Funny magicians...or magic in comedy

I was wondering what everyone's thoughts where on funny magicians. There seems to be a line between stand-up and magic that some would want to draw in permanent marker, and maybe even get it tattooed....

There have been people who blur it though. For example, Penn and Teller and David Williamson, though inherently a magic performance is funny. Tommy Cooper of course blurs it again, same as Steve Martin. Both technically comedians doing magic and performing albeit fairly simple tricks deftly.

There is a underlying flaw with some amature magicians, they spend so long on their own perfecting a move, or routine, they forget to pay attention to performance. After watching Penn and Teller Fool us I was happy to find "Piff the Magic Dragon". An act that I think stands up as comedy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk5xfK0ovrk

That Piff guy was someone who managed to incorporate both a good stage presence, good material and decent magic. But most of the time I find that a lot of magicians are either very cheesy, lame or try too hard with the gags. It often feels very Saturday Night tea-time viewing humour, which is fine but it's not for me. You also have the darker, edgy performers. But just because they swear, have attitude or do rude/disgusting things doesn't make them any better.

I used to like magic, I still do in some ways. But magicians like to show you things they've spent hours in their bedroom practicing. Now if I were to do the same, I would get arrested.

I think it's cheesy old fashioned entertainment, no matter how much you dress it up with a bit of street-stylee. It's still a geeky thing to do.

Wayne Dobson is a wonderful magician and performed both close-up magic and big illusions on two series of It's a Kinda Magic in the late 80s early 90s. Magic and comedy have always gone together probably part of the distraction required for tricks to work. Robert Orben who wrote for many acts put together a series of joke books, maybe 40 or 50 0f them, in which he collected material and wrote some original gags and the first few of those were Magic based.
Close-up magic prepares audiences for gags because your reaction to seeing a trick performed before your eyes is to laugh.

Pete Firman is very much in the comedy magic camp, and very good.
Barry and Stuart are magicians but their shows incorporate a lot of comedy. They're bloody brilliant.

Piff was fantastic. I'd love to see more of his performances.

I like magic.

I liked Piff. My favourite bit was the firey sneeze.

£75.

And worth every penny.

Piff was brilliant... and also very small.

Can't be doing with it.

As Leevil says, they just go to magic fairs and buy the latest trick, spend hours practicing and then expect us to believe it's 'magic'.

Tommy Cooper on the other hand actually managed to make an arcane thing into entertainment.

Pah to the rest !

I quite liked Paul Zenon when he was on.

I find that the magicians doing big stage illusions tend to rely too much on the box and cheesy posturing, than engaging with the audience. They seem to be more out of date when it comes to performance. Also, due to the intense amount of time alone spent working on techniques, magicians often seem a bit socially inept.

Maybe the new surge of interest in magic on TV will inspire old hat magicians to update their acts, and the up and coming to work on performance.

Saw a YouTube clip of a lady stripping right off and still producing silk hankies.. she was quite funny...but generally magic and comedy sit badly together I think, with the exceptions of Pen and Teller and Tommy Cooper.

Jerry Sadowitz? He's the only one I've seen who does magic and comedy and you can't deny his slight of hand tricks are fantastic.

Quote: Monster Scum Bag @ July 19 2011, 3:15 PM BST

Jerry Sadowitz? He's the only one iv'e seen who does magic and comedy and you can't deny his slight of hand tricks are fantastic.

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Good point, I forgot about Mr Sadowitz.