4 More Things Magicians Can Learn From Comedians
Continuing on from last week’s post, here are some more ideas from comedy that we can use in our magic.
1. Be Original
Comedians often talk about working towards their hour, building up a repertoire of jokes ranging from short, medium and long ones generally.
They will typically tour with this hour and before filming or recording it for distribution, and then begin working on their next hour of new material, effectively closing the chapter on that hour. While not all comedians have the privilege of doing this, it’s something magicians can borrow from to an extent.
Most magicians will come up with a show and do that for the rest of their lives, and if that makes them happy and there’s an audience that will pay for it, that’s good for them. But I think magicians should take a page from comedians and try out new material, whether it’s putting a new effect in or reworking an existing routine with the aim of improving it. I don’t expect magicians to create new shows each time they are happy with the show they have, it’s just not feasible in our line of work where things are so limited, and our creativity is often dependent on purchasing tricks from other magicians.
Derren Brown is a magician who takes this approach, every few years he comes up with a new show which he performs for years at a time, before moving onto the next one, and now has over 10 shows under his belt! That’s a lot of original material! For the average magician like me who mainly performs close up and the occasional stage show, I’m far away from having my satisfactory hour, but I can develop close up sets so that they’re as unique as possible.
We buy so much magic each year, it’s time to learn it and use it, and make it original to yourself, not everyone has the same grandfather that taught you magic as a young’un.
2. Be Funny
A comedian is funny, if they weren’t they’d be out of a job and probably more suited to being a preacher.
Magicians on the other hand, generally aren’t funny and rely on stock lines and gags to get by. These stock lines might be the first time an audience has heard it, but to other magicians we know all too well that both hands are clean or “that would’ve been good” was better than what ended up happening.
I’m not particularly funny myself, my humour is dry and sarcastic and works better in response to people, especially if I’m making fun of them, which doesn’t work for everyone.
The best way I find to try and be funny is to write jokes in my effects, and seeing how audiences take it. If they laugh, great, if not, then I move on and change it next time hoping to be actually funny, or better yet, if the audience has a funny line, I’ll find ways to incorporate it next time. Practically speaking, look for moments in your routine where nothing is happening or there’s a lull and see if you can insert a joke, for example:
When a card is being signed
As the cards are shuffled
When something is being examined
While a drawing is being made
If you don’t want to be funny and want to take a more serious approach to things, that’s fine too. There’s other ways to incorporate things a comedian does in your act, such as the callback.
3. Calling for Callbacks
One of my favourite elements in a comedians act is the callback, it can be subtle or overt but it’s a great way to tie things together which previously did not have any connection.
A callback refers to a previous joke, and in a way is like an inside joke for those who watch the whole act/show. In a world of shorts, reels and snippets, a callback is like a reward for the person who pays to watch a comedians show or devotes time to watch a whole set on YouTube.
Magicians can do this as well, Mac King does it with his Fig Newtons, and Derek DelGaudio has his elephant illustration in his In and Of Itself show which is due for a rewatch.
This can work in a close up setting also, where most jokes are born on the fly. In one case I performed for a group of girls and as I asked for the third girls name, noticed it was different and commented on their name, the first two girls joked “what was wrong with our names!?”, so as I asked every subsequent girl their name, I made a different comment about their name, creating a running gag in between each effect.
Look for ways to call back to earlier moments in your show. This can be overt like a confabulation type routine where you’ve predicted all the major moments of the show or subtle with a running joke that keeping coming up throughout the show.
4. Tag, You’re It!
In comedy, a tag is a joke or line that you add to the end of a joke, with the hopes of getting an extra laugh on top of the punchline.
In the world of magic, this would be somewhat equivalent to a kicker, which is an extra surprise phase when the audience things the effect is over. The different is that sometimes the kicker is stronger than the whole effect, whereas a tag isn’t as funny as the punchline and an extra bonus.
The risk with a tag is that it can be seen as milking a joke to the point that it’s no longer funny, much like when you’re up to the 27th phase of your Ambitious Card Routine. Look at your routines and see if there are ways to add extra moments of magic after the climax.
In my close up, I have two minor effects that I consider flexible tags, in that they are not entirely dependent on the previous trick. Pyro Wallet is a way for me to visually produce a business card after my set is finished and if I end with a card trick, I have another tag where the card is used to find a card and direct them to my Instagram page where I predicted the card they found.
Okay, maybe they’re not actually tags because they should relate somewhat to the effect you just did, which makes them tougher to implement, so if you have an example that isn’t a kicker or extra phase to the ambitious card, please share it with others here.
Tags aren’t necessary to have in your magic, but it’s nice to find ways to extend the moments of astonishment in your shows or sets.
Here’s a great set incorporates tags well so please enjoy He Huang.
Your Turn
Who are some of your favourite comedians and how do they shape your sense of humour?
There are probably more ways we can learn from comedians that I haven’t listed before so if you have one, please let me know in the comments.