Review of Performing Magic

A REVIEW OF

PERFORMING MAGIC: a handbook on performance for magicians 

By: Tony Middleton B.A.Hons, M.F.A.

Published by Zebra Magic, 2011
Hard back, Dust Jacket, 282 pages, 7 inches x 9 inches, mix of black & white and colour photos
For ordering go to  www.zebra-magic.info £69-97 + shipping   

Performing Magic has had staggering previews (from the likes of David Berglas, Jeff McBride and Paul Daniels) but is rather lacking in reviews.  Maybe the publishers, at £69-97 a shot (plus shipping; or £99-97 plus shipping, if you would like a signed copy – that’s £30 for Tony Middleton’s autograph!), have been reluctant to submit it to editorial scrutiny: indeed it’s hard to see how any reviews could better what these distinguished endorsers have written and, as such, I can’t blame all those concerned with the project resting on the laurels already received.  However surely a book that purports to be, as was stated in one marketing email I got, “what people are calling ‘the greatest magic book ever written’...” is deserving of a considered review?  So here we go.

As this is going to be rather long, perhaps I ought to start off by giving my credentials for writing such a review.  I’ve been a professional magician for some twenty years: during that period I have worked in all aspects of magic from close-up, cabaret and the stage.  My speciality, if I have one, is stand-up comedy magic: and I wrote a book on the subject.  At present I’m concentrating on performing my one man show, Funny Tricks, which I tour around art centres and village halls.  I am therefore pretty familiar, from a practical and theoretical stance, with most aspects of ‘performing magic’.

Tony Middleton’s own principal performing (as opposed to directing) experience seems to be somewhat narrower.  His speciality is close-up magic.  The tools which he writes about he says he has used to “create theatre based magic shows and develop my own performance as a close-up magician.”  However his close-up is even more restricted than one might expect.  He concentrates on (to quote his own website) “Walk-around close up magic and table magic”.  So not even formal, or parlour, close-up magic.  The reason I mention this is because it does raise the question as to whether the typical corporate, or private party, walkabout environment is the best place to apply theatrical-type techniques to improve your magic.

When it comes to directing, it’s hard to know exactly what Tony has done: although many venues are mentioned in his author’s biog where he has been a “director, assistant director and magic consultant”, none of the actual shows are listed (apart from live footage for the Britain’s Got Talent Stage Magician kit, which I tend, perhaps unfairly, to discount).  The only named shows we know he definitely directed are Chris Dugdale’s two live shows.  I saw one of these – An Evening of Magic & Mindreading - at Riverside Studios.  This is not a review of Chris’ show so I won’t make any comment beyond saying that I would perhaps like to see another couple of Tony’s directed shows before being entirely convinced of his merits in this field.

Ah well – just because you aren’t doing it, doesn’t mean that you can’t teach it.  And theoretical books on magic performing are, as Tony Middleton stresses in his Introduction hard to find.  Indeed he mentions eight: Our Magic by Maskelyne and Devant; Showmanship for Magicians by Dariel Fitzkee, Magic and Showmanship by Henning Nelms, The Five Points in Magic and The Magic Way by Juan Tamariz, Strong Magic by Darwin Ortiz, Magic & Meaning by Burger and Neale and Maximum Entertainment by Ken Weber.

The way this is written (“just a handful of magicians have considered the performance of magic important enough to write something about it.  I believe the movement starts with Our Magic...”) suggests that the author considers the above an exhaustive list when it comes to magic theory: rather than just the ones he believes are worth reading. 

There is another clue to the author’s depth of study provided by the bibliography at the back of the book.  As there is no comment on this list, one assumes that these were the books he read himself whilst researching his own oeuvre.  For some reason, doubtless only known to the  proof reader, Fitzkee’s book and  also Tamariz’s Magic Way are missing from this bibliography: this is especially unfortunate as Fitzkee is quoted on pages 122 and 159, with footnotes ‘Fitzkee p 176’ etc.  Anybody seeking the reference to Fitzkee in the bibliography will seek in vain. 

Standing in for these two missing magic books, are MaCabe (sic, it is of course McCabe), P, Scripting Magic and Houdin, R The Secrets of Conjuring, which should read Robert-Houdin, J-E The Secrets of Conjuring & Magic.  (Robert-Houdin is a double barrelled surname; his first name was Jean-Eugène.  Pedantic?  I don’t think so, when the author is at pains to fully quote, and analyse, from Robert-Houdin’s book his famous phrase “a magician is an actor...”)

The remaining books in the twenty five strong bibliography are those aimed at actors (and one on professional and personal goal setting), apart from four books written by C Dugdale and P Jay: more on these two worthy gentlemen later.

So is Tony Middleton’s list of magical theoretical books comprehensive? I would say probably not.  Notable by their absence are Sam Sharpe’s numerous books (in particular Neo Magic) John Carney’s The Book of Secrets and Magic by Design, Geoffrey Durham’s Professional Secrets, Foundations: The Art of Stage Magic by Eberhard Riese and The Books of Wonder by Tommy Wonder.  Furthermore, Fitzkee also wrote The Trick Brain and Magic by Misdirection and Darwin Ortiz has also written Designing Miracles, all further theoretical books.  I hesitate to include my own book – but, heck, why not?  Add in Stand-Up: A Professional Guide to Comedy Magic by Ian Keable.

So, to summarise the author’s credentials to date, we appear to have someone inexperienced in performing in many fields of magic, rather limited in his directorial roles and whose reading generally on the subject of magic theory is not huge.  It is not an auspicious start.

Still, to be fair, Tony Middleton’s selling point is that he’s an “industry trained theatre director and magician” and that because of his inside knowledge into the theatre world “there are many dramatic principles, methods and techniques common in the theatre industry which are practically unknown in the world of magic.  Let us apply these theatrical techniques to magic and your magic will dramatically improve.”

Now I love books on theory – I have devoured all the above books (apart from those written by the aforementioned C Dugdale and P Jay, which passed me by), normally in one or two sittings: and have returned to many of them again and again.  They are usually thought provoking, inspirational and, just by taking a single point on board, can dramatically improve one aspect of your magic.  But this book I really struggled with.

The reason for this is partly to do with what some might feel was my rather over-the-top analysis of previous books on magic theory that Tony Middleton references.  My gut feeling, from this list, is that he isn’t that well versed in book reading; or, if I libel him here, in his own reading he hasn’t absorbed how the majority of books are actually written to make them easy for the reader to comprehend.  Because, with Performing Magic, I have rarely come across a book so poorly edited, structured and laid out - rendering it at times virtually unreadable. 

This is particularly curious because the author is quite a good writer: he knows how to string a sentence together, but unfortunately not how to put a book together.  I’ve got no idea whether this is entirely his fault; but as nobody is thanked for editing or proof reading or indeed any assistance in actually writing the book (normally done in the Acknowledgements section – but this book has none), the author must accept the blame.

To illustrate this, I will take you through the first few sections of the book.  After some effusive quotes and the author’s biog, referred to above, the book begins proper with two Forewords by Paul Daniels and David Berglas: this is not a good start – most books just have the one, and two looks decidedly odd. 

We then have a Preface – which isn’t really a Preface at all.  It’s making a point about the difference between ‘magic’, ‘effect’ and ‘trick’, although the sub-heading is ‘Magic and tricks’, so I’m not sure how ‘effect’ slipped in.  It’s a reasonable point to make but the Preface is not where you would make it: a Preface generally covers the story of how a book came into being, or how the idea for a book was developed.

The next section is titled This Book: which says what he wants the reader to get from the book (“I want it to be a tool kit that magicians can revisit again and again”) – in other words, more of a Preface really.

Next comes an Introduction, explaining in more detail what the book is about: this is fine and is where the information in the Preface should also have been included.  The Introduction ends with the rallying cry: “Are you ready to begin work?”  I sure am.

However the author apparently is not.  Because we now have three more sections, which should again be part of the Introduction, with no particular linked theme.  First up is ‘Close-up magic and stage magic’ (at this point I’m going to have to use inverted commas when referencing chapters, sections or sub-headings, because only the first word in these are in upper case), in which the author explains the difference between the two. 

He writes: “I know that performing close-up magic and stage magic is vastly different” – something perhaps he should have borne in mind later on in the book when the vast majority of his examples of applying his techniques are limited to close-up magic.  The most egregious instance of this being when he writes, in references to hecklers: “I wouldn’t suggest that you meet them with clever retorts” (precisely what you would do, at least in the first instance, in cabaret or on stage); instead he suggests that you involve them with your magic (the last thing you should do in cabaret or on stage).

Then comes ‘Technical competence’: its importance is rightly stressed, although it seems a little tough to suggest you shouldn’t be reading this book if you can’t perform a number of core sleights and moves.  In case you are deficient in such matters, the author advises: “you can’t beat the Tarbell books, Greater Magic, Bobo’s book on coin magic, The 13 Steps to Mentalism and The Royal Road to Card Magic”.  I have used his italics: so, as you can see, we have a mix of books italicised and not italicised, authors’ names without the book titles and book titles without the authors’ names.  None of these books are given their full title and author and none of them are mentioned in the bibliography.  So if someone wasn’t up to speed on “core sleights and moves”, they might have a problem tracking down their source. 

The final section is ‘Theatrical Language’, which stresses its three elements: attention, awareness and dynamic.  Exploring these factors “will lead to the discovery of a tangible theatrical language.  I want to put this in your mind now, but don’t worry if you don’t get it at this stage...we will investigate fully in Part 3.”  Well I certainly didn’t get it then (and didn’t really get it after I had read Part 3).  What’s the point of introducing something so early on if you aren’t going to expand on it until some 160 pages later?

Already, as a reader, you are just not quite sure where you are; as the author correctly stresses in his book, when watching a performer you want to feel comfortable in his hands, knowing that you are dealing with someone who knows what they are doing – not a complete novice.  When it comes to writing books, in this case I really feel I’m in the hands of a complete novice.

So does the reading experience and general layout get any better once we reach the meat of the book?  Sadly not.  It is broken up into three Parts (I will use a capital P for Part), Foundation, Structure & Detail and Performance.  But within each Part there are no chapter numbers – although there are breaks as set out in the Contents page that suggest separate chapters are intended.  Using this criterion, Foundation has five ‘chapters’ of which the first, ‘A Basis to build upon’ is one page, the second ‘Be specific’ three pages and the remaining three, ‘Circumstance’, ‘Character’ and ‘Objective’ respectively fifteen, eleven and nine pages long. 

Once again this is highly disorientating to those of us used to reading teaching-type book where chapters tend to be of approximate equal length.

The majority of ‘chapters’ have section headings and sub-headings.  In the Contents page, the sub-heading is italicised; but in the ‘chapter’ itself, it is the section heading which is in italics.  A minor point perhaps, but when there are also no indentations to differentiate between section headings and sub-headings, it’s hard to know where you are in any particular chapter.  Indeed at times the author doesn’t appear to know himself. 

In the chapter ‘Continuing work’ we have an opening couple of paragraphs before any section heading.  The final sentence is: “The following are techniques that can help you with analysis and development once your show is up and running.”  We then have a section headed ‘Performance notes’ (it’s in italics so we know it’s a section heading).  So one assumes this is the first of at least a couple more.  But no, the four other headings (‘Noting yourself’, ‘Keep listening’, ‘Watch yourself back’ and ‘Ongoing pruning’) are sub-headings. 

I suspect in this particular case it is (yet another example of) sloppy editing (and when I’m paying £69-97 + shipping for a book I don’t expect sloppy editing, certainly not of this magnitude and frequency): what we should have had was five sections or five sub-headings.  Fortunately this is a short ‘chapter’ and therefore not too hard to follow.  But one of the longest ‘chapters’, ‘Presence’, has, in its twenty nine pages, fourteen sections and fifteen sub-sections.  That, if you do the maths, represents some sort of heading on every page.  The net result is that at times you feel you are just reading a series of bullet points.  And a power point presentation is no substitute for a book.

To be honest the book was such a laborious read (I really had to force myself to look at every word – you were constantly tempted to skip to the next bullet point, particularly as the text in many instances added very little to the heading) that I’m going to stick my neck out and say that I honestly don’t believe any of the magicians who so strongly recommended this book, or indeed wrote the multiple forewords, actually sat down and read the book in its entirety.  They probably did, what I initially did, which was to skip through the headings, read bits and pieces, and concluded that it all looked great in theory.

Fortunately there are some extended interludes between this mass of bullet points; and when you stumble across them they are a welcome relief.  However some of these watering holes in the desert are very odd.  Perhaps the most bizarre is a recorded telephone conversation which Tony has with Phil Jay about developing a routine for a cabaret act (yes, it appears Tony does perform cabaret, although this isn’t mentioned on his website, where his billing is ‘International Close Up Magician’. Nor indeed does Phil Jay, as far as I know, perform cabaret – not that that discounts him from offering ideas of course). 

During the course of the conversation an idea that Tony has for performing Just Chance twice (Phil’s first comment, unsurprisingly, is “Do you need to do it twice?”) transmutes into a Bill in Lemon Number Prediction.  I’ve got no clue – and their chat lasts some half a dozen pages – what this is meant to illustrate (the section heading is ‘Working backwards’).  It’s not made clear if Tony has ever performed the trick that emerges at the end of the call; and, if he has, what exactly the final product is (he does write: “I still revisit it between the shows and think – ‘could it be better? Is it deceptive enough?  Is it dramatic enough?’” – is he revisiting the idea or the trick itself?)  Hearing the preliminary brainstorming of a trick could perhaps be interesting (and I stress the word ‘could’) but only if we are let in on what the final – hopefully successful - version of the trick is.

Another welcome relief is when Sonic (Sonic is Tony Middleton’s performing name and he insists on referring to Sonic in the third person: which would be fine if Sonic was a character act of some sort, like John Carney’s Mr Mysto or Geoffrey Durham’s The Great Soprendo.  But, as far as I can tell, Sonic is Tony Middleton by a different name) details one of his tricks.  Apparently Sonic (the ‘chapter’ heading even says The Changing of the Guard by Sonic, the only one that uses capital letters for more words than just the first, so we know for certain that it is Sonic’s trick.  It’s also the only chapter that has colour photographs in it - to illustrate the card moves – further giving the impression that it was dropped in from another book, rather than specifically written for this one) was “in two minds about putting it in print, because I don’t really want other magicians performing my opener.” 

If I’ve just spent £69-97 (plus shipping) on a book, I really don’t want to be told how lucky I am to be given his opening routine – especially when the routine is a combination of the extremely well know (unnamed and uncredited: it’s from Frank Garcia’s Million Dollar Card Secrets, although to be fair it was almost certainly uncredited by Garcia as well) Chicago Opener with a colour changing deck effect.  Hardly revolutionary stuff.

There is nothing wrong with the trick and I’m sure Sonic gets plenty of mileage out of it.  But in detailing it, he has hit, for what is for me, the most fundamental flaw in the book.  For this I must back up a bit. 

When anyone writes a book on magical theory – particularly when they are introducing theories which are new to me – what I want to see are those theories supported by practical examples of magicians applying them.  Now in some cases I might be more than happy with examples from the author’s own act – especially if that magician is well known and generally considered to be one of the top performers around.  The less well known the individual, the more examples I want from other magicians who I might have heard of, or at least I could check up on.

I want to stress that this is a criterion I have always applied.  When writing my own book I realised that the vast majority of readers wouldn’t have heard of me; so, although I did give many examples from my own act, the vast majority came, with their permission, from other magicians’ acts who I knew most readers would have seen or heard of.  Similarly, not so long ago, I reviewed a book on improvisation by a magician I didn’t personally know.  I was forced to give it a poor review because I instinctively didn’t go along with most of his theories; and the author was unable to give me any examples of how his theories were actioned by anyone besides himself.

And so we come to the theories in Performing Magic which, as the author is keen to stress at the outset, should apply to all types of magic.  And yet the overwhelming examples to substantiate the theories relate to close-up magic; and, what is more, close-up magic performed almost exclusively by the author, Phil Jay and Chris Dugdale - that is walkabout and table hopping for corporate and private parties.

Now I’ve never seen Tony Middleton perform and, if it wasn’t for this book, I wouldn’t have known he was a close-up magician.  Phil Jay and Chris Dugdale are better known and certainly by all accounts extremely successful close-up magicians.  But I have hardly ever seen them in action and they are not the type of magicians who frequent magic conventions.  I would suspect, therefore, that the vast majority of readers of this book would be in a similar position to me.  So are we just meant to accept that, because they say something should be done in a certain way, then that is the right way?  Yes, seems to be the answer.

For example, one technique which all three seem to use is the procedure of controlling your audience by mirroring how you want them to respond.  The author writes: “To get your audience to react, you need to show them how and reward them when they do it. In my close-up act, I sometimes say ‘wow!’ or react with surprise...”  Just in case we haven’t got the idea of how important the author considers this concept to be, there is a chapter called ‘A pictorial study of reactions’ which comprises eleven photos of Phil, Chris and Sonic in action.  In quite a few of them, we can see pictures of the performers going ‘wow’. 

Personally I would never use this ‘wow’ technique’; and I would much prefer to watch someone who perhaps deadpans or shrugs it off or simply looks bemused at the climax of a close-up effect.  However I accept that in the corporate / private party walkabout situation, it’s a valid technique.  But is it a similarly valid technique in cabaret or theatre work?  If it is, there are no examples given either in writing or in picture form of it being used by Phil, Chris or Sonic.  Ironically at one point in the book, in a section titled ‘Understated’, the author writes: “when your magic is good, you shouldn’t need to shout about it.” 

Throughout the book there are sundry examples (although still not nearly enough) of what these three performers do to corroborate the author’s theories.  But they are all very one dimensional: in that all three seem to do exactly the same and, to overstress the point, almost exclusively apply to close-up.  Also, some of the examples are banal, to say the least.  To illustrate that the audience don’t care about your personal circumstance – they just want to be entertained - the author relates in a tedious anecdote how he cut his finger before a gig and how he managed (bravely) to hide the injury from his audience.  Wow!

Another example is given where Phil Jay performs a trick where the aim seems to be to show up another magician.  Or, again, Phil deliberately blocks certain spectators from seeing the climax, so they have to stand up – thereby generating a ‘standing ovation’.  How annoying would that be when you are performing on stage?

I may be wrong but I can’t recall a mention of another close-up magician by name besides this trio of wonder-workers.  Any comments on other close-up magicians are negative; there’s the above example with Phil Jay showing a colleague how magic should be done.  Maybe that particular magician wasn’t that good but how about this for a sweeping generalisation: “There is such a thing as the typical London magician.  They all do coin in bottle, they all do the ambitious card and they all do card to wallet.  They do it almost exactly the same as everyone else.”  That would be the likes of Richard McDougall or Nick Einhorn or Fay Presto or Guy Hollingworth or Michael Vincent then?

He even has a rather pointless and gratuitous dig at The Magic Circle stating that he knows “several performers who are not associated with The Magic Circle at all, and are among the highest paid and most successful magicians in the UK.”  Interesting choice of words there – he doesn’t say the “best magicians” but “the highest paid”. 

Of course many of the best magicians, and indeed highest paid, aren’t members of The Magic Circle (Derren Brown for one!); but there is an uncomfortable, slightly elitist odour that permeates the whole book equating ‘being a good magician’ with ‘making loads of money’.  A particularly unpleasant passage advises “it would be a mistake to dress in a dinner jacket and bow tie at most corporate events.  Why?  Because you will either look like one of the guests, or worse, people may think you are a waiter, and treat you as such.” 

In the circles I move (which I confess also includes The Magic Circle), I much prefer to be considered one of the guests when I’m performing magic (indeed wasn’t it one R Houdin (sic) who ushered in the era of the magician dressing in a similar style to his audience?): I take it as a compliment if people think I am.  And also, in my circles, people tend to treat waiters reasonably well.

Occasionally there are examples from stage performing – and once again Chris Dugdale and Phil Jay (who we have already seen being on the end of the pointless telephone call about the Just Chance routine) feature.  Sonic, in another reference to his under-publicised cabaret act, performs a Sawing in Half on a member of the audience where, to prevent the problem of someone not wanting to come up and assist, he, with the help of Chris Dugdale, devised an idea of sawing through the woman without her knowledge (or, to be more accurate, making sure she’s shackled, blindfolded, has headphones on and lying on a table – by telling her a string of lies - before she realises she’s about to be sawn in half). 

Sonic pleads with us not to copy his routine.  Later on in the book, in a section called ‘Working with volunteers’ he writes: “when working with a volunteer, you need to make them look good.  This can be done in two ways: 1. Make them feel comfortable....”  Chances are we probably won’t copy it then.

When discussing the importance of ‘The big finish’ to an act, his only example is his thought of having the girl vanish at the end of the Zig-Zag Girl (he calls it Zig-Zag Lady – I know I’m being pernickety again but a quick check on Wikipedia would have found the right title to Robert Harbin’s famous illusion) and for her to reappear at the back of the auditorium.  That’s not an example, that’s a fantasy wish: perhaps a chat with Chris and Phil might have been useful on this occasion.

In a section ‘Focus on the story, rather than the trick’ the author talks about the very important technique of using a story framework for a routine, taking it away from being a mere puzzle.  Inevitably he turns to Chris Dugdale (to be fair, as pointed out earlier, Sonic did direct Chris’ stage show, so in this case it’s reasonable he should use something from it).  However it really isn’t a good example.  Essentially the number 44 is forced (on the night I saw the show rather obviously, but the method isn’t mentioned in this book) and this same number recurs on some images that are projected on to a screen, whilst Chris talks about a strange dream he had.  If you are going to use multiple climaxes to illustrate a story framework, wouldn’t it be better to give an example from the master of this technique, Derren Brown?

I should say that Derren does get a couple of mentions.  One of these is in the chapter on ‘Character’.  Here the author wants to show how great performers communicate themselves emotionally (you can’t argue with that).  He writes: “Let’s think about some of the top magicians and what makes them successful performers.”  Now at this point you are hoping for something insightful that might assist you in developing your own character.  After telling us that Lance Burton’s performance style and delivery is “laid back”, he goes on to Derren.  [My comments are in brackets.]

“Derren Brown has appeared countless time on television in the United Kingdom and has several west end productions to his name.  [Now tell us something we don’t know]  What makes him individual?  [Aren’t we all individual?]  He was the first magician to present mentalism in a way that really appealed to the intelligence of a modern audience.  [Dunninger?  Chan Canasta?  Uri Geller?]”  After a couple more sentences of stating the ‘bleeding obvious’ (“he is in a league of his own”) we are told that “when we think of Derren Brown we think ‘intelligent’” (although in a later chapter we are told that his “attitude is one of intelligence, and, to an extent, cleverness”).  Do we?  Enigmatic, manipulative, spooky, scary, unbelievable, unpredictable, are other words that might come to mind. 

I’ve illustrated the examples which the author gives principally in areas which I’m familiar with.  But, to be fair to the author – and I’m sure many readers will think I’ve been rather unfair to date – he does touch upon many areas that I was unfamiliar with and  new to me; suggesting plenty of techniques that I could perhaps apply to help my own act.  However it is precisely in these unfamiliar areas that the examples of magicians applying these theories seem to fall by the wayside: there just aren’t any.  So because I’m taking issue with him, or having no faith in him, or feeling he hasn’t properly substantiated himself in areas of technique that I have thought about, the chances of taking the leap into the unknown, and putting into practice his theories which I haven’t thought about, is minimal.

I also have a more fundamental problem, which the author never addresses, that perhaps goes to the heart of the book and my critique of it.  Are theories which work to better your acting technique really that useful to the majority of magicians?   In other words, is it true, as the author unequivocally states, that if you “apply ... theatrical techniques to magic ... your magic will dramatically improve.”?  I wasn’t convinced before and this book certainly hasn’t done much to alter my thinking.

The main reason for my own scepticism was succinctly put by someone, who I very much do respect, and who has both acted and performed as a magician.  He said that there isn’t a great deal of overlap between the theory of theatre, and the theory of magic because actors talk to each other, whilst magicians talk to the audience.  In other words, as a magician, you are very much participating in the real world, interacting in real time.  As an actor you are having to live and create your own world.

So when Performing Magic tries to tell me about acting techniques and relaxation exercises that the likes of Stanislavski and Rudolph Laban (who believed every single human movement can be defined in terms of three motions: space, time and weight) apparently applied so successfully – and insists that I should give them a go myself to become a better magician – I’m crying out for examples from magicians who have done just that.  Where are Derren Brown or Lance Burton when you really need them? 

I’ve already considered the first thirty pages of the book: but what about the book proper?  As mentioned earlier, it is divided into three Parts.

Part 1 of the book is called Foundation: this is because some basic tools are needed before we can progress further.  The first tool is to ‘Be specific’, know what you are doing and where you are going.  The next is ‘Circumstance’ – answering the W questions, such as ‘Who am I?’ ‘Where am I?’  ‘What am I doing?’  There are eight of those in all.  This perhaps is where my scepticism that theatre techniques are really needed for magic starts kicking in.  Do I really need to know ‘Where I have just come from’ or be fully cognisant of ‘Why am I doing it’ in order to execute a card trick?  Nevertheless there are some good points made, such as comparing your own favourite effect with that of the audience’s favourite.

The following chapter is on Character, a topic I referred to earlier in this review.  It doesn’t take us much further than what has previously been written on this subject (check out Nelms’ Magic and Showmanship  and I would further mention a great chapter in Expert Card Technique by Jean Hugard and Fred Braue called Presentation, which pretty much nails character for me).  However, if you are unversed in the subject, you might find might find some useful pointers. 

The final chapter in Part 1, ‘Objective’, also provides some useful thoughts in order to know what direction you want to take your magic.  In my view there is a danger of thinking too much about every step of your performing – rather than just getting on and doing it; but at least that is erring on the right side of getting your magic towards the best it can be.

Part 2 is called Structure & Detail.  The author stresses that you should know who you are, what kind of magician you want to be and where you want to perform, before you start to structure your act.  This I would dispute.  It’s only by trial and error and performing a lot in different places that you are going to develop as a magician and gradually evolve your persona.  This happens alongside structuring your act, the two can’t be seen as independent of each other

The author looks at what makes magic strong; ways of creating your act; and dramatic and structural tools that can be applied.  After an ‘Introduction’, there is a chapter on ‘Strong magic’.  Darwin Ortiz wrote an entire book with this title but there are some relevant points made here.  Economy in routining is well illustrated (for once) with Sonic’s own handling of the Kennedy Mystery Box; but then he promptly undoes it in the next section by suggesting substituting a plaster or a bandage for a thimble in order to make it more “relevant and interesting for a modern audience”.  Tell that to Duncan Trillo or Alan Hudson.

The next chapter is just one page (another example of disproportionate chapter lengths) and is called ‘Structuring your act’.  It reads as if it should have been the opening chapter to Part 2, saying at the outset “this is where the work really starts”.  Once again the reader is left confused as to whether the author knows the route of the journey he is trying to take us on.

The confusion is compounded by the first paragraph of the next chapter, titled ‘Ways in’.  He writes, “If you already have a definite idea for your act, you may be able to skip the following section.” (In other words the work apparently hasn’t really started).  Which section can we skip?  Is he referring to the rest of the chapter or the next section?  I think he means the rest of the chapter, because he goes on to write: “If you don’t, the following are a series of ways designed to free your mind and help you realise the possibilities available.”

Anyway the chapter suggests various techniques such as theming your act, finding a hinge and bouncing ideas off others.  It also includes the bizarre phone call – for that section you might be well advised to follow the author’s suggestion and give it a miss.

The next chapter is called ‘Structural tools’ and some good points are made about structuring your act.  However the vast majority of techniques discussed (the opening trick, segueing from one trick to another, having a hook, varying the act, use of the surprise etc.) has already been highlighted in other places in the magic literature.  So, again, there is nothing much new here. 

Part 2 ends with the aforementioned The Changing of the Guard card trick, which the author states is put in “to illustrate some of the points covered in Part 2”.  Part 2, though, has been about how to structure an act, not routining a single trick.  So quite how describing the opening trick in his close-up act assists in illustrating the vast majority of the points covered in Part 2, I am at a loss to know.  And of course it doesn’t. 

So, we come to Part 3, called Performance.  This is by far the longest section in the book, coming to over 120 pages.  It starts off with an introduction which is essentially a tirade against magicians generally.  “The sad truth is that many magicians have no idea how to perform.”  And he’s not just referring to amateurs but to those that call themselves ‘professional’.  “I shake my head in despair when I see a magician that...has zero charisma” Apparently such magicians “like fooling others and climbing up the social ladder.”  He goes on: “some magicians are scared of performing” whilst many “like being the centre of attention”.

Having put the vast majority of his readers in their place, he writes: “Part 3 is what it’s really all about.”  Hang on a moment, I thought Part 2 is where the “work really starts”.   But no, we have now reached the point why we apparently bought the book in the first place.  “In this section of the book I’m going to discuss what makes the difference between a good performance (which you now have the keys for) and an outstanding performance that lifts every fibre in the audience’s body.  The focus on the moment of performance is what sets this book apart from all other magic literature on ‘showmanship’”.

What he essentially seems to be saying is that everything you have read so far (that’s 160 pages, over half the book) has been written about before (which, as I have pointed out, is probably true).  But it’s not exactly what you want to hear when you have just spent £69-97 plus shipping.  Still, if he’s indeed going to tell me how to change my act from a good one to a great one (“that lifts every fibre in the audience’s body”) it’s still a price worth paying.

The first chapter in Part 3 is ‘The Shell’: which I’m tempted to say is a load of nonsense.  It’s about transforming yourself from non-performing mode to performing mode – including the advice of uttering a mantra.  Just get out and do it is what my suggestion would be.  But it might work for some.  Fortunately this chapter is only two pages long.

The next chapter is called ‘Colour’.  I know, an odd name for a chapter.  It starts off with three quotes (including one from Winston Churchill) about colour, to stress its significance.  In fact, despite the rather pretentious title, the chapter makes some excellent points.  It touches on your emotion and your attitude towards magic.  It also stresses that when you perform the magic effect, an audience want to see the ‘effort’ you put in to achieve it – something that Derren Brown has written extensively about.

There is a section on ‘Scripting’, a subject particularly dear to my heart; and the advice here is sound, although again not ground breaking (delivery comes down to timing, pausing and emphasis).  Something that was new to me was relating how every line of script should have some sort of action attached to it: however even the author doesn’t seem overly convinced by this as he writes: “it is possible to ‘over action’ your script.” 

I know I have written an entire book on the subject, but using comedy or humour isn’t mentioned at all in this section – or indeed really in the whole book.  Quite a major omission, I would have thought, if you are trying to transform yourself into a great magician.

The next chapter is ‘Rehearsal’ and a thirteen step procedure is given for rehearsing.  Some of these are really simplistic (for example ‘source props’, ‘master specific sleights’, ‘audience test individual items’) and I would guess the vast majority of performers would already do them automatically.  My advice would be to read the chapter instead in Geoffrey Durham’s Professional Secrets called Practice and Rehearsal, which is far more insightful into the whole rehearsal procedure.

After this comes ‘Presence’ and this is where using theatrical techniques to enhance your magic really kicks in.  It could well be that this chapter is the key to the book; and if someone diligently applied all the suggested techniques it might well transform you into that elusive great magician – particularly if you are the type of performer who thinks that presence comes from “strong internal energy” and a “state of responsiveness”.  But this is where my caveat, previously stated, most obviously comes to the fore: there isn’t one example in the entire chapter of anybody (including Sonic, Chris and Phil) using these techniques to enhance their magic.  Indeed the only example is right at the end of the chapter, to illustrate that ‘less is more’, with Michael Jackson standing motionless on stage for a minute at the Wembley Arena – a musician, not a magician!

The next chapter is ‘Key skills’ and it begins with a useful list of technical terms, such as blocking, upstage, downstage and other commonly used nomenclature in the theatre: in most books this would have been put in as an Appendix.  After that are some basic stage practices, such as performing to the back of the room, not turning your back on the audience, the importance of sight lines, getting and keeping audience attention, vocal clarity (the author doesn’t seem to have heard of a microphone), maintaining relationships and dealing with volunteers.

Most of the advice is good although, as already pointed out with his approach to hecklers, there are some stinkers.  Then comes ‘A pictorial study of reactions’ (already touched upon), ‘Performance pitfalls’ – relatively basic, but possibly a useful check list – and finally ‘Continuing work’ (which again has already been mentioned).

The final chapter is called ‘Conclusion’.  This is essentially a reiteration of the ‘Introduction’; but rather than telling us what we are about to read, it tells us what we have read.  But if he hasn’t convinced us by now of what the book is about, it’s too late to tell us again.  The author’s final words are “magic isn’t about ‘tricks’; it’s about sharing an experience with other people.”  Sadly this is not a book I would want to share with anyone.

This has been, to say the least, a fairly excoriating review so I think it’s only reasonable to say that somewhere in Performing Magic there is perhaps a book worth writing.  Maybe Tony Middleton, in another ten years, when he has performed his magic in other arenas; directed a few more magic shows; worked with some other magicians, who he can also respect and admire, besides Chris Dugdale and Phil Jay; learnt how to layout a book; read a lot more; realised that over-hyping yourself and your product is counterproductive; and, above all, acquired some humility (trust me, your autograph isn’t worth £30), then maybe, just maybe, he will be in a position to nail his own theories to the wall and make us all better magicians.

As it stands at present, Performing Magic will remain sitting on my shelf only in order to make the other books on magic theory look good.

POSTSCRIPT WRITTEN 20TH MAY, 2012:

This is my response to Zebra Magic and Tony Middleton’s comments on the above article, as posted on http://zebra-magic.basekit.com/response-to-ian-keable.  Their comments are in bold and my response follows directly afterwards.

Zebra Magic and Tony Middleton have been made aware of a lengthy blog concerning Performing Magic, which may have an ulterior motive. Zebra Magic would like to point out that this is not an official review, and that all review copies for official publications should be requested from the publisher directly. The blog contains a number of inaccuracies and misrepresentations, a few of which are addressed below.

When it comes to magic books, there is really no such thing as an ‘official’ or an ‘unofficial’ review.  I would maintain that my opinion is as valuable (or indeed as value less) as any written in any magic magazine.  

Further, I note that Zebra Magic are quite happy to use ‘unofficial reviews’ to promote and sell their book; so it doesn't appear to be a distinction that they apply in practice.  Part of the reason I wrote the review was that I have yet to see an ‘official review’: I have still yet to see one.

I can’t say I had any ulterior motive other than to write an honest review of what I thought about the book.  I certainly have nothing against Tony Middleton personally who I have never met, spoken to or corresponded with (apart from sending him a copy of my review and offering him a right to reply). 

·      It suggests that highly regarded magicians who have endorsed the book, and offered forewords, have not read the contents in enough detail to merit their testimonials. This is untrue.

What I wrote was: “I’m going to stick my neck out and say that I honestly don’t believe any of the magicians who so strongly recommended this book, or indeed wrote the multiple forewords, actually sat down and read the book in its entirety.” [My subsequent italics]  I stand by this until I hear to the contrary direct from the foreword writers or endorsers themselves.

·      It suggests that Tony Middleton lacks the directing experience to write a book of this nature. Middleton’s current resume can be found on the Zebra Magic website.

This was based on the directorial credits stated by the author himself in ‘The author’ section of the book.  I stand by my original statement.

·      It suggests that the book has not been correctly formatted and edited. The author would like to point out that it is a ‘handbook’, and a stylistic decision was made to give information in bite-size chunks, without chapter numbers. Key information can be located quickly from the contents page.

Whether the book is called a handbook or not is irrelevant to its ease of reading.  Key information is usually ‘located quickly’ from an index (there isn’t one), not the contents page. 

·      It suggests that two forewords is excessive. This was a stylistic choice, not without precedent, and given that two highly regarded magicians offered forewords to the book, the author wished both to be included.

“Offered forewords” or were asked to write forewords?  And I wonder if both ‘foreword writers’ knew about the other.  As two forewords is “not without precedent”, perhaps we could have a few examples of other magic books with two forewords.

·      It suggests that the routine titled ‘The Changing of the Guard’ and its colour photographs were lifted from another source, and that the routine was partly copied from Frank Garcia’s Million Dollar Card Secrets. This is untrue, and any similarities are purely incidental.

I wrote:  “It’s also the only chapter that has colour photographs in it - to illustrate the card moves – further giving the impression [My subsequent italics] that it was dropped in from another book, rather than specifically written for this one...”  “Giving the impression” is not the same as stating, or indeed suggesting, it was so.

It’s a factual statement that the opening of the routine is the same as the Chicago Opener from Frank Garcia’s Million Dollar Card Secrets.  Any similarity might well be “coincidental” (I think they meant ‘purely coincidental’, not ‘purely incidental’) but it is still a fact.

·      It identifies a few mistakes in the bibliography and referencing, which were not picked up by the proofreaders. The publisher would be pleased to hear of such details by those who have purchased a copy, so that they can be amended for the future. A revised bibliography will be available on the Zebra Magic website.

I’m glad that the errors have been acknowledged and a revised bibliography is indeed now up on the Zebra Magic site.  But I would maintain they were not mainly errors of proofreading, they were mainly errors by the author in his initial writing (particularly as the book fails to give thanks, or acknowledgement, to any proofreaders).  There is a difference.

The author would like to point out that having sold the rights of the book to Zebra Magic, and been contracted to sign a limited number of copies, he is not in control of price or promotions.

Zebra Magic appears to be hiding behind a veil of anonymity.  There is no indication on the http://www.zebra-magic.com/ website of the names of the publisher.  It does state that Zebra Magic “recently secured one of the largest financial advances for Tony Middleton author of "Performing Magic”; but this seems to suggest that it’s acting more as an agent than as a publisher.

As such, it is only reasonable that purchasers and reviewers (whether ‘official’ or ‘unofficial’) should assume that this is a Tony Middleton product.  However I’m happy to accept that the author feels that the book is overpriced at £69-99 + postage; and that he’s unhappy with having his signature valued at £30.

The publisher maintains that the price is a testament to the inherent value of the information in the book.

Obviously the publisher and I differ on “the inherent value of the information in the book.”