Ask Simon Drake

[Simon Drake]

Hi Simon.

Ritani. Hmm, Cant say i remeber the act.
However, it appears that his act migh just be available on line. Ive come across this reference on the bfi archive web site..


http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/individual/888308


On Another topic, Ive got to say i thought that the work done on FairyTale: A True Story was without doubt the best on screen use of magic ive ever seen.

Harvey Keitel came across in manner, and physical apearance, exactly as you would of imagined Houdini to be.

was he an easy student?
D.


By The way, Found this picture, showing what i mean. The way he's holding his hands, is a great example of how magicians should hold their hands...

Hi Dale. Interesting link to Ritani but sadly doesn’t seem to show the actual film he was in. Thank you very much for your kind words about Fairy Tale. It was a pleasure working on that from start to finish. Not quite the firework display, sheer madness and riotous fun of spending a month with Oliver Reed for Castaway but the results, magically speaking, with Fairy Tale were better (for fairly obvious reasons!) That month with Ollie would make a great chapter in a book. I miss him.


Mr Kietel is a much more sober, polite, quiet, thoughtful man than Mr Reed and he spent a lot of time getting behind the veneer and trying to penetrate the outer shell of Houdini’s character. He was keen, cooperative and hard working in short spurts. But his method of working was more spontaneous so in some ways that made it hard. I was often just out of shot handing him things and placing things into his hands to make the tricks cleaner. But overall the results were good I thought. Shame the movie wasn’t bigger with such a star cast and a good director. I think to some extent it was spoiled by two movies coming out at the same time about the same obscure subject. Off the set I spent a lot of time with O’Toole who loves magic and really respects sleight of hand and all the hard work that goes into doing it. He was fascinating and taught me stacks about both life onscreen and life in general. Incidentally thanks for posting that photo of HK and Jason Salkey, and not the other one on the site. (I was having a bad hair month!) It brought back fond memories.

[Simon Drake]

I absolutely, totally agree - one bazillion percent.

I have a similar theme on many occasions through my show - not everything is gory, but the finale piece is something else altogether... but it makes sense in the story.

That's what I've been very careful to do with the illusions themselves (and, to some degree, what I'm still doing) is to have them make sense within the story - there's no dancing around a white box on stage, there's no suspension of disbelief needed to try and figure out why, if this woman is floating, she stays so close to the magician at all times.

It's an overused term, maybe even cliched - but the feel I'm trying to craft is "This is what it would look like if it was really happening".



Brendon.


PS. - I still love that cremation!

You’re welcome Brendon. Yes I saw that too, hmmm. Poor chap. I think you have to be referring to Britain’s Got Talent. He seemed to want it so badly too, he used to do security in my venue years ago and he is a lovely chap, but I thought his choice of material ill-advised.

I agree with both you and Dale and I dislike the need to pigeon-hole my kind of work as ‘horror magic’ too but people feel safer (and possibly more ‘expert’) if they can say what something is and put it into a box. Hey it’s better than ‘Pop Illusionist’ and ‘Rock Magician’ and I have had those too. None of it really matters. I am just an Illusionist or Magician and over half of my work on the Secret Cabaret was not horror or gory at all. The show I currently do in my theatre is the same ratio. So if that’s the case why should I be branded as a ‘horror magician’?

Yes there’s quite a few horrific horror magicians out there. I think they think it’s an easy way to get some ‘original’ style into an act but there’s a lot more to it than a snarl and some stage blood.


Back to these TV talent shows. I really dislike them and there are so many from both sides of the pond. It seems to be the safe format-bandwagon for producers to jump on with minimal risk. I got invited to be on Americas got Talent and had to make the point that I wasn’t American so couldn’t do it. And I wouldn’t have in a million years if I was. I don’t know what Kevin was doing on there. He is a highly respected pro working daily in a Vegas show, not a wannabe act at all. Yes I know its exposure but it seemed really out of place that he was on there somehow. My feeling is that these shows are a TV producers dream. As much exploitation as possible with little outlay and maximum profits. The acts after all don’t get paid to my knowledge and if they did it would be a paltry sum. It’s a very cheap way of putting on a variety show whether music or speciality acts but perhaps its got a down side as there are just about no TV shows here that pay real acts anymore. So when and if these contestants ‘make it’, which TV shows will they appear on? Another TV talent show? No they will be yesterday’s men in their mid 20ies and that’s sad. The producers will say, Rubbish, what about Will Young!” Yes, but who else? I am not saying this from self-interest as I am not myself that bothered about being on TV and not harking back to a bygone age. I just feel its wrong somehow, even immoral. I was lucky in a way to just catch it in time when there were at least some budgets for magic/variety shows in the UK. Although SC wasn’t big budget by any means. That time seems to be gone now because of this and the over swamping the airwaves with hundreds of satellite and cable channels which is another story and possibly far more responsible for cuts in budgets.

Well…it is show business after all and not show party.


Hey I didn’t really mean to go off into a rant and I wasn’t really answering a question but there we are.

As the great Groucho Marx once said, These are my principles and if you don’t like them I have others.

[Brendon]

Yes there’s quite a few horrific horror magicians out there. I think they think it’s an easy way to get some ‘original’ style into an act but there’s a lot more to it than a snarl and some stage blood.

I really couldn't agree more if I tried (and now I've got to be careful not to sound as if I'm just sucking up here... pun (tenuous as it may be) not intended).

For me, a third of the horror is in the anticipation of *that* moment - the time that the magician spends with the razorblades before chewing them, the time that he spends spinning round on the sword before he drops down it; a third of the horror also rests in the duality, and the contrast between something done very delicately or artfully - which does nothing but amplify your feelings of disgust/repulsion/fascination at the remaining third... which is the graphic portrayal of the injury.

If I may just ask one last question though (and yes, I'm being greedy, for which I'm unapologetic but thankful for your patience), if you were to make Secret Cabaret now, for the first time, would you make any major artistic directional changs, or would you leave things as they were?


Thanks,



Brendon.

[magicmanpaul]

Hi Simon,

I am hosting a Murder Mystery Party based around a Haunted House theme. Can you point me into any direction as to how to spook the guests the most ( as I want to make the night scary but not over the top if you know what I mean!). I have some ideas regarding making a ghost appear (from The Blackhart) but would be grateful of any extra help.

Many thanks

Paul

[lozey]

Where did you get your inspiration from for the effects that you used in Secret Caberet? Books? Films? People? etc

In the future will you be releasing any of the music from the series on cd?

[Simon Drake]

Hi again Simon,

Many thanks for your reply indeed!

It is so interesting to hear about all those great old Magic shops and such a shame that they do not survive today!

I see above that somebidy talked about your work on Fairytale. I recently noticed in the credits of a BBC show called Hustle that you consulted on that also?!

I am ahuge fan of that show and this was a really fantastic episode - certainly the best in the series, hence I guess why it was the closer!

Such a clever idea about using the slush powder - but cleverly it was not "exposed" in the show - so how did this project actually come about and did you enjoy it?

Is this perhaps a tyoe of work that you would like to do more of in the future - applying you vast experience and knowledge to projects that are not "magic shows" as such?

Hello magicfan Alex. Gosh you are a magic fan to spot that! However very glad you liked the Hustle episode. It was a good series I think too and I was very pleased to get so many messages saying they really liked my input. I have had a long standing friendship with Kudos Film and TV productions and the owners of it for a long time. It was Stephen Garrett who commissioned Sec Cab while he was at C4 before he left to start Kudos. I had known Stephen since the early 80ies when he worked on a BBC show called Riverside that I appeared on some 8 years before Sec Cab. Many people think that Sec Cab was my first thing but I had been a pro magician for about 10 years before it and did quite a lot of TV stuff too, although I look about twelve in most of them! Kudos had their 10th anniversary party at The House of Magic so their main people were well aware of what I do as we did the full show etc. The producer of Hustle called me and explained their problem which was to make $5 mill in cash get stolen while it looked like it was still there. I thought about it and called her back to say I could do it as long as I could have about 5 inches thick of fish tank in front of the cash. Being set in Vegas this was no hard sell as it’s just the kind of thing they would have there. After the negotiation I liaised closely with Tony Jordan who created and writes the show. Tony created Life on Mars and writes the Eastenders story lines. I thought obsessively about it all morning and wrote the whole idea in my dentist’s waiting room in about 20 mins and developed it over a few days. When I take on a thing like this I live and breathe it till I have the idea in a box with a pretty ribbon. I knew we needed some way of obscuring the cash visually for a few seconds and bubbles seemed a nice and original way. Hence the fish tank. Then I needed a reason to have the bubbles go mega to make a screen. So I thought slush powder in time release capsules could block the air holes and then they would need to flush it out. Then I had to get the caps in place so the maintenance company gets conned and a man replaced and so on and so forth etc etc. The whole process is, kind of, like thinking backwards. I was concerned that they didn’t give away slush powder as a trick so I wrote that bit calling it ‘super absorbent H2O polymer, which absorbs from 800 to 1000 times its weight in water.’ Quietly knowing that Tony couldn’t resist using that line and hence not calling it ‘magicians slush powder’. Although it sounds like scientific poppycock the irony is that magicians and clever dicks all over the world will know that the scam would really work.(ish!)


I have done this kind of thing a bit now and I usually dread watching it as they often just use part of the idea and don’t always do justice to it but Kudos as a production company are right up there with the best and I was very impressed by what they did with my consultancy on Hustle. Infact they improved on it, especially in terms of design of the tank and polishing all the elements of the scam and I was delighted it was saved till last in the series. They got the £5 mill, baffled the mafia and I watched it with a beaming smile on my face. Ka-ching!

[Simon Drake]

Yes there’s quite a few horrific horror magicians out there. I think they think it’s an easy way to get some ‘original’ style into an act but there’s a lot more to it than a snarl and some stage blood.

I really couldn't agree more if I tried (and now I've got to be careful not to sound as if I'm just sucking up here... pun (tenuous as it may be) not intended).

For me, a third of the horror is in the anticipation of *that* moment - the time that the magician spends with the razorblades before chewing them, the time that he spends spinning round on the sword before he drops down it; a third of the horror also rests in the duality, and the contrast between something done very delicately or artfully - which does nothing but amplify your feelings of disgust/repulsion/fascination at the remaining third... which is the graphic portrayal of the injury.

If I may just ask one last question though (and yes, I'm being greedy, for which I'm unapologetic but thankful for your patience), if you were to make Secret Cabaret now, for the first time, would you make any major artistic directional changs, or would you leave things as they were?


Thanks,



Brendon.

Hello again Brendon. An interesting question. Yes if I was to make sec cab now it would be different. I would lose most of the talking heads to camera keeping only the very best and any vintage footage that portrayed cruelty to animals. There was one with a horse high-diving which I asked the executive producer to take out but he didn’t agree. Also a child being balanced on a parapet from a block that looked like New York very shortly after a famous musician whom I have known for many years’ son died from falling from a high window in the same city, which I thought we didn’t need and could be distasteful but he didn’t agree. Well neither are on the DVD. Yes I know what you are thinking, Drake worried about being ‘distasteful’!! Frankly yes if it may cause upset personally to someone in real life and anything at all cruel to animals I deplore. I would have had a few more magicians doing quirky material and far less boring stuff about channelling and fun fair cons. Abnagale was good but droned on for too many appearances for my taste.

As you can imagine I have had many thousands of letters and emails over the years since and a large % said they fast forwarded through many of the talking heads going on about arcane subjects that are only really interesting to a few enthusiasts.

When I first came up with the concept for the show (my working title was ‘Not the Paul Daniels Show’ although that would have never been the actual title) I wanted it fast paced with memorable magic routines and illusions, some elegant and some dark with fear and S&M elements, with amazing and weird guests and speciality acts. Plus the vintage footage, automata and there were even some music acts in the first idea. I had been doing my 45 min show at the Roof Gardens with a crazy mix of many elements that ended up in Sec Cab. We even had a UFO land on the roof at the end of each show and the same pyro effect that was used on series 2. So what happened was I found 2 competing producers, pitched the idea to both at once in my home, and who ever raised the money first I would do it with. A good plan you may think but there was something wrong because I found myself working for the producer to do my own idea. I had trusted too much and he had last say and power of final edit. Yes they listened to a point but not enough in my opinion and we fell out over it, hence I said no to a third series which Channel 4 wanted badly at the time. I couldn’t bear to see my ‘babies’ (weird I know but that’s exactly what it felt like) edited and shot in a way that in my opinion was just not good enough. The joy for me in putting out the DVD is it’s more like what I wanted initially. It was a shame I couldn’t have arranged the clearances for copyright for the misc acts in the series, so sadly I had to leave them out. I had no assistance at all from the original production company. They seemed somewhat reluctant to even have the courtesy to return my manager’s calls. The last thing I heard they did was a pilot for C4 with TA Waters but I may be mistaken. It was certainly the last professional thing dear old TA did who sadly isn’t with us anymore. He was a kind and gentle man and very respected amongst many important thinkers in magic. I liked him too.

[Simon Drake]

Hi Simon,

I am hosting a Murder Mystery Party based around a Haunted House theme. Can you point me into any direction as to how to spook the guests the most ( as I want to make the night scary but not over the top if you know what I mean!). I have some ideas regarding making a ghost appear (from The Blackhart) but would be grateful of any extra help.

Many thanks

Paul

Hello Paul. Hmmm spooky stuff eh? Sorry but I can’t really give advice on this as it would take ages and be classed as work to do properly. From my experience it’s very easy to get it wrong by being too cartoon-like and obvious. You risk making a comedy. Darkness and suspense and lots of – it’s cheap and works. You might want to look on line on American halloween sites as they are mad for it and you may get ideas there. Sorry not to have been much help.

[Simon Drake]

Where did you get your inspiration from for the effects that you used in Secret Caberet? Books? Films? People? etc

In the future will you be releasing any of the music from the series on cd?

Hi again Lauren. Inspiration eh.. well I didn’t do it alone for a start. Jim and I worked out most of the illusions, some more him and some more me but his contribution was very important. We did a lot by fax at that time as he lives in LA. Pat was just as vital to it and we spent months on both series but more for series 2 creating new manip. routines which was the hardest work for me by far. We would take a theme and go through every damn trick that Pat could think of and I would sit there saying yes and no. I go with my initial gut feeling of what suits me and what may work in a routine and then we stitch the pieces together, find music etc. I always work to a guide track that has suitable timing and feel, then in most cases the music was added afterwards. And yes, as you say, books, films and people too I guess. It’s very hard grind and the audience only see a part of it; the end result. I made most of the manip stuff myself and a few of the bigger pieces but most of the illusions were built specially in steel or due to budget restrictions hired and adapted in some way. If you study series 2 carefully you will spot the same long, low table used 4 times! A lot of series one was from my repertoire that I had been doing for about 10 years or so but not all. Sorry no plans to release any music or more sec cab spin offs.

[daleshrimpton]

I tell you what would be cool. A one off s/c reunion show in a theatre somewhere.

I thought this the other night, because bbc4 had an un credited clip of Flukes Zombie act on a documentary on Circus.

Actualy, thinking about it, many of todays modern circus shows, owe quite a debt to the style of secret caberet.

It makes you realise just how much the design team were ahead of their times.

[Brendon]

It makes you realise just how much the design team were ahead of their times.

Tell me about it - I've now had to scrap possibly a third of my show, as the stuff I could have sworn I thought up independantly may have actually been inspired years ago when I watched it!

Back to square one!


Brendon.

[daleshrimpton]

It makes you realise just how much the design team were ahead of their times.

Tell me about it - I've now had to scrap possibly a third of my show, as the stuff I could have sworn I thought up independantly may have actually been inspired years ago when I watched it!

Back to square one!


Brendon.

You Know, if you want to construct a show along these lines, whatyou need to do is go further back in history.

Secret Caberet was by no means the begining of shock performance art.

and what came before was, by all accounts far darker.

[Brendon]

Not thematically, but more... Some of the illusions I'd chopped and changed about turned out to have been performed in the show.

Being as I watched it as an impressionable teenager, it's possible that I remembered and simply copied certain pieces - without realising.

However, I can honestly say that now I've moved these pieces around (or when I have done), everything that remains *is* my idea.

I'm not sure if that makes sense, but it's an important point to me.



Brendon.

[daleshrimpton]

you know ive just rememberd something.

one of the con artists on caberet was a forger, who made antique ships navigation equipment. He was based in slough. In fact he still is, and is runing the towns only antique shop. The reason im writing this, is simply because i knew him. In fact I sold him the tools he used, to make the forged items.
Ive seen a couple of them up close. lovely work.

[mrs pogle]

Hello Simon,

It’s brilliant that there’s a DVD of SC out at last – I got mine last week and have watched it over and over again. It was easily the best magic performed on TV I have ever seen and I was angry to see those idiots in recent times try to copy your style, which they couldn’t in a month of Sundays!
I always wondered why there wasn’t a third series of Secret Cabaret when the first two had been such a success, but having read your reply to Brendon, I understand a bit better now. It did seem to me that some of the routines in SC were badly lit and a few shots (such as in the egg production routine) were so far away that you couldn’t actually see what was happening, or were filmed at angles which didn’t do the routines justice, and of course that was all down to the producers and their choices. I am not a magician myself, just a fan, but I can imagine how frustrating it must have been for you to have much of your work compromised by what sounds like to me a really unsympathetic production team, and it says a lot for your professionalism and artistic integrity that you turned down a third series rather than allow that to happen again.

I was lucky enough to make it to the House of Magic four years ago and see your act ‘properly’ (ie not through the distorting filter of bad editing!) and I have to say it really blew me away. When I told you my favourite effect of yours was The Silhouette Routine, you mentioned then that you couldn’t bear to watch it as you were so frustrated that the music had been dubbed on out of time – did you manage to correct it for the DVD?

What’s been happening at the House of Magic since I experienced my evening there? And what are you doing creatively at the moment?