talkmagic.co.uk

memorire wrote:
thanks Lenoir, lesson learned still the connection between elite and some guy with huge ego problems escapes my apprehension

best regards

He's kinda' like the old uncle you only see during the holidays that says insanely inappropriate things and everyone just quietly smiles and nods along.

He's just been around and everyone is so used to it - it gets tolerated. Besides noone anywhere is going to change crazy old uncle charlie's mind - or Mark's.

I must say that this memorabilia (or whatever his name is) chappie is most impertinent. I did not see what he posted and had deleted to my great sorrow but I suppose he had to be saved from himself.

It isn't a matter of ego my boy. It is a matter of fact. After all when you are in the presence of one of the world's greatest magicians you should think before you speak.

Now do show a bit of respect for your elders and betters and we will all get along quite fine.

Walt and Kyle talk in a terribly intellectual manner but neither of then know what they are talking about. Utter nonsense about ordering the parents to police their kids. That is the magician's job to sort out. If he can't do that then he shouldn't have been hired in the first place. As for the utter tosh about having parents sit among the kids to keep order that is utter garbage too. How are the little b******s supposed to see?

The place for the parents to be is in the back. I don't want the parents in the front. The parents are usually the ones who ruin the show. Keep them at the back where they can do no harm. There are ways to stop them chattering and distracting the kids at the back and if I am in a good mood at some point I will tell you how.

Now do be a good boy and stop fussing. I shall shortly be educating you on the best way to control children. I do get a vibe that you need the education since I sense that you don't do much in the way of kid shows.

I think you should learn my boy. I sense you could do with bit of extra pocket money. You can make more money with kid shows than anything else.

He's kinda' like the old uncle you only see during the holidays that says insanely inappropriate things and everyone just quietly smiles and nods along.

For me it's always a couple of cousins of mine.

thanks Lenoir, lesson learned still the connection between elite and some guy with huge ego problems escapes my apprehension

best regards

Anyhow, I do think you should try better to respect the experience of some of the more experienced members. I'm not suggesting they're neccessarrily any more right, but they certainly have been through many more situations, and that can make the largest difference. Its fine if you want to disagree, No one should have anything against that. I also believe that their is some sense of certain elitists having a large ego, but I haven't sensed that in any of Mark's posts so far. No need to overuse sarcasm, it hardly ever see's good reactions by the people whom you are using it for. Neverthless, If your deleted post was solid and meaningful, and not very rude against Mark, I feel sorry for you. Keep a good opinion, there's nothing wrong with that.

Best Regards,

-Ben

I wish I had seen his deleted post. I miss out on all the fun.

mark lewis wrote:I must say that this memorabilia (or whatever his name is) chappie is most impertinent. I did not see what he posted and had deleted to my great sorrow but I suppose he had to be saved from himself.

I wish it would not have been deleted too mr. louis. i would gladly read your reply on what i have written.

mark lewis wrote:It isn't a matter of ego my boy. It is a matter of fact. After all when you are in the presence of one of the world's greatest magicians you should think before you speak.

Well lets put it this way - while you might think you are the worlds greatest magician (which is ok by me) i prefer to decide myself who i believe is the worlds greatest magician.

mark lewis wrote:Now do show a bit of respect for your elders and betters and we will all get along quite fine.

i give respect where respect is due. I have respect for older people and those who i consider my betters. but i also expect to get respect. and if somebody believes that he or she can be disrespectful just because of their age...well lets say they get a lot less of it from me. as far as the betters part...i dont consider you being my better. i have no problem going alone fine with people its just they should also want that and not only on cost of others. and so far i am going along pretty well with you. i do disagree with you on some points mentioned above (and some of them unfortunatly deleted) but that does not means that we dont get along with each other. everybody can have their opinion and if it wont be deleted discuss it with the other person

mark lewis wrote:Walt and Kyle talk in a terribly intellectual manner but neither of then know what they are talking about. Utter nonsense about ordering the parents to police their kids. That is the magician's job to sort out. If he can't do that then he shouldn't have been hired in the first place. As for the utter tosh about having parents sit among the kids to keep order that is utter garbage too. How are the little b******s supposed to see?

since i dont do kid shows i cant discuss there. i worked myself with kids though and there are some points id like to throw in.

while working with them i noticed that here are well behaved kids and illbehaved kids. it was my job to make sure everything went along smoothly so i had different approaches for different kids to get them under my control (some nice and friendly and some commanding). i tried to talk with the really bad ones and you know educate them but it was not part of my job. its their parents duty to educate them. when little kids are in public its the parents duty to make sure they behave well.

as an entertainer and there i agree with you totally...you have to get them under your control somehow so they dont spoil the show. but still if some kids are way out there with their behaviour its the parents duty to step in and tell them to behave. well at least thats what i think. as i said i dont do shows for kids so dont really know the dynamics there. but while i was working with the kids we attended some shows too and yeah we had some kids who did misbehave a bit so we had to intervene and make them sit beside us so they dont ruin it for other kids and the entertainers. which was perfectly fine for eerybody and did solve the problem!

uhm and i dont know but i never thought of them as little b******s. they were children. not sure how this attitude works but from the reviews of one of your shows i read on the cafe it does

mark lewis wrote:Now do be a good boy and stop fussing. I shall shortly be educating you on the best way to control children. I do get a vibe that you need the education since I sense that you don't do much in the way of kid shows.

i always enjoy learning something new mr. louis but as i already mentioned - i dont do kid shows and i dont ever intend to do them so you might be wasting it on me. better teach the guys in the thread you mentioned and help them. it would not be such a waste then. but if you still want to teach me i will listen what you have to teach

mark lewis wrote:I think you should learn my boy. I sense you could do with bit of extra pocket money. You can make more money with kid shows than anything else.

everybody should learn. and i earn enough money to not be uhm forced to do kid shows if i will ever be in need i will remember this advice mir. louis!

best regards

magicmindben wrote:
Anyhow, I do think you should try better to respect the experience of some of the more experienced members. I'm not suggesting they're neccessarrily any more right, but they certainly have been through many more situations, and that can make the largest difference. Its fine if you want to disagree, No one should have anything against that. I also believe that their is some sense of certain elitists having a large ego, but I haven't sensed that in any of Mark's posts so far. No need to overuse sarcasm, it hardly ever see's good reactions by the people whom you are using it for. Neverthless, If your deleted post was solid and meaningful, and not very rude against Mark, I feel sorry for you. Keep a good opinion, there's nothing wrong with that.

Best Regards,

-Ben

hey Ben,

thanks a lot for the advice i do agree with you and i dont want to dive too much in the matter again but in this topic i saw mark until his last post
give not a tiny bit of advice but just ridiculing some other people who had a problem and discussed it between themselves and not trying instead help them.

I do believe that my post was solid and not rude. it went just against what mark has written before in this topic. i guess perceptions differ

Anyway thanks a lot!

best regards

Kids' shows give me a cold sweat. I hate them. Somehow I've been roped into doing a show at the local school this Saturday morning. I shall not relax until it is over.

I do however do shows at children's hospitals on a regular basis, but they tend to be very well-behaved affairs. Can't imagine why.

Kids shows are tough but loads of fun. Mixed age groups are the hardest but still quite controllable with the right approach.

Mr Lewis is a very experienced performer with a lot of wisdom to impart. Take notice or ignore, your choice. But one day, if you can ever get a booking you may find yourself standing up there in front of a gang of the little darlings and their parents.

Get it wrong and you will die! Both for the kids and the parents.

Don't go out there with kids shows until you are sure of what you are doing and your performance is right. If you want advice listen to people like Mr Lewis who have been doing this a long time.

Or just go and die while performing, your choice!

Totally agree with Johnny. I have the upmost respect for full-time children's entertainers. It is one of the hardest jobs in the world. I tried it for a year and couldn't get out fast enough! If you don't know your stuff you will die on your feet.

From parents getting drunk at the back of the village hall to being physically attacked by wild gangs of children to standing in the middle of a restaurant with 30 kids chanting "Loser! Loser!" at me, I've seen it all.

Ah, sweet land of wedding receptions, corporate gigs, and seance theatre, how sweetly thy bossom welcomed me.

When the parents are present it's their job to control the children. Dumping them in front of a magician for an hour is no different to sitting them in front of the TV and hoping the child rearing will take care of itself.

And as for Mr Lewis' comments, I've never seen, or ever thought I would see, such pompous, sanctimonious, belittling arrogance on this forum. I am grateful for what I have learned from many of his posts but all the combined experience in the world does not grant the right to speak to someone like that.

Dearie me. We appear to have an unmemorable youth called memoribilious or something or other who cannot spell or punctuate and a refugee from the working class area of the Gorbals who is giving bad advice about how to entertain children

The impertinent child calls me "Louis" and has the audacity to think he has the right to decide on who is a great magician. He hasn't. I DO have that right since I AM one of the greatest magicians in the world. Actually I am the greatest but I didn't want to say so in case it was deemed immodest.

As for Glaswegian Gary I see that he admits to learning from me. Jolly good.
I do hope he continues to do so and tries not to disrupt the class. He and Memorobilous should note that if one wishes to learn then one should accept the little quirks of the teacher. After all you can use the knowledge for life and you don't have to live with the teacher.

I find that to be a most suitable arrangement. After all I am not sure I could bear to be surrounded by the working classes for too long a period.

Anyway once the class settles down I shall begin the lesson. That will be probably in the next post. For now I shall say that once the show starts you CANNOT rely on the parents to control the kids. That is YOUR job!
If you try and rope them into it you will find a lack of cooperation and rightly so.

You are an ENTERTAINER not a disciplinarian. However you can scam the little horrors into behaving if you know what you are doing. Of course the twits on the magic cafe don't know what they are doing and if you don't agree with me then go and join them and wallow in their sea of incompetence.

But DON'T expect or demand that the parents help you out. They won't. Why? They expect YOU to do it. And they don't want to be singled out and told to control their little brat. You must remember that people don't like to draw attention to themselves in public and by asking them to help out you are violating this.

YOU are being paid to do the show and handle the kids. That is YOUR job.
Once you accept that then we shall continue and I shall tell you exactly how to do it.

Now that the class seems to have quietened down I shall continue. This is going to be a very long post so perhaps I had better do it in two segments.


The most important thing you do is beforehand before you even get there. Always send out a little flyer to the parents who book you. This advice will also work to a lesser degree to a larger group but is especially good for birthday parties. The flyer is sent with your letter of confirmation. It is headed "hints, tips and suggestions"

Actuallly this is a polite way of saying "rules and regulations". Here you put all your requirements such as "no presents opened during show" or "no candies or food given out during show"

That sort of thing. You word it more politely than given above but you say what you require and put it in a "suggestion" wording rather than a direct order.
What you put in the flyer is up to you.
I usually have some hint about the parents yapping in another room or shutting up if they want to watch the show. I word it more politely of course.
If you hate being videod during your performance this is where you put it. (personally I don't give a damn!)
If you don't perform outdoors you put in the flyer also. In fact anything you want which could make the show easier for you. I make sure that there is a proviso about 2 year olds not being allowed to wander and wreck the show.

When I first started doing kid shows I would get quite a bit of trouble settling the kids and controlling silly parents who would distract the kids during the show giving out food plus the kids playing with squeakers and noisemakers etc; Once I used this flyer idea all this c*** (not the best) stopped. It also works with bigger venues but to a lesser degree but send it out anyway.

The next thing I do is to have a "magic line" so that the kids don't come across it and enter the performing area. Some performers use actual rope or even duct tape. I don't bother. I simply draw an imaginary line and if the brats even put a leg over it I say "you've come across the magic line. The magic won't work if you come across the magic line!" I have even had other kids reprimand their friends if they come across the line! On the odd occasion when you invite a kid up to help the other kids might remark that they have crossed the line. No doubt these brats will grow up to be Government bureaucrats. At any rate you simply say "they are allowed to cross the line if they come up to help the magician"

I have a technique of saying "the quietest one can help me do the next trick" and "when I count to 3 will you all say shhh........." These two techniques work like magic in controlling the kids. The last one is more for the adults chattering at the back but will also work when the kids are getting out of hand.

Sometimes it is better to follow a rowdy trick with a quieter one to calm the kids down. I will admit that here I do not practice what I preach.

I have very good control techniques personally and can turn the noise tap off and on at will. However as is well known I am a genius and this option may not be generally available for lesser mortals. If the magician isn't Mark Lewis then it might be a good idea to look at the routining of your show if you find a "rowdy" problem. In other words perhaps alter the sequence of the tricks. If you have too many rowdy items together like I do then you may be asking for trouble.

I break the rule but I am saying that you should do as I say not do as I do. I do not practice what I preach but here I am doing the preaching and not the practicing.

A good plan may be the one I read in an old Gen magazine by Wilfrid Tyler. (VERY old! Even before I was born!). Wilfrid (who incidentally was the co-author of my favourite book on kids magic "Open Sesame") suggested a rolling stone approach of starting off quiet and gradually build up to a point where the noisy participatory stuff was nearer to the end of the show. A bit like a rolling stone gathering moss. Wilfrid recommended not charging in like a bull in a China shop in the beginning and you slowly build the show up to a frenzy. This keeps the kids from going nuts too early.

As explained I don't do this but I think it could be a good plan.

Now I expect the class to absorb this information and once I deem that they have done so I shall continue.

Jolly good. Now that the children of this forum have quietened down I will tell you all how to quieten down the children you meet as an entertainer.

Another tip. If I am doing something where the kids are to call out something or other and if I find they are getting a bit rowdy I will ask them to whisper it. I get a lot of great mileage out of this whispering business and in fact I have a bit of a routined sequence for it which I can't be bothered describing. It does have the advantage of keeping the brats quiet for a few moments.

One very important point. Never ever show irritation at the kids. NEVER EVER! Some of the idiocy advised on the magic cafe violates this rule. Saying things like "I am not rude to you so don't you be rude to me" and other remarks that reprimand the kids.
Something like that can be the kiss of death. Once you say something like that you are done for, more often than not.
You have admitted defeat. Professionals NEVER admit defeat. If you are going to die a death you might as well do it with dignity.

Kids are like a pack of wolves. As soon as you tell them not to do something they will sense weakness and tear you apart. If you order a kid about they will do all in their power to disobey the order especially when you are supposed to be entertaining them.

When you step out of character to tell the kids off you are breaking the illusion. I never tell the kids off or show the slightest irritation even if I am seething inside and want to strangle the little brats. I am the pro and I am supposed to be able to handle anything. I absolutely hate it when I see videos or witness live performances of so called "magicians" telling the kids to behave themselves. I cringed when the late Brian Flora in his awful kid show video told the kids that he wanted them all to be quiet because he didn't tolerate his own kids misbehaving.

So how do I control the kids without telling them to shut the hell up and behave themselves. Simple! I con them into behaving! Bribery and corruption goes a long way. They want the magic money (Ed Harris giveaway) They want to help the magician. They want a balloon animal. They want the attention of the magician.

There is only one person present who can give them it. Me! So they had better bloody behave themselves otherwise they aren't getting it. Carrot rather than stick.

However the greatest key of all in handling kids and stopping them acting like brats is a metaphysical one and hard to put into words. I will try though.

Sincerity.

If the kids sense that you like them they will like you. And if they like you they won't want to screw up your show. You are their friend. They won't want to upset a friend.

Leipzig's famous advice about audiences apply more especially for kids than any other type of audience even though Nate himself probably didn't have kids in mind when he said it. He said "if they like you, they will like your act"

You can get by as a kids entertainer if you don't like kids. I have seen it happen. However if you actually love the kids it will be a tremendous and actually obvious advantage for you. If you love them they sense it and will love you in return providing you can make them laugh and have fun.

If they love you they are very unlikely to make your life a misery. Sincerity is the key to entertaining kids. They will sense it and be the most rewarding audiences you will ever have.

However if they sense that you don't really want to be there and you don't really like them that much then may God have mercy on your soul.

Wow mr. Louis that was good advice you gave out there

As for being the greatest magician...well i still dont think that you are in your uhm divine wisdom you should know that it is harry potter, mr. louis

best regards

Lewis my boy. NOT Louis. And I never said that I was the greatest magician. I merely said that I was ONE of the greatest. As is well known I am a paragon of modesty.