Professor Richard Wiseman interviewed one of the living legends of magic – Paul Harris. Once we’d got past a slightly surreal discussion about dogs, Paul talked about his creativity, and how he comes up with effects. Looking for interesting objects, an example being that Paul came up with literally masses of interesting things, ideas and parts of a simple water bottle, and how they might inspire him to come up with an effect using one of those features or ideas.

Paul talked about why he stopped performing as such, and looked more toward the creativity and ideas of magic. He talked about how how far magic had come in the last 20 years or more, and how he saw magic evolving with ideas and events such as EMC.

Paul talked about magic in the spotlight, on TV, and media, and that really there are only a few ‘names’ in the spotlight and thats difficult for people to deal with.

He talked about how much of the advice provided to us we should take on board, how important is the advice of creating characters and history of magic if i only say want to make an origami rabbit ? but what should we take on board and what should the majority of those wishing to perform magic do ?  His advise was to show magic and effects in a conversational manner, naturally, and informally.

The interview was enlightening, and very thought provoking. Definitely something that is on our list to rematch, and digest Pauls ideas and views.

What was Paul’s most astonishing moment of magic he’s seen? John Calvert performing in the Canary Islands, dealing with a ring effect that didnt quite work..

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We are once again proud to be an EMC media partner. You can read all our reporting (both the really short summaries and the speaker by speaker posts) in our Essential Magic Conference coverage