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Interviews - Simon Drake |
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1. To start things off, I
wonder how you would describe yourself as a performer: a magician, a conjurer? Or something else?
An Illusionist but I don't really mind how I am described
2. What do you feel is your biggest magical
achievement? I have been in this business for about 25 years so it's
hard to say but I suppose I have had most satisfaction building my own venue
devoted to my kind of magic, The House of Magic. 3. Do you still have any magical ambitions, or have
you got to the point now where you have done everything you want to do magic
wise? Yes I still have ambitions but they are more realistic
than when I was younger and I am much more aware of how the business works and
my own limitations. 4. Everybody has a particular favourite effect that
you perform, for me your guillotine effect is absolutely superb. How long did
it take you to master that? Well we rehearsed it over about 3 weeks and because the
drop was so fast I cracked two ribs in the process, which made the whole thing
much harder to rehearse with full energy. The piece was more a short visual
story/vignette than just an illusion. A style of working that I am seeing more
and more now with the younger lot out there. 5. What do you feel was your big break into the magic
world? Kate Bush's tour in 1979 was my first break really and
that led to numerous TVs and other stuff. In Kate's tour I played 7 really
contrasting characters all doing magic of a sort and also wrote the visuals
with Kate and her brothers over the preceding year. Most of the press thought I
was 7 different performers. 6. What has been, out of all the big illusions you
have performed, your favourite to present? Not sure I have favourites but amongst them I would
say 'The Impaler' that I made for 'Raising Hell' with
Iron Maiden and the 'Head Off' that we perform at The House of Magic 7. With the advance of the Internet and with programs
such as Secrets of magic revealed, how do you feel about magic exposure shows
and sites? And how do you feel the magic fraternity, as a whole should deal
with it? I don't approve of exposures especially of generic
methods as they remain in the collective consciousness and make it easier to
for the general public to suss illusions. I hated The Masked idiot and his
feeble justification for doing what he did. Something about
forcing magicians to develop new methods and raising the standard. He
did absolutely nothing positive. A lot of the magic was made up for that show
and it stunk. I think we all know that Valentino was very much an 'off-the
Strip' mediocre Vegas performer and needed the exposure and the money. I was
all for pooling together hundreds of thousands from other pros and enthusiasts
and fighting Murdoch's Fox network in the American courts. At least we may have
got an injunction on it. Believe me, if the programmes had been about how a
lawyer does his magic or how TV producers exploit artistes then it wouldn't
have been aired, no way. Exposures are nothing new, as you all know. The great
David Devant was chucked out of the circle twice for
newspaper exposures only to be asked back as president later on. 8. Is there any effect that you have not been able to
master? Yes I have not been able to master 80% of magic out there
because so much of it is cheesy, spangly nonsense that
seems stuck in the fifties or just plain rubbish. 9. What support did you receive from your family in
the very earliest days of your magic ventures? Did your family stand by you and
offer to support you from the very outset or were there persuasions to find a
real job? Did you take the time and effort to persuade your family that this
was the career path you were determined to follow? My family are in medicine on both sides going back
generations. My father died when I was 12 and would most definitely NOT have
approved of my then hobby becoming a profession. However my mother was
encouraging in whatever I or my siblings wanted to do. 10. If you had to be remembered for one effect in your
lifetime - which effect would it be and why?
The Silhouette Routine from Secret Cabaret, Series
two. It threw the rule book away in terms of originality and included a new
principle that impressed many learned magic folk at the time. Check it out;
it's at the very end. Also possibly The Impaler or my
floating cane, sorry but that's a hard one. 11. Usually those who make it to the top, such as yourself, have some strong roots in their presentation from
those who influenced their career. This influence could be a teacher or present
and past performers who the person in question looked up to as their skills and
abilities grew and took shape. Who do you consider to be your biggest
influences in your magic, both past and present? Who are among your favourite
magicians, both past and present? Past: De Kolta, Devant and Jarrett. Channing
Pollock for presentation Present: The Amazing Johnathan.
He must be the funniest man alive and the new parts of his show are so funny
although not ice-breaking in a magical sense. Teller is also really inventive
and a nice chap. Steve Fearson must be the most
underrated and un-praised inventor of our generation. The work that Paul Kieve put into The Theatre of Blood as advisor at the
National Theatre is also really wonderful and so well done. 12. Do you have any advice for all the hobbyists out
there trying to make it to the pros? Don't get trapped into doing 'magic for magicians' you
run the risk of seldom working for the public and becoming a professional
amateur? Do your best to find an original twist to your work. Don't listen to
'advice' but rather listen to your gut feeling and most of all practice hard,
long after 'normal' people would have given up and got bored with it. 13. Do you like to scare your audiences? Sometimes yes but I would rather think of it as peddling
adrenaline and endorphins to an expectant crowd. So it's not just being scary
but rather a whole gammit from fear to laughter to
enchantment and awe. 14 What's the strangest or funniest reaction you've
ever had from an audience? A drunk middle aged woman once laid
down on the front of the stage and implored in a loud voice that I immediately
make love to her, although she didn't quite use that expression. I kept trying
to signal to security but they said afterwards that they thought it was part of
the act. It wasn't. We had quite a few people faint and throw up whilst on tour
as well. All good for the box office but messy for the
cleaner. 15. I have recently started getting the convention
bug and attended my first Blackpool convention
earlier in the year. The Blackpool convention
attracts a lot of big names in magic, both as a convention lecturer and as
attendees. Have you ever been as either, and if so, did you enjoy it? I have been to only about 4 conventions in my life. I
found it a little tedious hearing "When's the next Secret Cabaret?" a
thousand times in a weekend. 16. What was it like to appear on the royal variety show? Ghastly showbiz meat market - never again! 17. You taught Oliver Reed slight of hand for the film
"Castaway" was he a good pupil? He was a marvellous man. Much kinder
than one would have expected. Nic Roeg (the director) and I had two, four hour meetings and
the script went from having 5 magic effects in it to about 20. Suffice to say
that Ollie wasn't a good pupil and there are only about 6 or 7 short and hammily done tricks in the final film! He was more
interested in making white wine disappear at the time and engaging me in
stunt-fighting. Plenty of bark but he didn't bite. There isn't room to go into
it here but there are dozens of hysterically funny stories about my involvement
with coaching Oliver. I miss him hugely. More recently I have done more "magic advising"
and right now I am working very hard on a west end show which is a pastiche of
the big 18. Could you tell us a little about 'Simon Drake's
House of Magic'? Yes it's a permanently themed 4000 sq ft Victorian venue
totally dedicated to my take on magic and illusion. I built a Haunted Cellar
with many optical effects and forgotten illusions as well as a few new ideas.
The Whispering Chair which started as a cold reading thing but now utilises a
real clairvoyant, where each audience member get their fortunes told in 3
minutes. My show is just under an hour and we specialise in light hearted
amputations and decapitations of celebs and senior
executives, as well as my floating candle, cane and knife thru arm as well as a
lot of other things and original illusions. It's a full evening from 7.00pm to 1.00am with great food
and a reasonably priced bar, 3 close-up magicians and dancing. 19. Have you ever injured yourself doing any of your
effects Yes quite a few times in the old days but I am a lot more
careful now. I set fire to my right arm in 1985 at the start of an hour show
and carried on with no skin on about 3 square inches of my forearm (it hurt
more the next day!). I fell thru a hole in the catwalks at Hammersmith Odeon
(now the Apollo) opening for Peter Gabriel, with Elton John and Phil Collins as
guests in 1980 and landed 8 feet later on a scaffold bar on the base of my
spine (again it didn't hurt much till the next day and my badly bruised pelvis
took about 6 weeks to get better) I was very lucky as it missed landing on my coxis by about 10mm which would
have meant certain paralysis. It happened during a strobe lighting effect and
the 3500 audience gave me a standing ovation as I vanished between flashes, so
the effect was that I disappeared completely down-stage-centre with no boxes or
drapes on that huge stage! 20. And finally are there any plans to resurrect the
Secret Cabaret? No sorry. We did 12 shows and I called a stop to it
before the format got flogged to death, although Channel 4 were
desperate for more at the time. I felt it was better to go out on a high point. I may do a
fresh series of something similar one day but I am busy with other projects at
the moment. That's all for now folks. Thanks for your interest in my
work. Simon Drake www.houseofmagic.co.uk
Simon Drake's House of Magic 05/09/2005 |
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