Below is my recent appearance on the ITV1 television show Penn & Teller; Fool Us hosted by Jonathan Ross with my partner Strange.

Here is our appearance on ITV1’s This Morning from a few days before;

It’s probably worth mentioning that this TV stuff (although cool!) does not affect my prices for private events which have not increased since 2009.

Those of you who have followed my stage shows are aware that I work in a double act with another magician called Sam Strange. Our act is called Young & Strange (www.youngandstrange.co.uk) and we have had so much fun performing together over the last year or so.

On Saturday 25^th June 2011 at 8pm Sam and I will make our national television debut as contestants on the brand new ITV1 series Penn & Teller; Fool Us, hosted by Jonathan Ross.

The format of the show will see Sam and I presenting our best trick to Penn & Teller; arguably the two most knowledgeable magicians on the planet. If Sam and I manage to fool the American duo we will win an all expenses paid trip to Las Vegas to open Penn & Teller’s show at The Rio Hotel & Casino on the world famous strip.

This is almost certainly the biggest opportunity of my career. I hope you enjoy watching Penn & Teller; Fool Us on ITV1 on Saturday 25^th June 2011 at 8pm.

The day before our 2011 stage show debuted in Oxfordshire, Sam and I appeared on BBC Oxford Evening News to talk about what we had in store for the audience;

Coming up in a few weeks time is our return to The Thame Players Theatre for a brand new evening of magic, comedy and illusions entitled Magic Thamed Returns!!

Last year the shows sold out, so to ensure as many people as possible get a chance to come along this year, we are running four shows over two days (the 5th and 6th February).
 
This year’s show is incredibly ambitious and features some brand new ideas which we have been playing around with for years. It’s also a much bigger show, featuring some truly spectacular large scale illusions that will (hopefully) look pretty cool. Oh did I also mention a never ending supply of lame jokes from Mr Sam Strange?
 
We began planning the show in March 2010 and the final draft of the script was approved in December 2010. Rehearsals are running throughout January, right up until the night before the opening show. To say we have a lot to do before the 5^th February is a bit of an understatement. Fingers crossed it will be alright!
 
As last years shows sold out, booking in advance is highly recommended. We are pleased to announce that the ticket price remains just £9 (bargain). The shows are at 4pm & 7:45pm and tickets are available through the box office on; 01844 217 228
 

Hope to see you there!

It’s nearly Christmas! Can you believe it? The enquiries for December are already beginning to trickle in, so if you are planning on having something different as the entertainment at your Christmas celebration this December drop me an e-mail through the contact page now.

A lot of the enquiries I receive for December are for me to perform magic around the tables during the dinner, however I am receiving more and more interest in my after dinner show which runs for 25 minutes and is a great ending to a night.

For bigger crowds we are able to offer a full scale magic and comedy show. Below is a recent clip from our sell out show at The Chipping Norton Theatre. I hope you enjoy it;

Our big shows at The Thame Players Theatre in Oxfordshire a few weeks ago were an amazing experience. Not just performing the shows themselves, but everything else that went into them. Myself, Sam & James (the two other magicians on the bill) all agreed that having to entertain a packed theatre for close to two hours twice in one day was the most pressure we had ever felt. Two days before the shows, the box office informed us that both performances had sold out. During the final 48 hours leading into the shows we were all inundated with phone calls from people asking if there was anyway we could get them in. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t an amazing feeling!

 
The creative process was fantastic, our emphasis for the show being that we wanted the audience to find the show equally as funny as they did amazing. Magic isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, however we believed that even the folks in the audience who didn’t care particularly for magic tricks, would find their attention being held by what ridiculous thing was going to happen next. Hopefully the photos around this blog will paint the “ridiculous” picture we were hoping for.

 
We also felt it would be nice to have all three magicians interacting throughout the show as opposed to a “one on – one off” set list. This decision was definitely the right one as the interaction between the three of us, was one of the aspects of the show universally agreed to keep the flow and unpredictability of it rolling along. All three magicians opened the show, and all three magicians closed it together. The idea was that this way, no one would come across as a “headline act”. We just wanted it to appear that it was three friends having fun together. We hope that’s what came across anyway!



So where do we go from here? I’m pleased to announce that a new show is currently in pre-production. The emphasis for the next show being to keep the really good bits that worked well at The Thame Players Theatre and replace some of the other segments with new magic and comedy. As soon as a date and venue is booked they will appear here on the blog. So please pop back soon.
 
Rich

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 @ RichardMagician. 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