Andy Clockwise Lecture

6 December 2005

Having been unable to attend meetings in recent weeks, I was pleased to see the clubroom pretty full for this evening's lecture. Andy is a funny, popular and busy entertainer, and it was easy to see why.

Very near the start of the lecture, Andy showed us a video extract of his first ever kids show. Now, while we have all had things go wrong to some extent, very few of us have ever been brave enough to not only record our mistakes for posterity, but even to show them as a demonstration of how not to do it!

I have decided to break from a traditional linear format for this report. For my own benefit as much as anyone else's, I thought it would be an interesting experiment to attempt a summary of what I felt were some of the key messages from Andy's lecture.

After all, as you read this, you were either present at the lecture or you were not. If you were, there is little interest for you in merely reading my recollections of Andy's kids? routines. If you were not there, there is similarly unlikely to be much stimulation in reading "Andy took a black and white silk with a picture of a clown on, put it in a cloth bag with some coloured ones, then with the help of a boy from the audience, he waved a few comedy wands!

Instead, although for the sake of completeness I will list all of Andy's routines, this review will concentrate on some of the wisdom to be gleaned from Andy's experience.

Firstly, in Andy's words: "I have learnt nothing from the Magic Circle. I have learnt everything I know about entertaining children from actually doing shows." He was not being intentionally dismissive of magic clubs, but merely pointing out that there's no substitute for getting out there and doing shows for people who aren't magicians.

Andy said: "My first show was terrible, but my second was better, and my third was better still. My fourth show was better than my third, and so on." Why was this? Because Andy had the humility and the wisdom to study his performances and try to eradicate the weaknesses. Good idea. I vividly recall that once I started to do this, I stopped trying to adjust my underwear mid-show, and even stopped sniffing guiltily every time I did a card sleight!

Andy explained that you need to be in as complete control as possible of your environment, your audience and your props. Andy gave numerous tips and anecdotes about how to get children sitting where you want them, and how to handle noisy and rude parents. His methods may not work for everyone, but even to consider them and then to reject them in favour of methods you prefer will stimulate some mental debate.

From Andy's handling of 'Strat-o-Sphere' we learnt that the routine that comes with the prop may not be the routine that suits us best. Andy said that his normal approach is to ignore the printed instructions until he has failed to come up with a very good idea. Only then does he 'consult the manual' and eventually settle on, in his words, a compromise routine. As an extreme example, Andy even bought a 'Two Little Dicky Birds' prop with no instructions at all, then built a routine to go with it, which he performed, despite some good-natured heckling from the floor. I had a good conversation with Mark and others afterwards about the Strat-o-sphere, and it transpired that we all perform it completely differently from each other!

The word 'perform' is itself an important part of Andy's lecture. He urged us to 'perform' our routines, rather than just simply 'do' them. Magicians who begin to act on this distinction invariably see a much greater reaction to their magic.

Extending a routine to get the maximum from it was another point Andy made. For example, his die box routine starts with the sliding of the box from side to side. Traditionally, this is not done until much later, but Andy has worked out that he can get more mileage from the effect by doing it at the start. A nice idea.

Andy's opener was a Blendo routine, as alluded to previously. Here he taught that routines can and will evolve over time until the pace, length, patter and bits of business are at a level with which you feel comfortable.

Andy demonstrated how to combine props to create original effects. To this end he used Terry Herbert's Flitto flower and an Axtell puppet in an effective combination. He also used a Devil's Hank with the Strat-o-sphere discussed earlier.

Bookings: Andy had several good tips regarding costings and bookings. Again, his methods might not suit everyone, but the important point is that he had adapted his procedures based on what he found out 'in the real world'.

One final point: In a fascinating question and answer session, Andy was asked an interesting question about changing his act for repeat bookings. His (paraphrased) response was the biggest indicator of how experienced a performer he truly is. "No, I don't change my whole show every year. Why should I? They book me because they like what they saw last time. Of course I rotate things, but think how often kids are happy to sit down and watch "Finding Nemo." Touch?!

So there was a huge amount to learn from Andy's lecture. I am about to entertain at my son's fifth birthday party later this month. I feel that the magic show will be a little better than if I had not been at this lecture. Before you ask, yes, I will be videoing the show, and no, you may not watch it afterwards.

AJ

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