know if you need a holdout for example um the my whole like pen and tell a fool lash routine all of the method of that gaffer tape um uh what else yeah I think there's so many things that we use we make a lot of holdouts with gaffer tape that's I think that's the main thing if people can't see it it doesn't matter if it's made out of a really nice material and it's 3D printed or not it's nice for you but it doesn't matter. As long as it works that's what matters. Yeah I think every every show I've ever worked on that's been my show or someone else's it's always held together with gaffer tape. So I think that is is probably those are my two things yeah flick buttons and gaffer tape.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:11

Okay well both of those are going with you both great choices I know lots and lots of performers that use flick buttons and back onto gaffer tape as well you mentioned making things out of it but when you think about tricks as well you know you've got uh blindfold you know where you put the coins over your eyes blindfold as a way to restrain yourself so getting someone to to tie it around your hands as well I think it's just one of those universal tools that will not only get you out of trouble you know making things but also just in context of a routine or a trick.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:43

Yeah it would be it would genuinely be my advice to any performer getting into stage stuff to to have a small case of things that you might need um things like gaffer tape and also if you if you're if you happen to be a runner working on a show so not necessarily the performer but someone working to the side my genuinely best piece of advice uh as a as a stage hand or as a runner or as a tech is to have a small bag that has these things that could go wrong it has the fixes to them. It will get you so much more work you'll be the guy that people remember as a problem solver. Corey um who is our tech and he's a good friend of ours uh he he is a prime example of someone that if anything went wrong, he had the solution to it. So a little multi-tool, a bit of gaffer tape, plasters, painkillers for when a performer turns up and they're a bit hungover and you can give them a painkiller um caffeine tablets, a lighter is also really important. I think I said it but like a multi-tool will get you out of trouble so much. I normally as a performer always have at least gaffer tape and a multi-tool um and plasters on me. I find myself just covered in cuts all the time. I don't know if it's just like me but I find myself just like bleeding by accent quite a lot. And sometimes this happens halfway through a show if I've like opened a can of Coke or something I'll cut myself on it. It's really important that I can fix that really quickly so I'm not covered you know I did a show the other day and I forgot the plastered and I had to do this whole like 20 minute set and my thumb was just bleeding. I don't think people notice the blood I think what I did notice was me sucking my thumb to try to stop it throughout the show. So yeah it's really important to have a few things like that that can just get you out of trouble very quickly. Also just random things like random tech things as well but then if you start working with DI boxes and XLR leads and all of this you end up having to take a lot more stuff with you. But it's good to have a sort of Ono box for tech as well.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:30

Well I think that's great. I also love the idea that Corey is taking parait mole for you in case of a hangover.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:39

Well you know what though it wasn't it wasn't a hangover but we did one show during the fringe um where just out of nowhere I got a really bad migraine just before the show which has been one of my fears for for such a long time as someone that gets migraines maybe once or twice a year it's just the most horrible thing that can I don't know I don't know if you've ever experienced it or if any listeners have but if you I think if you haven't experienced one before it's hard to understand the scale of it. I think people just think it's a headache. It's not like when I get a migraine I go completely blind so I can't see um I can't hear anything I can't say anything without throwing up it's just impossible to to function as a human. And I remember there was one show and just before maybe half an hour before the doors opened um I could feel it coming on because I'd gone blind in one of my eyes and I I said to Tim I was like boys unfortunately I think I'm gonna get a migraine I might have to I might not be able to do a show um Tom Bolton luckily is like he's the most amazing understudy in the world if any of us have a problem Tom runs in and he does it but he unfortunately wasn't available because he was launching he was doing a few shows um so we weren't sure what to do so I ended up just you know between each uh between each piece where I needed to be on stage I was backstage lying on the floor and when I had to be out on stage I'd come out stage I'd deliver the least amount of lines possible um and Cameron and Elliot would take some of my lines as well I'd get through the group tricks and we'd do it. It was a really hard day and then I had a nap after the show and I went and I had to do my show as well and after I completed that show I remember being on stage and just once I'd finished that show just bursting my eyes out because I couldn't believe I'd just completed you know being on stage for two hours whilst kind of suffering through a migraine and I think maybe I feel bad for the audience obviously because I feel like the audience got a slightly lesser experience but um as a performer and obviously a firm believer in the show must go on that was amazing we could do that. And that was only possible through the amazing team of support that I have around me. So Elliot, Cameron and Corey as well and Laura, our assistant um Elliot when he heard Ida migraine he came upstairs with a towel and ice and put it on my head. Corey was there with water and paracetamol and just basically drugged myself up and got a show going was was was what we cared about. So yeah so it's but it's really important to have to have these things um available because if we didn't have those things I don't know if I would have managed to do the show.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:02

Well I think that's a great way to close out your list. So I'm gonna read back your list to you to see what you think we had Soaring in half bottle production out of this world double cross blank deck routine you had your too hot to handle Pegasus page heist your banishment is well not quite banishment we're putting it to one side uh Eschopology your book is self-working card tricks and your items were the flick button and gaffer tape I think that's a really cool list.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:30

Yeah I'm thinking I'm quite I'm quite happy with that I don't know what a change Isaiah when we finish recording I'll probably think of a whole bunch of things that I I could have mentioned but I think for the most part that's a pretty solid list.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:40

Yep that's a brilliant list. So Luke if people want to find out more about you where you're at your shows your books your products all that good stuff where can they go?

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:49

Cool um yeah the best thing to do is to follow me on social media uh just at Luke Oz Luke O S E Y on everything and there I always post about what shows are coming up if you want to come see our show they're really good shows for magicians to see I think um they're very fun they're very commercial uh they're they're very entertaining I think is it is a is a good thing to say um yeah if you fancy coming to one of those we're constantly touring and really all around the world the next shows I believe we have coming up are in Edinburgh between Christmas and New Year's I think we have shows on the 27th and 28th. That's the period I like to call like the Christmas gooch it's the weird bit between the two um uh we're doing show we're doing shows on those days so if you want to come up to Edinburgh during the Christmas period and see the Christmas markets and all that come see our show um and then we're off to Adelaide uh at the start of February so if you know anyone that lives in or around Adelaide City in Australia time to come to our shows because we have loads of tickets to sell we have like I don't know I think something along the lines of like 1000 tickets to sell that month so if you could if we could sell some of those shows out that'd be amazing. I won't be at Blackpool this year unfortunately because we're in Australia. I'm going to try and make it to the session uh and I will have a couple of new products out for Blackpool that's the plan we have a few things I have a gag like a stage gag that I want to get out I have um the stage routine with Cameron which we're gonna try to put out um there might be one or two little visual things probably not and then we have a a really big stage routine which is um almost an illusion that we're hoping to put out with an illusion builder uh at Blackpool it might not be ready by then if it is go see it go buy it it's a phenomenal routine um which we which we hold very close to our hearts uh that we we're not performing anymore so feel free to um yeah that will also be coming out but uh if you sign up to the mailing list of visual magic store that's my company you'll find out about all of this stuff um mainly stage stuff coming out there might be a couple of little visual things here and there and then as I said I'll put out a book at some point but that's probably not going to come for a couple of years so so you've got time to worry about that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:59

Amazing well that all sounds super exciting uh and hopefully yeah we'll see some of those routines coming from you especially your blank deck routine hopefully we'll see that in the future as well I'll send you a video of it at some point um but I don't know I still perform that at every gig I do so I don't know if I'll ever publish it to be honest. That's fair enough. Well I think that's a great list. Thank you so much for giving up your time Luke no worries thanks for having me it's been fun. And of course thank you all for listening we'll be back next week with another episode do go check out Luke's socials please go check out his products earlier on I alluded to a funny prop. He has a microphone that sets on fire which is very funny. Also check out his books they're really really good especially if you're wanting to get into social media magic he's got some really phenomenal visual tricks in them and of course go sell out the shows we need to be supporting each other when it comes to live shows I always try and make it a thing every year to try and see as many magic shows as I can and I think if we all did that and we all got behind each other the community would be a much better place. So do go find out where Luke and his uh gang are and book out those shows and of course let him know that you listen to this podcast because I'm sure he'll greatly appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:16

Of course we'll be back next week but for now have a great week goodbye when I perform at gigs I look at effects that tick these three boxes is it super strong and powerful yes will it last with your spectators for a lifetime absolutely and does it leave them with a souvenir that perfectly captures the moment of magic if that all sounds exactly what you're after look no further than the Liquid forks. These forks have been custom designed to be able to bend right in front of your spectators' eyes it's so easy to perform it's so visual and trust me they will honestly keep this impossible object because they've seen it morph in front of their eyes it literally does the impossible not only that liquid forks comes with 50 of these forks in each pack and it comes with the full liquid forks routine taught by the world famous David Penn. Not only that we have a subscription service if you guys love these forks and you get through them at your gigs we now offer a monthly subscription where you get sent a box through every single month at a 10% reduced fee. Like I said you guys are gonna be loving these you're gonna be performing every chance you can trust me the reactions are second to none. So guys head over to alecasam.co.uk pick up a set of liquid ports you will not regret it. Easy to do leads them with killer souvenir and to be honest with you it's not cards it's not points it's not mentalism it's something beyond belief. Check it out now guys the liquid port