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BRITAIN’S GOT TALENT’S BEN HART, 29, TELLS MARION McMULLEN ABOUT THE ART OF MAGIC AND TEACHING GANDALF NEW TRICKS
You’re known as a magician, but you also invent tricks and illusions for TV, film and theatre. What challenges have come your way?
I WORK on so many different projects at the same time and as a special effects designer I’m always helping to solve problems.
(Laughs) If you want a murder on stage, I’m your man. Beheadings are very popular, levitating and vomiting. I must have done vomiting on stage about 11 times.
I did the magic for the West End production Magic Goes Wrong and doing the spinning head for the stage production of The Exorcist was a lot of fun.
It’s one of the most famous scenes in movie history and the challenge was how to put that on stage and actually be able to do it for eight shows a week.
That’s my day job and then I am performing in the evening. I am always thinking about magic.
What was it like teaching Lord Of The Rings wizard Gandalf some magic? (LAUGHS) I taught Sir Ian McKellen some Victorian sleight of hand magic. It was loosely based on a real magician at the beginning of the last century.
I have met all manner of fascinating people through magic over the years like John Boyega from Star Wars, Paul Merton and Lee Mack.
You won Young Magician Of The Year when you were just 16. When did you first become interested in magic?
I CAN’T ever remember a time of not wanting to do magic. It has been with me my whole life and I never considered doing any other job.
I hated my teachers at school. They were often trying to help, but they couldn’t really help me when I said I wanted to be a magician.
One teacher advised me not to go to drama school though and that was a good decision. It’s fair to say you work more as a magician than an actor.
I started working in nightclubs for tips and I used to busk. Now I’m embarking on my debut solo tour, Wonder.
What can audiences expect? BEFORE I did Britain’s Got Talent, I was mainly doing private work at arts festivals.
BGT is an amazing thing and has given me the opportunity to act directly to the public.
I’ll be doing some material I have been working on all my life and some new tricks.
The challenge is to connect with the audiences. It’s easy to tour throwing lots of things into a show, but it’s hard to strip it back, to edit it and then put the best bits on stage.
Magicians often want to shock and use words like dramatic.
I am aiming to bring audiences a sense of wonder.
Is magic an international language?
I’VE worked all over the world – Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe.
The number of countries I’ve not been to yet is very small.
Fundamentally, a magic act will appeal all over and to every culture, but sometimes I have to cut back the talking and let the magic speak for itself.
I’ve also done magic on the radio and that allows people to use their imagination.
Everyone experiences something different and the feedback from the radio broadcasts is always good.
How do you unwind?
I HAVE been very busy recently and I sort of get used to it.
When I do find myself with a bit of time off, I normally find myself trying to solve the next problem.
(Chuckles) I’ve not had a chance to relax for quite a few years.
Maybe I should take a couple of months off and try not to think about magic, but it is what I’m interested in.
I’m writing an academic book about magic for magicians and one of my hobbies is Victorian magical apparatus like curiosity cabinets.
It’s not something I would use for my own stage show, but it’s one of my interests.
Things go wrong all the time when you’re performing live. Nothing in life is perfect. There is an element of danger when a juggler juggles.
Anything can happen. And that same element of danger exists when you perform magic.
What makes a good magician? (LAUGHS) In truth I don’t like magicians, generally speaking.
Magic is an art form and most artists are just satisfied doing something that works. I like to be an innovator and break the rules.
You need to understand psychology, comic timing, storytelling, engineering...
After all these years, I normally know how a trick is done, but that does not detract from it. I can still enjoy the experience itself.
■ Ben Hart’s new show, Wonder, tours until the end of April. Go to benhartmagic.com for venue and ticket details.