Interview: Dynamo

Dynamo – a dynamic bundle of magic & mystery

How did you know you wanted to become a magician?
At school I had a hard time, I was small, I’m not the biggest now. I was an easy target. My grandad was always performing magic tricks and stuff at local bars, one day he saw me getting pushed into a wheelie bin and rolled down a hill by bullies. They would take me to the top and push me down. They did it for two weeks straight so I had cuts and bruises all the time. One night he taught me this technique to stop them lifting me off the ground – they couldn’t move me. I couldn’t believe it. That was the first time I did magic, and it wasn’t to perform it was to protect myself. After that they spread rumours around the school that I was a demon child, and had super powers. Grandpa taught me other tricks, and said if they ever threaten to break your bones show them this… (at this point Dynamo bends his little finger into a circle, fascinating and weird at the same time) so I’d show them and say, “do your worst guys, I can handle pain”. Magic was more like a defence mechanism. I dropped out of college and my grandparents had lots of Golden Retrievers and we would travel around the world doing the Pedigree Chum adverts, it was crazy, in the day we would travel in this big Winnebago all over America and places, and in the evening I would perform magic at the dog show after parties. We went to New Orleans and Vegas and, I saw street performers and acts like David Copperfield. It really opened my eyes to the fact I could actually do this for a living, and it’s worked out okay.

How many hours a day do you need to train?
For this tour I get up and train from 8am then I go to the venue and do on stage rehearsals, and more training at 6pm. I have physio and vocal training to be ready for the performance. But even sitting watching TV I will have a pack of cards in my hand, it’s like second nature. For the tour though it was a solid six weeks from 8 in the morning till 11 at night, its been pretty full on.

Magician or Illusionist? What’s the difference, which are you?
I’m Dynamo, haha. I try to create my own thing. If you were to try and define an illusionist it would be the Vegas kind with the big boxes, show girls, glitz and glamour, it’s really cool but not my style. A magician is someone who can make you suspend your disbelief, show you something that appears to be real, but is physically not possible.

Why do the arena tour?
Doing a stage show three years ago would’ve been the last thing on my mind, its not me. The first couple I was petrified, but I’m really starting to enjoy it now and getting more comfortable. I didn’t want to perform in a ‘stage school’ way, I’m not your typical ‘jazz hands’ kind of person, and my friends would crucify me if I did, so I need to keep it authentic, its been a learning curve for me.

Do you devise your own tricks or work with an illusion developer?
With the street magic I work with other magicians and friends. Sometimes they look at me like I’m insane. For this show I have had to work with many professionals. I have the Director of Matilda, a guy from New York called Thomas Caruso. I’d heard so many amazing things about him in the theatre. I’ve worked with an amazing vocal coach Barbara Houseman, she worked with Daniel Radcliffe and people like that, I wanted people to be able to understand me but without losing my accent. I also found a great guy, Paul Kieve. He created the magic ideas they used in Harry Potter movies. The team we have brought together is my dream team. I’ve also been lucky enough to have people like David Copperfield call me up to give advice and support.

You do a variety of things from street performing to walking on water, what do you prefer?
I love interacting with people, so it comes down to the spectators and I adapt to whoever I meet. On stage it’s not as improvised as I would like, it has to have a beginning, middle and end. Hopefully I have still managed to involve the crowds and there are elements that involve every single member of the crowd, it’s trying to keep the intimacy and manage to put it on a grand scale.

It’s clear from your book that it’s not just about being good at magic, you had to be good at blagging too.
I believe talent can only get you so far, hard work will always trump talent. I’m fortunate to believe I have talent in what I do, I’m confident in my skills as a magician, my skills as a performer are something I have had to really work on, especially for this tour. But the blagging skills… in a way, I wouldn’t be in this position without them. It took me ten years of blagging to get my TV show ‘Magician Impossible’ made but Watch totally got behind me. The celebrity guests on my TV shows, a lot of that was me blagging my way to their shows, finding their security, amazing them with tricks, getting taken to the manager, then to their dancers, amazing them, spending as much time as I could with them haha, before then eventually getting taken to the main act and then blowing their minds with magic and saying “oh by the way I’ve got a TV show I’m making and I’d love to have you on it”. Thankfully a lot of them said “yeah ok”. One of the toughest blags was when I met Coldplay. Many years ago when they did the X&Y album, I blagged my way into Coco in Camden where they were doing press. I ended up doing magic to this lady, and she said, “you must come and show my son” so I was like “oh ok”, she started shouting “Christopher Christopher”– her son was Chris Martin. I did a few tricks and he was mesmerised so he called Gwyneth Paltrow and the rest of the band. I was a bit cheeky and asked if I could film it for my website. Chris said if I made it big and got my own TV show they would come on it. When I got my own show he said they couldn’t make it for the first three series’. I didn’t bother asking for four but they heard it was my last and got in touch with me and came on the show.

Does it ever go wrong and if it does what do you do?
Most of what I do is improvised, people don’t actually know what’s meant to happen, so in my head if I think something’s not going to plan, I can twist it and turn it and make it into something that is still magical, it might be a bit different to what I intended but the crowd don’t know that!

Other than your grandpa, if you could name one person that has influenced you in your profession who would it be?
Two people. The legendary David Copperfield, I think he is one of the greatest magicians to have ever lived, his legacy is phenomenal. And David Berglas, a British magician, not many people have heard of him, years ago he was the man!
Dynamo Live Tour
Brighton Centre 27-31 January
0844 847 1515
brightoncentre.co.uk