Show Notes
Often, it feels like you have total control when performing magic. But what if everything depended on a split second? That’s where Steve Faulkner begins his desert island journey. He’s a British Close-Up Magic Champion, a working performer and the face behind Real Magic Reviews, which means he sees more new magic tricks than most of us could learn in a lifetime, then has to decide what’s actually worth doing for real people. We put Steve on the desert island and build his essential set from t...
More from Desert Island Tricks
A beginner magician walks into a magic shop and gets overwhelmed fast. Now imagine he works there. Emilio joins us from the Alakazam team to build his Desert Island list: eight tricks he’d keep forever, one thing he’d banish from magic culture, plus the “book” and everyday item he’d take to keep performing anywhere. We talk through why practical close-up magic staples still dominate in the real world. Emilio breaks down why Triumph remains a perfect crowd-pleaser, why a strong sandwich routin...
A lot of people think magic is something you either start as a kid or you miss your shot. Doug Gorman blows that idea up. He started at 45 after a Las Vegas moment hooked him for good, spent years performing classic close-up, then made a sharp turn into storytelling magic and bizarre magic that feels like real theatre, not just “watch me do a move.” We talk through the turning points that shaped his style, including the influence of Ed Solomon and the late Eugene Burger and why Doug believes ...
A Covent Garden magic stall in winter, a boat that hosts magic sessions and a career that somehow threads through it all to The Magic Circle. We sit down with Lee Hathaway and get the kind of candid, craft-obsessed conversation that only happens between people who have lived magic for decades. Along the way, Lee talks about the uncomfortable truth most working performers feel: you can “unlearn” technique when life gets busy and getting it back is less about time and more about calm, repetitiv...
A coin vanishes three times, ends up trapped inside a phone and then bends after the spectator has been holding it. That’s how Stephen Maule chooses to open his desert island set and it instantly tells you what kind of thinker he is: practical, modular and obsessed with reactions that spread from one friend group to the next. We start with Stephen’s backstory, including the influence of classic TV magic and the way big moments like the Blackpool Magic Convention can pull people back into the ...
Magic gets stale when we keep reaching for the same props, the same references and the same “safe” structures. So we invited Oliver Meach back for a Desert Island Tricks SOS and he did something no one else has done yet: he replaced every trick on his original list with a completely new set, chosen to showcase how he thinks about modern card magic, close-up mentalism, and audience-first interaction. We talk through effects built on bold starting conditions like performing with your back turn...