Putting the Magic in Drama E V E I K L U S N I K L I F

Home , Alan Alan, David Berglas, Doug Henning, Jeff McBride, Lance Burton, Paul Daniels

circularMAGAZINE OF THE MAGIC CIRCLE May 2007

PAUL KIEVE Putting the Magic in Drama E V E I K L U s n i k l i F

n e r r a A D

Putting the : o t o h Magic in Drama P Interview by Matthew Field AIMC P

here are but a small handful of magicians who are back to drama school. She set up her own theatre involved in creating magic effects for use in non- company, The East End Theatre Company Tmagic stage and film productions, and Paul Kieve MIMC is the busiest of these in the UK. Productions he M What was your introduction to magic? has worked on include The Invisible Man, Scrooge, P My older brother, Mark, took me to Alan Alan’s The Witches, The Woman in White as well as opera, magic store. I remember seeing Doug Henning on ice shows, and the film Harry Potter and the Prisoner television, and I was hugely influenced by that. And of Azkaban. Paul came second in the 1985 Magic that was also the best era of The Paul Daniels Show, Circle Young Magician of the Year contest, and last when all the amazing acts were appearing. Everyone year was the winner of the David Berglas Award from wanted to be Lance Burton. I wanted to be a cross the British Magical Society. With his book Hocus Pocus between Jeff McBride, Lance Burton and the about to be published this autumn, Paul was kind enough Pendragons, probably like everyone else. I wasn’t to pry a few moments from his schedule for a chat. particularly interested in comedy magic, which I suppose was unusual. Matthew Field: Where did you get the background in theatre? Were you interested in acting or directing? M Were you getting instruction in magic at that time? Paul Kieve: I got the theatre background from my P My parents had contacted the Ilford Magic Society mum, who was a child actress when she was up in and they put me in touch with a man called Peter Manchester. She always wanted to be a professional Werth. He was the first to tell me to throw away my actress. My father said that she had to choose Tenyo tricks and to go to International Magic and buy between acting and him, so she chose him. I suppose a set of Linking Rings – one of the best bits of advice I it’s good she did or I wouldn’t be around! But she was ever given. I was entirely fascinated by the Zig Zag. never totally gave up. She started a family business. That was the trick that got me into stage illusions. I My father was a lecturer and then at the age of 40 my ended up building my own in school, in woodwork L mum decided to pull out of the family business and go class. I didn’t have an act; I just wanted the box. And www.TheMagicCircle.co.uk May 2007 THE MAGIC CIRCULAR 139 then I persuaded my sister, Karen, to assist known Lawrence Leyton, who had been a me and we did local charity shows, a 45- Young Magician of the Year two years minute act. before me, and he asked me whether I’d like to do a double act. After my girl M At what point did you decide to assistant left I thought I’d try it for two or compete in The Magic Circle Young three months. The two or three months Magician of the Year contest? turned into four and a half years. Then P Reading Junior Day was going on at John Fisher picked up on us and produced this time and they had a competition and us for The Ronn Lucas Show. It was a I went into it with my sister. It was the really big break that John Fisher was day of my seventeenth birthday in interested in us. October 1984 and we won it. We had never even thought about winning, we M The first I came across your name was g n

just thought it would be fun to do it. And in 1991 in a report I read in the States o e L

from there we entered The Magic Circle about the production of The Invisible Man s a l o

contest. The most significant thing that for which you designed the effects. h c i N

happened when I was in the sixth form at P I had some very lucky strokes of fate, : o t

school was getting invited to double in on or whatever you want to call it – maybe o h a pop video by the singer Sade, who at timing. One of the most remarkable P that point was not known at all. This was pieces of timing was our split-up of the her first single, titled double act in the summer of 1991. Your Love Is King. Literally the following day after our final contract on the QE2 I had a call from the M You had Theatre Royal at Stratford East saying they achieved success in had a production of The Invisible Man, an area that eludes which Ken Hill had written. I suppose out many other of sheer ignorance of the field of magic in magicians. You theatre at the time I didn’t know how to East to the RSC in one leap, and it was were in the right do the show except by full-out magical also around that time that David Wood place at the right ways. And Ken Hill, who has to take a lot contacted me to work on his adaptation time. of the credit, was the one who said, hey, of Roald Dahl’s The Witches, the third P I think that’s I’m going to give this guy a chance to do show I worked on. definitely what what he wants, and he was 100% behind happened. The Sade me. M Scrooge was another big success. video became a P Yes. I’ve worked on Scrooge more Paul as Mefisto huge hit and my M How many effects were in that show? times than any other show – fourteen or the Magician on the BBC’s Blue hands performing P By the time we came into the West fifteen different productions around the Peter Quest, 2004 card tricks were End there were 48. world. Composer Leslie Bricusse has quite featured. Sade would talk about me on TV and radio M That’s an astonishing number. interviews. I had such fun filming the P Ken for a start was very, very video that I thought, you know what, I interested in theatre tricks. He want to do this. I wasn’t sure before that supplemented some of the budget for the if I wanted to do it as a career. I was show with some of his own money. He invited to perform the Zig Zag on Blue basically invested in some of the bigger Peter in 1984, I got a TV spot on the TV props such as Thomas Marvel vanishing in show Illusions, and I came second in The a box at the end, so we didn’t have the Magic Circle Young Magician of the Year, limitation of the Stratford East budget. so I was on a bit of a roll. That was the Not that we supplemented the budget same year I did my A-levels so I left school that much, because in the end the big and said, ‘Hey, I’m going to be a hits in the show were bent pieces of coat professional magician’, whatever that hanger and invisible thread. meant. M Did the floodgates open after that? M When did you form the Zodiac P It wasn’t exactly like that, but I did n

Brothers? within a couple of weeks get asked to o n n

P I originally did my act with a girl work with the Royal Shakespeare a C

d assistant. I was a resident support act in Company on their Christmas show, The r a h c Jersey to an incredible variety of top-of- Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, i R

: o

the-bill performers. I was doing a silent which was their main house production at t o h

act – Fantasio Candles, Sub Trunk. I had the Barbican. So I went from Stratford P

140 THE MAGIC CIRCULAR May 2007 May 2007 THE MAGIC CIRCULAR 141 timing. It was very much the initiative of I’d learned, I got him a set of Linking the director, Alfonso Cuaron, who Rings. He’s a very hard-working kind of directed the third, and only the third, kid. I’m very interested in magic history movie. He was interested in the fact that I and I wanted to give him a bit of was used to working with directors, and background to the magic, so every time he wasn’t a big fan of CGI, computer I’d go over there I’d take an old book, like generated graphics. He wanted there to the Goldston Locked Book, or Houdini’s be a live magic element in the film, I think Handcuff Secrets, or some book with a partly because of his Mexican background funny story to it like Jarrett. I found that – really interesting circus and live stuff. I combining the stories of magic with tricks had to do a show-and-tell, a two-hour was effective, Daniel really became demonstration for all the departments hooked and I thought, you know, this is including the director, producers, the not a bad idea for a book, to do this triple Oscar-winning designer. It was overlap of history and effects. terrifying. M And in fact you did write that book, M They probably had no idea what was and it’s about to be published: Hocus possible using magic. Pocus. P They didn’t, but I felt like it wasn’t just P It will be out October 1st, published me auditioning, I was auditioning for live by Bloomsbury, the publisher of Harry magic. It was only when I started to work Potter. It is already available on Amazon on my presentation that I realised how and Daniel Radcliffe has written the much magic isn’t ‘magical’ in a Harry introduction. Potter sense! You can’t do 98% of things because they involve a box being opened M The cover states it is or closed, but there are a few things from ‘a tale of magnificent our world that remain magical even in magicians and their always been very hands-on and involved Hogwarts such as certain effects with fire, amazing feats’, so is it with it. He wrote a wonderful new piece but mainly animations and floating that combination of of music for one of the illusions I put in, a effects. I taught some magic to the history and tricks you kind of Vanity Fair ghost through the children in the film for one scene and described? mirror. He’s always been very interested in after the day’s filming Daniel Radcliffe P Yes. This is and supportive of all the magic stuff. [who plays Harry Potter] came up to me actually a fiction with a very earnest expression on his face that’s loosely based M And you made the transition from and said, ‘I can’t believe you’ve taught on a version of me, theatre to film with Harry Potter and the everyone else magic apart from me’. I set in my house in Prisoner of Azkaban. offered to tutor Daniel in magic if he was Hackney and it’s P This was another interesting bit of serious about learning. So, going the way got a lot of magic history in it, but it’s magic history come to life. The magicians basically come back to life and teach me stuff and through teaching me, they teach the reader. But learning tricks is a small part. It’s a complete story, wonderfully illustrated by Peter Bailey, and it’s being marketed that way – as a fictional book – but there are over 40 tricks that are taught. The other major character in the book is the Hackney Empire. I live around the corner from the theatre and just around the time that I was thinking about the book I was researching when all these magical greats had appeared at that theatre. The Clockwise from upper left: Paul Hackney Empire becomes a sort of receives the David Berglas Award channelling energy for the book. from Mr. Berglas; Sade record jacket; Alice In Wonderland with English National Ballet, London M We are sitting now talking in Covent Coliseum, Christmas 2006; new Garden. Down the street is the Royal Lord of the Rings production; Opera House, which is where you were surrounded by magic posters L ensconced in a rehearsal room just before

May 2007 THE MAGIC CIRCULAR 141 comes down to whether you are emotionally engaged in what you’re seeing. And if the story happens to be about magic or happens to include magical things, which of course a lot of operas and musicals do have, then it’s disappointing if those magic moments aren’t delivered. But people are not used to seeing magic things happen on a n e d stage. So in some ways you can do simple s r a things and people are really impressed by M y r r them if you do them theatrically correctly a B

: and with the right sort of timing. Even in o t o film I think it comes down to whether h P you’re emotionally engaged. And that’s The Invisible Man at The Vaudeville Theatre, 1993 one of the difficulties with magic on its we met. What are you doing there? production. The stage floor is innovative. own – how do you make people care P I’m working on a piece called From above it looks like a dart board and, about what’s happening when it’s difficult L’Heure Espagnole by Ravel, [performed if you can imagine it, each one of the to provide any dramatic or emotional in March and April], part of a double sections can individually lift and drop and journey? bill directed by Richard Jones, a famous, each of the circles revolves. So there are avant-garde opera director. It’s a kind of nineteen different revolving lifts. It’s a M You said that you made a decision not opera farce in which people are hidden hugely ambitious piece in lots of ways. It to go to university because you wanted to in grandfather clocks. has a cast of 60, it’s all three Tolkien pursue magic. Are you happy you made stories in one show, it’s cost a huge that decision? M You are involved, I would guess, in amount of money and it has a fairly P I wanted to do an act and I wanted to getting the people in and out of the terrifying running cost. I worked on it last play Vegas. I don’t want to play Vegas any clocks. year for its premiere in Toronto but this longer. I feel really lucky to be living in P It’s normally done with the clocks version is quite different. The producers London where there are these stood against the back wall. In this are keen not to call it a musical but it opportunities to work in theatre. It’s version they are isolated in the middle does have music all the way through it, amazing to me to be working at the Royal of the stage. The director wanted as rather like the way music is used in a film, Opera House and the Drury Lane Theatre. much playfulness as possible with and there are musical numbers as well. They are amazing spaces. I feel like I’m people apparently still in the clocks always learning because of the diversity of when they’re lifted up in the air. M How do you integrate magic projects I am involved with. I like the fact effectively into a theatrical experience? that I learn through what I work on. M Down the road, almost opposite, is P It’s always the case that the magic another theatre where something else is should serve the story. So the best Paul Kieve’s website is going on – Lord of the Rings. opportunities for me to do magic in a www.stageillusion.com. His book, Hocus P I’m quite lucky that these two drama are when the emotional and Pocus, is being published on 1 October things have coincided geographically, character-development go hand in hand and is now available for pre-order on because L’Heure Espagnole has been in with a strong bit of magic. Amazon.com. my diary for a year and a half, and Lord of the Rings has only been scheduled at M Do audiences today expect theatre to Special Offer! Drury Lane since last summer. So I can match or exceed what they can see in a The Magic Circular has arranged a special be at L’Heure Espagnole in the morning movie? offer for Members of The Magic Circle. and Lord of the Rings in the afternoon. P I don’t think so at all. I think it all You can purchase discounted tickets to comes down to the storytelling. It all previews of THE LORD OF THE RINGS at M Lord of the Rings has a cast as big the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London’s as an army, doesn’t it? It’s a huge West End. production – apparently the largest £60 for two tickets in the top-two price outside Las Vegas. categories, regularly £40-£60 each, may P It’s crazy really. We’ve been in be purchased for performances on 10, 15, Theatre Royal Drury Lane building sets 16, 17, 18 and 23 May and for Monday since January. The first time an audience to Friday performances between 4 – 29 will go in and see it is the ninth of May. June, 2007. Additional single tickets can That’s a four month fit-up and technical be purchased at £30. A £1 processing fee period. It’s an expensive show just from applies. Subject to availability. the perspective of keeping the theatre dark for that length of time, let alone To book, ring 0870 890 6002 and quote the costs of the crew and the physical Paul with sister Karen “Magic Circular Offer”.