talkmagic.co.uk

As we've seen in recent posts about Britain's Got Talent, the judges don't seem to take too kindly to magic and magicians, with the exception of the recent events where a duo certainly did impress. We've also heard that America's Got Talent seems to show far more warmth to those of our art, Romania's just been won by a Mentalist and the Arab version has featured Magicians as well.

Checking Wikki, I see that this franchise now appears in some 39 countries, not only making it a successful UK export but also making Simon Cowell an enormous fortune! Apparently the original concept was for it to be hosted by Paul O'Grady but that didn't happen and I guess the show would have been rather different if he had!

Anyways, with almost 40 different versions, I wonder which country is more likely to appreciate Magic? We have members and readers from all over the globe so let's hear your thoughts.

I think Paul would have stacked it with loads of acts he likes, and he loves magic - especially if he can get involved!

Th things is, when magicians are in the semi finals, which they have been for the past two years, it's the public that have failed to take to them, not the judges. In general, magic has a pretty bad image in the UK and is seen as something naff and childish by many people.

For the past few years Magic on TV had to be somehow at a weird angle and not at all like the stage shows which are currently doing the rounds. I don't blame any professional for getting involved with programmes like The Magicians or Fool Us and I suppose those are the sort of shows which 'the public' or more likely the producers believe to be the right way to feature magic.

I honestly believe that Magic, and allied 'variety' shows need to be experienced live rather than via a TV screen but that's just my opinion. Live shows, and I include things like Freddie's Carnival of Kitsch, do well on stage because of the atmosphere and the interaction of the performers and audience. Other than hurling some rather uncouth phrases at the screen from time to time, I rarely interact with any TV show .

I think magic is a difficult thing to get across in the format that's given. People can tell instantly that a singer or dancer is good. For a magician to make that same sort ofd impact, they really need to stun the audience early on and to be perfectly honest I'm not sure that anyones really managed to do that yet.

For a magician to do well on BGT I think that they've really got to take magic further and make it into a piece of theatre rather than simply a magic trick.

Yes, I think that magic is often more of a slow-burning act that takes time to build up. It can require some patience on the part of the audience when it takes a while to get to the main point, but in a live show the audience soon finds that their patience is rewarded by the strength of the effect that is ultimately produced. Perhaps one problem with magic on T.V. is that the viewer has no need to be patient - if they aren't hooked immediately then they can easily just change channel or go and get a drink. And of course, BGT has the famous buzzers that can cut off an act before the climax if the judges lose interest.

Having said that, there is magic that works on T.V. - it just needs the right format, in my opinion. I very much enjoyed P&T Fool Us, and I never tire of the count down shows (you know, top 50 greatest magic tricks etc.)

Sadly for shows like BGT, the kind of magicians that enter are the ones that give magic a bad name. Love him or loathe him, the public have warmed to performers like Dynamo as what he does is far removed from the kids party type stuff and in the publics eyes makes magic 'cool'. On BGT we see bumbling geeks dropping cards everywhere or people in panto outfits doing routines that are so obviously using special props (like the head chopper).
Simon Cowell has said he is not against magicians per se but BAD magicians, and as we know there are plenty of those about!

There are loads of good magicians around too but things like BGT rely on quick impact as it's a minimal time slot in which to impress. You tend to get "oh so clever" mentalists doing a convulted prediction routne where the first two minutes is them setting up the effect and taking ages (relative to the 3 minute audtion time) to get to any conclusion and if the pay off isn't that great (they predicted something that the spectator would choose) and obvious it will come across badly. Magcians need to do something unique with a quick impact and has a connection with the public. Magician foolers that won the local close-up competition at a magic club won't cut it.

Despite all the venom and flak thrown at Val Valentino when, as the Masked Magician, he revealed the secrets of many traditional effects, his stated reason was probably correct. Magic had become lazy, few people really cared about it and there was very little in the way of new and exciting magic to take the art forward. Over a decade later, that may still be the case in the eyes of producers and TV audiences. However, here on TM we have seen a lot of new and innovative ideas, methods and publications created and shared, mainly for the darker side of things, but also for the wider audiences so there new stuff is certainly appearing. It still seems to me that TV is no longer the place for magic and we need to be there watching it live to really live the experience.

Mandrake wrote:
It still seems to me that TV is no longer the place for magic

Probably true, and what is even more of a certainty is that there will always be people performing magic long after television has become obsolete and forgotten.

Mandrake wrote:It still seems to me that TV is no longer the place for magic.

The question is, is this a good thing because it makes magic more of a rare treat for audiences, and therefore more appreciated live, or is it a bad thing because magic doesn't get the publicity and exposure (no pun intended!) that it deserves? I'm inclined to lean towards the former.

The other thing that is against magic on tv is stuff like Sky+ where the viewer can rewind and watch it in slow motion, taking away the entertainment. This could be one reason why some much derided current magicians use editing and camera tricks.
We always have magic on at the Karnival of Kitsch and it always goes down really well, so with the right acts the public can be won over. Some audience members have said to me "I usually hate magic but --------- was excellent!"
Many people have an outdated image of what magic is/can be and in my opinion the ones with the playing card waistcoats are doing masses of harm for the art.

Lots of excellent comments in this thread (and I pretty much agree with everything. This one stood out for me, though:

V.E. Day wrote:Probably true, and what is even more of a certainty is that there will always be people performing magic long after television has become obsolete and forgotten.

It is difficult to know why magic acts don't get voted through to the finals. I think it's a number of things. First, the format is far from ideal. The performers have only a small amount of time and this greatly affects pacing and the choice of material. The magicians seem to be coping with these constraints a bit better now, but I wonder what would happen to a great actor who came out and started delivering a Shakespeare soliloquy.

"To be, or not to be..." DRAMATIC PAUSE

BUZZ!

Second, the panel bias against magicians (less severe now than it was when Piers was there) might have an effect.

Then there's the point Lord Freddie makes about the audience's perception of magicians (to a degree this overlaps the second point, as the panel's bias may stem from the same perception). Tired, silly, irrelevant, "old hat", that sort of thing. I have also been told things like, "I don't normally like magic, but I really enjoyed what you did." If I can get reactions like that, what on earth were the magicians they have seen before like?

I also agree that perhaps audiences simply find it easier to know whether a singer, dancer or dancing dog is entertaining. Maybe that's because magic is harder to appreciate (like contemporary art), or maybe it's because it really is the poor relation (to a dog act). Perhaps it can never have as broad an appeal. Then again, Paul Daniels clearly held a big appeal for people in the 80s. Yes, there were fewer choices then, but I am not talking about auidence share. People obviously enjoyed his shows at that time, so why is there little room for magic in the schedules? That probably deserves its own topic. My view is that the schedulers think it wouldn't be popular. They might be right.

Here's the big question. Does it matter if magicians never win Britain's Got Talent? If there's a magic renaissance waiting to happen, maybe it's in our hands, more than those of a TV production show whose main aim is to generate a lot of cash for a certain somebody.

Lord Freddie wrote: Some audience members have said to me "I usually hate magic but --------- was excellent!

A double whammy - not only entertained but won over as well!

Maybe the reason many people think they don't like magic is because they don't see enough of it to really discover what it's about. But the reason they don't see much of it is because schedulers think they don't like it. It's hard to know where to break the circle.