When you’re putting together a routine or preparing for a show, what do you think about and practice?

Well, it most likely is not your character. Most of us are happy and comfortable with the characters we perform when we are performing magic. We have probably had the same character nearly since we have started performing magic, and we rarely change it, rarely think about. 

But it’s really important, it pretty much dictates what we can and can’t perform (most of the time.)

So what if we pushed our selves, and started thinking about what if we change a few things about our ‘characters’ when we are performing, or what if we would develop a totally new character?

We talk exactly about that in today’s episode, it was such a great podcast to record, really helps with character development and creating a character!

Csanád and I know Kevin from being the chairman of the young magician’s club, which is the youth initiative of the Magic Circle, open to young magicians aged 10 – 18. We are very grateful that he took the time to come on the podcast and he shared some interesting thoughts into creating and knowing your character as a magician.

He got into magic, like most magicians I’m sure, after receiving a magic set for Christmas when he was just eight years old and loving it. Kevin talked about how he probably drove his parents through the wall by showing them the same tricks over and over. 

At 11, he was asked to join the local amateur drama group to be a play, which he really got into. As a consequence of that, the following year they had a variety show, where he had the idea of performing tricks from his old magic set, but after realising that they weren’t sufficient, he then bought some more tricks to perform.

He tends to think that magicians are people wanting to be more extroverted than they are, but are also happy to spend time alone due to magic requiring that of you to practice etc. He thinks magic is a good hobby for someone that wants to build more confidence. I completely agree with this. I’ve found within my magic that it provides a reason for you to talk to people, as you’re giving them magic. From my experience, I believe sometimes the reason for why people are shy is because they don’t think what they have to share is worthwhile other people’s time, but magic alleviates this idea. That said, although magic is quite nice as having something to rely on to break the ice and talk to people, it shouldn’t be something to rely on, and you should build confidence in other ways. One way Kevin suggests to do this is to join a local acting club.

Kevin has acted and been in pantomimes for nearly 50 years. He thinks that acting has helped the magic for what you learn from it, but not vice versa. For example, he says when he does kids magic, he often uses some of the pantomime tricks he has learnt.

The main topic of the episode was how to create and know your character. Kevin suggested that it’s good for people to try out a wide variety of characters in different acts and see which suits you, as this helps you get to know your character better, which he also mentions is something that develops over time, so it’s necessary to be constantly aware of it.

Csanád and I talked about a heap of other things with Kevin in the episode too!

Thanks for reading and we hope you enjoy the episode 🙂