The flyer above is for the Magic Thamed!! show on Sunday 7th February. Sam Strange, James Bryan and myself will be performing the show at the beautiful and intimate Thame Players Theatre in Thame, Oxfordshire. There are two shows at 4pm and 7:45pm.

The show has been put together over the last 6 months and it has been a massive job. A large part of January will be spent rehearsing the show and we’re all really excited about the challenge it continues to present as we enter the final stages of rehearsal.
 
We have some very special things planned for the show, if we do manage to pull off all the ideas we have had, then it promises to be a very visual and entertaining evening. We hope you can make it along, tickets are available in advance from Tickets Anywhere on 01844 217 228 and booking your seats in advance is highly recommended.
 
So what else has been going on? December was a very busy month indeed; in fact it was my busiest month ever. It was obviously filled with Christmas Parties both corporate and private. An interesting thing this year was how many clients opted to add on my after dinner show to follow the table magic. The show has come a long way in the last 2 years, and the audience feedback afterwards was always very positive, many clients commented that it was a logical and highly entertaining way to end the evenings entertainment. It was also very good practice for me for the big show on February 7th.
 
January is always a very busy month for wedding enquiries as lots of people get engaged over Christmas. It also seems that lots of brides who I have met previously at wedding fairs get back in touch in January as they realise that now Christmas is over their own wedding is now just a few months away. I will be appearing at 5 wedding fairs this coming season, so please drop me an e-mail if you wish to come along and see a demonstration of the magic I can present for your guests on your big day.
 

Hi Blog readers!!!
 
Well, as we head into October the Christmas enquiries are beginning to come in and I must say I’m really looking forward to December. This year has been a record year for me, I’ve performed at over 50 weddings, which is really something incredible and the corporate work, although rarer than last year is still occasional and appreciated in the current economical climate.

So whats been going on….?
 
I’ve just had a Close-Up Magic showreel made, which you can view here;

My Stand-Up Show has been booked by a consortium of companies for an 11 day conference at Heathrow from the middle of October. I’m really excited about performing for such a long run and have enlisted the help of a true legend in magic to consult with me on the script and the show structure. Noel Britten is a Magician and a Stand-Up Comedian who is respected the world over. He’s been an enormous help with all aspects of the show and I can’t wait to see the audience response in a few weeks time to the new approach.
 
In my never ending bid to shamelessly market myself to the world, I’ve joined Twitter, if you’re on there, you can follow me @ oxfordmagician. If you’re a Facebook person, then I’m on there aswell, my profile page is; www.facebook.com/oxfordmagician feel free to add me.
 
It’s been a tough summer for a different reason and I end this Blog entry with a tribute to a very special person.
 
In loving memory of my Grandfather, Alan Tucker who embraced the internet in his late 70’s and regularly visited this website and read my Blog. He helped inspire me as a child to become a Magician with the few simple tricks he taught me.
    
May 25^th 1929  –  August 19^th 2009
        

Hi Blog Readers
 
I hope you like my brand new website, a lot of work has gone into it and I’m sure you will agree it’s a step in the right direction. I would like to thank my web designer Emma who has worked so hard over the last few weeks to make this site look exactly as I wanted it to. Thank you Emma.
 
So what’s been going on since my last update? Well the highlight was being invited to entertain Lewis Hamilton and the Mercedez-Benz Formula 1 engine supplier, a few days after Lewis won the Formula 1 World Championship in Brazil. It was an amazing night and although my performance for Lewis was brief I did manage to grab a photo with him (above). He vanished fairly early in the evening (nothing to do with me!) and I entertained the mechanics and office staff with my little stunts. It was a great night that I won’t forget anytime soon.
 
I’m also now the proud owner of a unique escape illusion that has been designed and built for me by Philip Hitchcock. The Spiker illusion had two full months of rehearsal before it was shown to an audience. I’ve had a few near misses with it admittedly and although it’s been brilliantly engineered, it really does contain a fair amount of risk and has added some real excitement to my show which is what Live entertainment should be all about. The Spiker debuted in my show at an event in Thame Oxfordshire, in December and received a great response. I learn something new each time I perform it and it scares me a lot, but so far it’s been worth the butterflies. A Newspaper ran an article on The Spiker illusion back in October, Click on the In The Spotlight Page and Media Coverage to read the online article.
 
December was a great month for me and my busiest month to date, looking forward to later this year, I can’t believe how many weddings I have booked in. I already have more weddings booked in for 2009 than the whole amount of weddings I did during 2008. It’s very interesting considering the media hype regarding the economic problems that (so far) it has not affected my business. Perhaps when times are bad, people want to enjoy themselves a bit more to forget all the problems. Just my guess, I don’t know for sure obviously?
 
I hope you enjoy browsing the new site, Let me know what you think of it. I will close with one of the many nice e-mails from over the Christmas period below.
 
Check back soon.

Rich


Hi Richard

Thank you very much for an amazing and fantastic evening on Friday. Everyone is still talking about you and how great the magic was (and trying to figure out how you did the tricks). I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending your services to others, my boss thanked me for organising your performance, so you really are a superstar!I will ensure that other brands within the Volkswagen Group are made aware of what you offer. If you ever need a recommendation, please do not hesitate to contact me. Best wishes and many thanks.

Bev Withers

Volkswagen Group, London

Greetings Blog Readers and apologies for being away for so long!

It has been quite an amazing summer, I have had an absolute blast meeting so many great people at so many fantastic events. Weddings have obviously been the most frequent type of event, however I have also enjoyed quite a few afternoon BBQ’s (sometimes in the rain) and of course lots of Graduation Balls throughout July which are my equal favourite event to perform at alongside weddings. There are far to many events to single any one out in particular, however the reactions to my material has definitely got louder over the last 3 months, I don’t fully understand why myself and care not to analyse it too closely from a deep fear of understanding it and maybe ruining it! Paranoid I guess you could say.
 
Also last week after a lengthy process I was confirmed as the newest member of The Magic Circle. It was something I dreamed of doing when I was a kid and to actually go through the process was quite an experience which culminated with the final piece of the puzzle in mid September when I auditioned before the panel with my material. Performing for magicians is quite a scary thing to do and not something I would want to repeat too frequently, however those in attendance were magicians from all over the south east and I received some great feedback on my presentation of the tricks that I did during the audition. The call came in on Friday last week to say I had been successful and was now a member of the most exclusive magic club in the world.
 
Some of you may also remember me mentioning in a previous blog that I was in talks with Philip Hitchcock to construct a unique illusion for my stand up show. I am delighted to say that after agreeing on a fee the apparatus is now in construction at Philips “Secret Workshop” and should be completed so that rehearsals can begin some time later this month.
 
To finish, I have just had a booking confirm this morning that will see me working alongside the legendary Mr Paul Daniels in March 2009. It is one I am really looking forward to already, he was a hero of mine when I was a kid and it will be an honour to work with him.
 
Thanks for reading this, please check back soon
 
Rich

Hi Blog readers
 
Well I had quite an eventful Friday evening which culminated in the picture you see there with Jeremy Clarkson. A few months ago I agreed to allow my magical services to be auctioned off to raise money for the Lido Swimming pool in Chipping Norton to raise much needed funds for the pool to continue to be enjoyed by the local community. I thought it would be fun and also I seem to have been embraced by the good folks of Chipping Norton over this last year with immense thanks to Ken Norman the towns marketing manager who has opened several doors for me, including this Charity event.
 
The auction was hosted by Jeremy Clarkson who lives in Chipping Norton and there were over 80 lots to get through. I bumped into Jeremy before the auction began and did some magic for him which he seemed to enjoy; he did mention he has a fondness for Close-Up Magic. I had been asked if I would present an effect on stage with Jeremy shortly before he auctioned my lot. I came up with a trick that involved Jeremy’s own published books, in which he was invited to select any single word on any page of his book and somehow I managed to reveal to him the word he had selected from over 100,000 words (not bad!)
 
He seemed impressed with the book trick, the audience of around 200 gave me a generous round of applause for the little stunt. I was simply relieved that it had worked. So much so, that I wasn’t really listening to my actual auction at the beginning, until I realised that Jeremy was bidding on my lot himself! Jeremy won my auction and has generously donated over £400 to the Lido Swimming Pool to win my services at an event of his choosing at some point in the near future. I was flabbergasted.
 
So hopefully the picture you see above now makes some kind of sense. Jeremy is holding his book that he chose the word from, the pad I am holding contains the word chosen and is how I revealed the word to him and the audience. Obviously the height difference is noticeable; however please bear in mind Jeremy Clarkson is nearly nine feet tall so he makes me look short being only 6.4.
 
Yeah right……
 
Rich
 
For more information on the Lido Swimming Pool Auction please visit;
 

http://www.chippylido-auction.co.uk/Home.asp   

Hi Blog Readers, well it’s been quite a while since my last blog entry however I thought now was the perfect opportunity to update you as I am featured on the front cover of the May/June “In Business” magazine which comes out today. A fantastic journalist by the name of Chris Hogan has written a rather flattering article all about my magic and the way I market myself and this fantastic website which you are currently surfing. I want to thank Chris for his hard work on the article and approaching me with the idea. I was delighted when Chris informed me that the Editor had decided to run with it as the cover story for the issue after reading the final draft.
 
So what else has been going on? I have been pretty busy actually, mainly with Weddings which I absolutely love performing at, one in particular in Oxford a few weeks ago which was one of those nights where everything just clicked and worked brilliantly, its nights like this, where I realise just how much I love what I do.
 
I have also been talking to one of the magic worlds best kept secrets, a guy called Philip Hitchcock who is a fantastic magician in his own right, who works on cruise ships. However Philip is also a superb builder of magic apparatus. We have been discussing a design for an illusion which we think is pretty cool. I am excited to see Philips first drawings of the proposed idea in the next few weeks. I will keep you posted; let’s hope it can lead to the building stage. Fingers crossed.
 
I have also enjoyed helping another magician friend of mine recently on his own act. He performs a mentalism act, which is the kind of material Derren Brown has made popular in recent years. It has been creatively satisfying for me, to be on the other side of the fence and almost directing a show as opposed to being the performer myself. We were both very pleased with the end result which was performed in front of a live audience of teachers and lecturers in Oxford last weekend.

Well, I have a busy few weeks coming up; I’m off to Heythrop Park in Oxford tomorrow night for the GCCG annual car convention to entertain in the Ball Room. I am looking forward to it; they have some spectacular things planned for the guests.
 
I promise the next update will be sooner rather than later Grandad.

Rich

Hello loyal Blog readers

 It is quite amazing how many people are reading this Blog regularly and checking back for updates. I must give a particular “shout out” to perhaps the coolest pensioner in the UK, my Grandad who is a loyal Blog reader here at the Richard Young Magic website. His enthusiasm for regular updates alone means that this Blog will continue to be updated as regularly as possible.Thanks Grandad.

 So what has been going on Magic wise? On March 12^th I performed for the 729 Club in Chipping Norton, it was a really fun morning with over 30 local businesses attending, my Magic seemed to go down well. So well in fact that the local town website decided to do a small write up on their website which you can read here;  http://www.chippingnortontown.info/

 I have done a few other gigs in and around the south east, the one I enjoyed the most being for a Private School in High Wycombe, As previously mentioned, teenagers really do love Close-Up Magicians and this was a really great night.

 I think the best thing that has happened in the past few weeks was meeting up with my Magic tutor and his wife who I had not seen for some time, Bob and Val Swadling. You will find on the biography page of this website the story of how lucky I was to be taught by Bob and how it came to be. Meeting up with him and his lovely wife for dinner last week, was really something special that reminded me all over again just how lucky I was to be taught by someone with such an incredible passion for excellence in Magic. I will forever be in debt to them both for everything they did for me.

 Anyway, that’s it for now. April is going to be busy. Wedding season begins. I can’t wait.

Rich

Hello People

 Well things are tricky at the minute as I am attempting to work with no internet connection; Talk Talk Broadband is certainly not endorsed by Richard Young Magic. Apologies to anyone who has been waiting for an e-mail response from me, I am now back up to date with everything in my inbox.

 It was Blackpool Magic Convention this past weekend, which just about every Magician in the world attended apart from yours truly. I was instead working in Reading for ING Direct. It was a rather lovely evening for all of the staff. They hired the Ivory Lounge near the Oracle, for the evening and really spoiled them. They were a great crowd and I really enjoyed myself, the music was very loud and I had pretty much lost my voice by the end of the night. It was well worth it though.

 I have received one of the nicest thank you letters I have ever had this week, from a great couple whose Wedding I performed at on Christmas Eve. I was booked by the Bride for the Groom as a surprise present as he loves magic and has dabbled with a few tricks in the past. It is attached below.

 See you soon

 Rich

Dear Richard

I would like to apologise for the lateness of this e-mail, but Trisha and I would like to thank you for attending our wedding reception on 24^th December 2007.  It was indeed a pleasure watching your excellent professional performance and chatting to you afterwards.  As I stated on the day, I always liked magic and dabbled very slightly and badly, but I have since watching your expert skill, I have bought another book and started practicing some very annoying tricks on my wife, friends and neighbours, much to their disappointment. 

They have your e-mail should they wish to blame someone haha. Once again, thank you very much indeed, you are indeed a professional, excellent magician and I would recommend you to anyone wanting a unique and entertaining  magic show.  Have a great weekend…..before you know it, it will be gone.  That’s magic!

 Mark and Trisha.

Hello again

 
I travelled to Cardiff last week for the Rotary Club Annual dinner. I was a last minute replacement for a Close-Up Magician friend of mine who couldn’t make it. It was a great evening and my magic was well received performing to 15 tables for a 100% male audience. I really enjoyed the guest speaker a Stand-Up Comedian called Jed Stone I have seen a lot of guest speakers doing this job, Jed was truly magnificent. I stayed in a hotel overnight in Cardiff and the next day I decided to be a tourist and have a look around the city. I did the tour of the millennium stadium. That place is amazing.

I was working at the Thistle Hotel in Bristol last night for the annual CIBSE dinner. It was a massive Gala event with 400 people having a four course meal. The theme for the evening was Magic, (surprisingly enough?). It was my third time to Bristol since the beginning of January. I was working with three other Close-Up Magicians and our task was to ensure every table (38 of them) had a Magician visit between 8pm and 10:15. That is no easy task when you are fighting with a small army of table waiters who have instructions to serve and clear as quickly as possible.

 It all went very well and not only did every table have a Magician but some of them even had a visit from two Magicians during our allotted time period. (Now that’s value for money!).

I am still working on those new tricks! They are doing my head in, particularly a coin trick which my friends and relatives have had to endure over and over again as I try to iron out those last little flaws. I am pleased with it though.

 See you soon.
 Rich 

Why Hello

Look at me updating my Blog within a few weeks of my original post as I said I would. I have been practicing hard on a few new tricks recently and blimey it’s stressful. I am a bit of a perfectionist to say the least and my tricks really do have to stand test conditions because of the various situations I will have to perform them in. A good trick to me is one that can be used at any event and fit in well, from a Wedding to a Trade Show or a Student Graduation Ball.

Speaking of Student Graduation’s, I am already booked for three Graduation Balls this summer. I am really looking forward to them as Students tend to love Close-Up Magician’s and are very vocal with their appreciation of what you do, they are always a great crowd.

I have just got back from doing a Sunday Lunch in Bray, Berkshire. I wasn’t cooking it obviously rather performing in between the courses. They really were a nice group of people and I was once again able to perform my Stand-Up Show over the Coffee. It went over well and I was pleased with the reaction and feedback afterwards.

I have been booked as a guest speaker for the 729 club in Chipping Norton in March. The 729 club is a business networking club and the group meet once a month. I am really looking forward to it, as its something different I can get my teeth in to. It’s a 7am start though? Good grief, that’s the middle of the night in my world. You can have a look at the club and my mug on the line-up by clicking here; http://www.729club.co.uk/   That’s it for now. Check back soon.
 
Rich