Mixing Comedy and Magic

Comedy and magic don’t mix. I’ll give you a few seconds to compose yourself, as I’m sure you’ve probably spilt all your cornflakes over your iPad, after reading that skinny first sentence (I don’t know what time of day this will be published, but cereal’s 24/7, baby!). Now I’ll tell you why you agree with me. If someone is laughing hysterically, I’m sure you’d appreciate that experiencing awe at that point is nigh on impossible. The same is true in reverse; if someone is awestruck, laughter is surely an impossibility. While comedy and magic are like oil and water on a fundamental level, they also complement each other perfectly. I’d even go so far as to say that an inherent thread of comedy runs through every great piece of theatre, be it heavy or light subject matter; shade without light is no darkness at all.

I’ll request that you forgive my blatant sensationalist opening line, but I had to get your attention somehow, right? Now on to the matter at hand. The paragraph on human physiology was hopefully not quite as painful to read as the traditional dissection of a joke – the classic line on this being, “no one likes it, and the frog dies” – but I trust somewhere in the back of your mind, your cerebral cortex might recognise it as common sense, or at least be worthy of that tag; analysing things like comedy always verges on the tedious and heavily dunks its milk chocolate digestive canary, down into the common sense pit of tea.

Do you need to sacrifice the funny for the magical?

If you’re like me, then you really only seek to be entertaining whilst avoiding playing to the lowest common denominator; you should never be something you’re not, because that waters down your originality and the thing bookers value most: a unique selling point. Having said that, there is a ‘but’, and it comes with two cheeks. The first, is that it is possible – and even desirable – to do both strong magic and comedy; is it bad that your audience might credit you with two skills instead of just one? Secondly, if you have a bad gig, or a bad audience – they do actually exist – then magic acts as a crutch, although I don’t think ‘crutch’ is the right word, perhaps ‘safety net’ would be more appropriate, or even ‘backup’. If your cutting satire of the Tory Government doesn’t sit well with your local Conservative Club gig, then at least their wedding ring was inside the walnut, which was inside the egg, which was inside the lemon. If the heart of your act is strong magic, then anything else becomes a bonus. At a fundamental level, though, the solution is the answer to a simple question: What do you want your audience to take away from your performance? There is no right or wrong answer, the only constant being that you strive to achieve your goal and succeed; most of the time, at least.

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written by Damon Conlan