Magic show is more than just smoke and mirrors

MAGICIAN James Phelan may perform in thousand-seater venues in a show that has sold out around the world, but he loves coming back to more intimate venues such as the Kenton Theatre.

James, whose latest show, “The Man Who Was Magic”, is at the theatre in a few weeks’ time, says: “It’s going really well. The last show I did for a long time so it was just a nice comfy pair of slippers really.

“Then, just before Edinburgh [Fringe], at the beginning of the year, we started to build the new show. So we’ve had three months of the fun and stress of creating something new and then now I’m just really enjoying it to be honest, it’s lovely.”

The nephew of Debbie McGee and the late magician Paul Daniels, James’s earlier show, “The Greatest Magician”, gave a credit to Daniels as a director.

This was followed by the show “The Dreamer”.

“There’s a couple of nice bits from the old show in there,” says James, “but largely it’s completely brand-new stuff.

“It’s just a night of escapism, it’s a really lovely warm, funny show but it’s there to blow your socks off in that way. It’s purposely intimate and you want it to feel like nothing outside the four walls matters.

“You kind of play with people’s heads but also not too much, it’s all about creating an uplifting, heartwarming feeling.

“I like to leave people with something they can take away in a whole host of ways, both in terms of sentimentality but also, if I put someone’s ring in a glass and then they can take the glass home, then it breaks that wall of this mystique, it makes it more real and more sort of permanent.”

James, 33, who lives in Cobham, Surrey, is an Associate of the Inner Magic Circle. His friends and influences include David Copperfield, Derren Brown, Penn and Teller and Criss Angel, among others.

“We did these shows at the Magic Circle last year and we ended up selling out two weeks’ worth and I think I’m the only person that has ever done it.

“It was amazing really, it’s a little theatre and like a club room in Euston.

“Magicians typically are all a bit weird though!”

He likes to take in other magic shows on his travels although, he says, “I quite like my own bed. There’s no other magician really that’s doing the same sort of rooms we’re doing. We are doing the Kenton because I love it and it’s just such a lovely intimate and great space.

“Then we do the Adelphi in the West End and the Stockport Plaza which are 1,500 seats and so there’s no peers that I can look at, to see what it feels like from an audience’s perspective.

“So we’ll go to New York or Vegas and watch some people in similar-sized rooms to that, just to kind of see what it feels like to be the other side of the curtain.

“I prefer the more intimate spaces actually, I think you can make a better connection with the audience.

“I started doing the Kenton in Henley just after covid and it’s always done really well. It’s quite nice, I just really like the venue and the people.

“The show I try and make feel the same no matter where you are.

“I do a handful of venues that were good to me when I was first starting that I keep doing just because they’re just nice to do, I like the people and it’s nice to see familiar faces.

“The other one that I’m doing is Norden Farm in Maidenhead and it’s the same sort of thing. They were the first theatre that really gave me a space when I first started and so it’s lovely.”

James also gets support from his aunt, Debbie McGee. “She stays at our house every now and then, she comes and looks after the dog, things like that.

“She’s all good. Her house, from when it flooded a year or two ago, I think she’s back to normal now. I think her plan is to tour a show next year and do other bits and pieces.”

James once celebrated his birthday while doing a show at the Adelphi. “I said as a joke that I was 22 and loads of people printed it, which is really funny,” he says.

“Magic is one of those things that, versus comedy, it works if you’re looking in the mirror. That’s kind of the skillset with doing the show, taking it from something that’s inherently inward-looking to something that’s outward-looking.

“Whereas with comedy, for it to work you need the audience and I think that’s the fundamental difference. Most comics, if they’re good they’re working, whereas magic works in isolation.”

l James Phelan, “The Man Who Was Magic”, is at the Kenton Theatre on Thursday, January 22 at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £28. For more information, call the box office on (01491) 525050 or visit thekenton.org.uk