Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
‘I started doing magic at 5 and now I rub shoulders with the stars’
After coming top in The Magic Circle’s Close-up Magician of the Year 2024 competition, Kent conjurer and dad-of-two Chris Harding spoke to reporter Sam Lennon about his love for tricks, his heroes and mingling with celebrities ....
Children’s drawings of £20 notes turn into real banknotes, and the three of diamonds transforms into the jack of spades in front of your eyes.
These are the types of stunning tricks professional magician Chris Harding performs. Now, the 38-year-old dad from Ashford has reached the pinnacle of his career by winning the top prize in a competition held by the world’s most prestigious magic society. His talent has also led him to meet the likes of Katy Perry, Kate Bush, Cliff Richard - and even King Charles.
It’s all a long way from when he first caught the conjuring bug in 1990, receiving a Paul Daniels magic set for Christmas at the age of five. From then on he would practice the skill and put on little shows at family gatherings and later entertain his pals at school with tricks. Many people will recognise him today from performing at weddings across the county, as well as at corporate events and private parties.
“I think the best part of the job is seeing people’s reactions to your tricks, their surprise,” he said.
“I am doing a job I love so it doesn’t feel like work.
“As a magician, you must be able to entertain otherwise people will not be interested. “The top magicians like Tommy Cooper and Paul Daniels were entertainers and
magic was their form of it.” On February 5, Mr Harding came top in The Magic Circle’s Close-up Magician of the Year 2024 contest.
It was a star-studded ceremony in London attended by Strictly Come Dancing chief judge Shirley Ballas and Arsenal football legend Ian Wright.
Mr Harding’s award was presented by Magic Circle president Marvin Berglas. It had been 22 years since he last performed at The Magic Circle as a 16-year-old member of its Young Magicians Club. It was then, in 2002, that he was crowned Young Close-up Magic Champion.
That was his first year as a working conjurer.
Mr Harding was born at Ashford’s William Harvey Hospital on July 11, 1985.
He attended Spring Grove primary school in Wye, where he performed his first public magic show and which he is now a governor of.
His children, aged five and 11, now attend that school, as did his wife Charmaine, who now runs the Beau Boutique Salon based at the Evegate Business Park near Smeeth. For secondary education, he went to Kent College in Canterbury and he grew up in Ashford’s Godinton Park and then Willesborough. Mr Harding is a close-up magician, meaning he interacts directly with an audience member rather than standing alone on a stage.
His speciality is tricks with playing cards and coins with sleight of hand magic and also making people’s jewellery temporarily disappear.
Mr Harding asked me to pick a card from a pack, which was the six of clubs, and sign it. He then took it back, mixed it in the pack and pulled out a six of hearts. He placed that in a see-through sleeve and right before my eyes it had changed to the six of clubs with my signature.
Mr Harding now mainly works around London and the south east. Summer is particularly busy for him because of the large amounts of weddings including at Cooling Castle in Medway.
Mr Harding said the downside of his job is travelling,
sometimes far beyond London and the South East and having sometimes to be away for long periods from his family. He said: “Because of my job I work a lot of weekends. “Once I had to fly to and from Budapest for a one-and-a-half hour performance. But a lot of my work is in London and at least the high-speed train service makes it easier to get there and back from Ashford.” The old stereotype of the magician waving a wand, pulling a rabbit out of top hat and producing doves from nowhere is now gone. Mr Harding said: “These days
there are no tricks involving animals.
“It is seen as cruelty. That’s the way times have changed.” As a modern magician, Mr Harding requires few props and can carry all his equipment in a suitcase.
He usually wears a suit for engagements such as corporate events, rather than the traditional cloak.
The hazard of his profession is when tricks go wrong. Once he attempted the illusion of a bottle going down through the top of a table and coming out of the bottom, as if the table had a hole. Somebody bumped into him and the bottle broke.
He said: “You are not performing heart surgery so if a trick does go wrong you move on.
“But there are some embarrassing
moments when you take someone’s watch and forget to give it back.” Things can go wrong in any profession - although one of Mr Harding's heroes Tommy Cooper, who was also a comedian, let his tricks fail as part of his humour. Other household-name heroes of Mr Harding include David Nixon, a British TV conjurer with an audience of more than 10 million in the 1970s. He also admires Paul Daniels and the Americans Penn and Teller.
He said: “Without people like them magic would not be as it is now. From the time I was growing up, Paul Daniels was always on the telly and he was a good all-rounder.
“He did good close-up magic, illusions and comedy.”
He says the Harry Potter films
since 2001 have “made magic very popular”.
Mr Harding in his work has rubbed shoulders with celebrities such as Katy Perry and athlete Fatima Whitbread, sometimes performing at their functions.
Just before the pandemic, he met the King, then Prince Charles, when he performed for a staff party at St James’ Palace.
Mr Harding said: “I met him during the meet and greet. “I thought he was very pleasant, polite and professional. “It was a shock to the system when we learned he had cancer.”
The King’s diagnosis was announced on February 5 and he has received treatment since. Charles III is also an honorary life member of The Magic Circle.
Mr Harding described singer Cliff Richard as “charming and lovely” when he met him at Cooling Castle a few years ago.
The singer Kate Bush offered him a cup of tea when he performed at her private Christmas party in the early 2010s. He said:” She was very down to earth. You find that they are just people. I haven’t had a bad encounter with a celebrity so far.”
Mr Harding has advice for upand-coming magicians. “You need to be a good people person,” he said. “It's nothing if you just do it for yourself. “It’s all about other people and their reactions. “You’ve got to like people first and foremost. You also need lots of practice and study. You have to be dedicated to your craft and you find that you keep on learning. “However much experience you have you are always a student of magic.
“Young people starting out should find a local magic shop or club and join it and be around other magicians. “It’s like a community and people help each other out. “People that have been doing it for a long time love to give guidance to younger people that are getting into it and that's how the new generation will come along.”
The Magic Circle has 1,700 members globally and is designed to promote the art of magic.
‘I think the best part of the job is seeing people’s reactions to your tricks, their surprise...’