Interview with Barry and Stuart
by Patricia Montgomery, LincsMag Writer.
Date: 01 January 2012
Are you excited to be doing The Magicians again?
Well it’s exciting and it’s quite frightening because unlike last year it’s going to be live! A mistake in magic is different to a mistake in other art forms, if someone falls on an ice rink they might hurt themselves but it doesn’t ruin the art of ice skating - if anything it makes you appreciate ice skating more.
However a mistake in a magic trick usually involves people seeing how the trick is done and therefore the art of surprise and the mystery is gone. Let’s just say we’re trepidacious. In a good way obviously!
What have you been up to since we last saw you?
Almost immediately after the last series we put together a tour that started in London and then went round the country doing different comedy festivals, Bedford, Keswick, along with theatres.
Then in the summer we did The Edinburgh Festival - two new separate shows called Show and Tell – one’s Show and one's Tell. In Show, there was an audience of 300 and we did some magic. Then the people who saw Show had the opportunity to see Tell. Now Tell had only 60 tickets so not everyone was able to see it, but in Tell, at midnight, we would explain to the audience how every single trick was done.
Are you looking forward to competing against Pete and Latimer?
Yes. We’ve known Pete for almost ten years and we’re big fans and have always thought he is great. Latimer is the World Champion so it’s going to be tough competition. It may be harder for Pete and Latimer though because we are used to being on stage with someone else and we have been on stage together for so long that if something is not going right for either of us we just know by the way we’re walking or the way we’ve said a line. We have secret ways of communicating with each other on stage, so that’s the hard thing working with someone who you haven’t spent much time with.
What traits will your celebrity partner need to be a good assistant/magician and will it help if they are sceptical?
Just being interested helps. Even the most basic of tricks can be messed up by not practicing them. There is also the guilt factor. When you are doing something which is deceiving, a secret move, people who haven’t been doing magic very long just transmit guilt and an audience can pick up on it.
There are different types of people, people who are happy for things to be mysterious and people who actually appreciate knowing how things are done. Thinking about the two different types of people, last year, Martin Kemp was very easy going and loved magic; he didn’t seem to need to know how things were done.
He was just happy to do what he was told but he was great on the show - it didn’t affect his ability to perform the tricks. Ade Edmundson was the other extreme - he wanted to know how everything worked, but Ade and Martin were two of the best guests we had on the show and they were both ends of the extreme.
You had to walk on hot coals last year, are you nervous about this year’s forfeits?
I’m more worried for the celebrity than us. We have always done risky things in our act so the forfeits are not too worrying. We’re going to be the ones encouraging the celebrity to do it, giving them the mind power to face their fears.
What are you most looking forward to this year?
We’ve got a whole range of things - there’s going to be insects appearing where they shouldn’t and one lucky celeb is going into the boot of a car, handcuffed, on the edge of a cliff.
