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Unfortunately this is a depressingly typical advertisement and it’s not because the product can ‘almost’ turn me in to a wonder worker overnight!
In the UK, as perhaps elsewhere, magic is not seen in the same way it was even twenty years ago. Today I was talking to Professor Tickles , a professional childrens entertainer in Cornwall, and we were lamenting the passing of an age.
The Prof. asked a profound question, he wondered how many professional magicians were actually making a full time living out of their magic alone.
A valid question.
Were he to have asked that question a when we both started performing we would have been fairly sure of the answer. Magic as an entertainment art form was ‘acceptable’ and enjoyed by audiences. David Nixon and latterly Paul Daniels brought commercial and thus agent interest in booking professional acts.
The erosion of the art, and the fact that magicians today are seen as coming a poor second to comedians, jugglers and other variety acts, is due I believe to three major factors..
1) The magicians themselves not keeping ‘in step’ with the interests and needs of the audience. Audiences believe they are more ‘sophisticated’ in this day and age and that brings with it a degree of cynicism and dislike of being fooled. It’s really interesting to note that Derren Brown is one of the very few (and perhaps only) magical performer who can sell out major theatres on a national tour. If you look at his act it is intelligent, sophisticated and engaging.
2) Traditional magicians who work at mastering their art (the Michael Vincents, Guy Hollingsworths of the world) are respected and applauded by magicians and enjoed by audiences when they are booked BUT are being undersold by the explosion of David Blaine, Street-Magic-Clones, who buy into the adverts like the one above. The general quality of performance drops and hence the public perception of magic and magicians falters. If you try selling yourself as a magician you are competing with the image that the potential booker has of one of their ‘uncles’ or a ‘YouTube Magic Hack’ performing meaningless feats of trickery.
3) The ecomonic climate is such that an evening out may not include being ‘fooled’ by some mountebank or trickster offering emotionally neutral demonstrations of one-upmanship. There have always been hobbyists and of course the hobbyst becomes the semi-professional rather than the part-time professional. I make the distinction here as the semi-professional possibly sees their magic as providing ‘pin money’ at best, or merely an opportunity to ‘do some magic for an audience’ at worst. The part-time professional on the other hand possibly understands that being a ‘professional’ means that you are trying to earn a living or establish a business for yourself. So whereas the former will approach bookers and offer services for ‘beer, a meal and a whip round’ (with no thought of this being a business ‘loss leader’) the latter recognises the value of their skill, effort and work so seeks a ‘fair’ wage for their performances.
I like many professional performers am finding ways to bring my skills to other markets, I always have done this. In the past it was because I wanted to have a varied approach to earning my living but in this day and age it is a requirement for survival. I feel lucky that I have had a regular (twice a month) cabaret residency for my mentalism act for the last eighteen months. This with the one-off or short run bookings and the summer season residencies amounts to half of my professional income. Would that it were more. The other half of my income is from using my performing skills and magical interests to create and deliver motivational seminars, presentational workshops and personal development coaching.
I think this is the ‘norm’ for many professional magicians, but would love to hear from readers about their thoughts and experiences.
