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