Defending Dynamo

Yo, yo, yo wassup check it out blud. I got a real cool trick to blow your mind bro....ahem....that's about as much of being a street magician as I can pull off. I stopped being cool and happening and down with the kids (easy!) back in 1993. I've never really understood street magicians anyway. It's cold on the streets. Or windy. And some of them smell of wee. And you get very odd and crazy people in the street, I know, I see them as I pass in my stately carriage. I much prefer working indoors. It's warmer and people generally aren't passing water in a phone booth or trying to sell me drugs. Well, usually.

But there is one street magician who has been riding the crest of a chavvy wave recently and that is Dynamo. However he seems to have hit a nerve with a lot of magicians, who accuse him of camera trickery (gasp!) and stooges (eek!) and careful editing (No freakin way!). Of course fooling people in this way is bad. Far better to trick someone using more honest means such as sleight of hand and misdirection. Yep good old honest methods like that. Hmmmm. Hopefully you can see the discrepancy. Is there a distinction from a general public's point of view of tricking them with camera editing or sleight of hand trickery?

Anyway that's not the point. Some magicians instead are currently saying it's just not right that a magician would stoop to using camera editing and stooges and THEY would never do such a thing.

Yeah right. 'Dear Mr Soandso here is a few hundred thousand pounds to do a magic show on TV but you will have to use some camera editing and stooges'. Magicians would not only bite their hand off but swallow them whole and then round up the offerers family and devour them too.

It is pure professional jealousy that drives this. Dynamo is on the telly, performing magic in a style they don't like true, but it is jealousy that makes them howl and cackle like Shakespearian Witches on Internet forums.

I defend Dynamo for one very simple fact, despite the fact my performing style is completely different to his . He has accomplished more for magic in the UK than the combined series of Penn and Teller and the sticky white peanut infested dog mess that was BBC's Magicians. Today alone I have had three new customers who have come in because of Dynamo and zero because of any other magician on the planet. The average stands that I have 20 new customers a week because of his show, each week, that's a whopping 80 new customers a month! The past four weeks have been so busy because of his show I have paid for my wedding next year in four weeks (It's a cheap wedding though, we're getting married first in a ditch then holding the reception in a fat man's pocket).

And it's not all about how many coins I have at Gringotts. I have seen more eager young teenagers desperate to learn magic in the past few weeks than I have in the past three years. His show could be the starting point of a resurge of people who want to learn magic and book magicians for events. Magicians owe Dynamo so much that they should ignore their snobbery about how his effects are done and focus on what a successful TV show has done for the world of magic.

And now if you'll excuse me I am going to attempt to walk across the River Seven. It's quite easy this year as it's quite low. And full of trash.