BY STUART KEELER

Ahead of his intimate Folkestone performance at Quarterhouse on 2nd July, we caught up with iconic magician Paul Daniels for a quick chat..

How are you?
“Very well, yes astonishingly well; the sun is shining, the swans are drifting by, cabin crews are going by, people waving, I shall wave back.”

Who have you admired and looked up to in the show business world (both when you first started as well as today)?
“I’m off on Friday touring Hong Kong, New Zealand and Los Angeles doing shows and seminars and one of the things in those seminars I always tell young people coming into the magic world is don’t watch magicians! Go and see people who have been top of the bill for a very long time in whatever the genre. Try and see why they’ve stayed stars for a long time. Personally I thought Cliff Richard was fairly bland until I saw him live, and the show was fantastic. I’ve worked with people like Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Bassey & Eartha Kitt, who are phenomenal performers. I like anybody who is really good at their job, not even necessarily in show business! I was taught to fence by a man who was practically a professor of fencing. Just watching him when the sword went into his hand, it was just beautiful because he changed and became one with it. I admire skilful people… watching the man paint the rim on a rolls Royce wheel, freehand! You don’t have to be in show business for me to admire you.”

Who would you say is the greatest magician or illusionist of all time?
“You can’t say that as magic does not have just one facet. You’ve got close up magicians, stage magicians, cabaret magicians, that are musical, dramatic or comedic. Each of them has their own kind of style and genre. You can’t say this one is ‘the best of all time’. Stage illusion wise; Harry Blackstone was absolutely phenomenal. Lance Burton a different style again, a full stage magician (a headliner still in Las Vegas). But then on the comedic scene I like Matt King (also in Las Vegas) because there is no one magic.”

What do you make of today’s performers, in particular the likes of David Blaine and Derren Brown?
“Derren I’ve enjoyed. It’s a bit like saying we’re having a ‘sale of designer clothes’. I don’t know anything that hasn’t been designed in the first instance and every designer all their stuff isn’t good or they wouldn’t have a sale! By the same token, I’ve admired lots of stuff that David Copperfield, Paul Daniels and Derren Brown have done, but other stuff I’ve seen them do I’ve gone ‘oh, why did you do that!’. I tend to watch shows through the eye of a director when you tend to go ‘nooo’ on some bits but the overall package of Derren is very good. David Blaine I’ve never seen, apart from on TV which is all edited so I don’t know if he can really do it. That seems to be a trend now coming particularly from America but I know there’s guy in France copying that trend now of using the editing suite to make the magic more incredible and I don’t admire that at all. On TV I’ve built a credibility over 16 years by always having an audience in the studio, one time even an audience of journalists where I told them if you see something on screen that isn’t happening here live, please write about it and tell everyone because we never ever do camera tricks.”

Was you always interested in magic and can you remember a time when you thought you wouldn’t get to live out your dream?
“I didn’t have a dream really, I just enjoyed doing it. I started reading about it at 11 and I’m still reading about it. As I look down now on the coffee table there’s two magic books there. I’m still reading, designing and thinking as I think it’s a fabulous hobby. It’s vast, we have the online shop (thepauldanielsmagicshop.co.uk) with 7000+ lines of all different magic tricks. That shows you the vast range of what you can become.”

It’s getting rarer to see traditional magician’s on TV nowadays, do you believe magic has lost some of it’s appeal in recent years?
“I know it hasn’t lost it’s appeal from when I’m out doing my live shows. The audiences are still loving it and certainly there are about 2000 magicians in this country all still working. Television however is being produced at the cheapest level. They spend a bit on drama, but the other night I couldn’t find a single thing to watch on TV. I have no interest in cooking and I don’t think the people who are interested in cooking could possibly watch all the channels at the same time! So I think the commission writers have lost the plot. It’s very easy to get chefs to work for cheap to promote their books and restaurants but magicians and other entertainers across the board, certainly in the world of magic it’s quite an expensive thing to create as you have to create new stuff every week and if you are doing that, then the program becomes quite expensive production wise and they’re not interested in that at all. Then you get people like Alan Yentob who doesn’t like magic as a form of entertainment. Alan Yentob is probably the only man in the world who could make Las Vegas boring! Did you see that program? I was watching thinking this isn’t the Vegas I know! I’ll be there in a few weeks and it’s not like that at all, he’s the most boring presenter, who’s supposed to be in charge of a channel not presenting stuff!”

You are regularly blogging on your website about your daily life, and twitter often. Do you find these tools useful to keep in contact with your fans?
“It saves a lot of time. It’s either that or sit at the computer and type out dozens and dozens and dozens of emails to fans. It’s much easier to say check the blog!”

Most magicians are deliberately enigmatic and secretive, in a bid to upkeep their stage persona. You have always been a little more honest and open with your magic. Do you think this is key in your appeal to so many people?
“I probably think so, I’m not up my own backside but I think it’s a great hobby. I love baffling people. I love the surprise on their face and in their gasps. When I did the full series, then I would ring the changes and present series pieces but in the main I like people to be happy. That works for me. There are others out there where it works different for them. Derren (Brown) for example, is a much more serious presenter than I was most of the time but I did the stuff Derren does such as the laboratory conditions.”

What made you decide to reveal your magic techniques in your Masterclass, and is it for magicians only as I thought it was forbidden to reveal magic secrets?
“They are advertised only in magic books but the internet has opened that up and anyone could go along. The first masterclass I did was all about the business of show business and not about the tricks themselves. There are zillions of tricks and literally anybody can do them. Anyone can pull a bow across a violin but it isn’t music! What I did on the first masterclass was I taught the business side of it; how to make money, how to get bookings, how to advertise, that kind of thing. The one I’m about to launch now is much more based on how really to develop your own style of personality instead of copying anybody else. How to make a normal magic trick into an entertainment piece. So it’s the workings behind the magic tricks, not the actual tricks themselves. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to go otherwise, it’d be boring for them!”

Where did the famous catchphrase “You’ll like this… not a lot, but you’ll like it” come from?
“I got heckled in Bedford by a guy shouting “I don’t like that suit” and I replied with “That’s a shame ‘cos I like yours… not a lot, but I like it”. Very shortly afterwards I picked a trick and said “here’s a trick you’re going to like” and remembering the laugh I got from the heckle before, I used an old comic device of repetition and said “not a lot” and got another laugh. By the end of the show I’d got a catchphrase. It was a catchphrase long before I came on TV with all the people in the clubs in the north using it!”

I see the 80’s TV show ‘Wizbit’ is being brought back as an animated series. Do you think it will be as popular as the original show, and will you be featuring in it again yourself?
“I own all the rights to Wizbit… it’s all mine, it’s mine I tell you! I got it farmed off out to a publisher/producer and Justine is looking after the business of it and negotiating. There are already about 8 books out with Wizbit in them and the animations are looking excellent. So I will probably be doing the voiceovers and just generally advising.”

You seem to have strong views in politics, what do you make of the new coalition parliament?
“I’m very hopeful. My strong views on politics are a bit different to the general trend in that I think it’s wrong to have the attitude of voting for the same party your ancestors have voted for. Look at what they’re about and what they’re up to and make your own mind up and question all the time. I watched over the last few years this country going over £172 billion in debt and I thought this is wrong for my country so I decided personally we should have a change. So this time I voted conservatives. If the conservatives had cocked it up previously, I would have voted Labour just to bring someone else in. Equally I believe (and I’ve blogged it) that now labour are out, in the coming years they should have representatives, probably non-voting representatives in the chambers learning what is going on. Right now Clegg and his team have come in with no experience whatsoever of what goes on in cabinet. I wish them well and to a degree the same can be said for Cameron’s lot. I’m a member of a charity where the members can come and fit in on the council and watch and learn. They can’t pass opinions and can’t contribute (sometimes they do offline as it where). At the moment we have this crazy system whereby someone is appointed Home Secretary when they’ve never been Home secretary before and don’t know what to do. I think it’s nonsense that we appoint people every few years (and indeed they change their mind if they upset the prime minister, every few months). When I’m king it’s all going to change!”
Is that going to be soon then?
“I’m going to get rid of debt from the bottom upwards. All credit cards must be called ‘Debt Cards’. All businesses of any kind must always ask the question “do you want to pay cash or put it on your debt” just to make people aware of where it’s going. That’s my first law, I have another 200 but you haven’t got time!”

What are your thoughts on talent show’s such as ‘Britain’s Got Talent’? You got your first ‘break’ after appearing on ‘Opportunity Knocks’ didn’t you?
“My first break was actually on a Saturday evening variety show called ‘Wheel Tappers and Shunters’. Opportunity Knocks did show me but I got a letter to say I would come second about three weeks before I did the show. The big advantage with Opportunity Knocks which did create stars no doubt about it.. stars who stayed for a long time at the top of the tree. The current trend is to make them, use them cheaply for about ten months then dump them when you get the next lot up. I think that the big advantage of Opportunity Knocks was they weeded out all the bad acts and we never got to see them. The remarks such as ‘you should leave showbusiness and do it a favour’ were said in audition rooms we never saw. People who are obviously sometimes mentally backward would not have to face a set of untalented judges who haven’t been anywhere or done anything within the business they are judging and I find that embarrassing and I can’t watch it! It’s just rudeness beyond belief. I’m now tired of watching amateurs, I really am. X-factor does nothing at all to contribute to entertainment as there is no originality in it. Karaoke is a Japanese word and I think X Factor is the British translation! I just want to watch professionals again but you’re back to cheapness again. It’s only the judges that get paid. Now I like Ant & Dec but what are they doing standing in the wings doing nothing?”

What do you find more rewarding; to perform in the smaller intimate venues or to perform to a TV audience of millions?
“The big TV audience was never the ‘Big TV audience’. I treat television as being two or three people sitting on a settee being about 12 feet away, that’s all a TV audience is. I like the mixture of my life. Television was never a major source of my work or income, so what I like is, for example this week I’m getting on a plane to do shows in Hong Kong, New Zealand, Los Angeles, then fly back and do 20 one night stands around the country with the best of British variety show, then I might well go out and do a village hall. Last week I was at a private party for a multi-millionaire! I love the mixture and the variety of my life. I turned down a year on Broadway because I don’t want to be doing anything for a year. I turned down a ten year contract in Vegas because I didn’t want to be anywhere for that long! I gave up the 9-5 job as I like the Gypsy in my soul I guess.”

How was the experience of appearing on TV’s ‘X Factor: Battle of The Stars’ with your wife Debbie [McGhee]?
“Debbie and I treat things like that as just fun adventures. They’re not our job and I think I said to Simon Cowell when he criticised something (don’t get me wrong me and Simon get along fine) I said “That’s why I do card tricks”. I go and work in Las Vegas and I’ll get a standing ovation. I go to New Zealand and I’ll get a standing ovation which is very, very nice. Then I come back to this country and they say will you come on our show and sing. That is basically what’s wrong. Will you go in the jungle and have worms crawl all over you. What?! That’s not what I do best! If it’s for a good cause (like X-Factor was) I’ll do it but I knew we didn’t stand a cat in hells chance! The following Saturday I had a gig already booked. I do things like that for fun. That night by the way was a fabulous night, what a good party that was. If you’re not having fun you shouldn’t be doing it.”

You own a magic & fancy dress shop in Wigan. Is this because you want to give something back to the community and to promote magic?
“No not really. If I don’t walk on a stage I don’t get paid! I love all these actors on daytime television commenting how they took a part because it was deep and meaningful! Rubbish. They wanted to eat and get some money. As it happens my son was looking for something to do and I’ve always mooted about having a magic shop. As it happened, we really use that. The fancy dress side of it is much better and bigger in interest terms but the magic shop is used because the online shop needed a distribution base. It is purely a business. As for giving stuff back I do that with my seminars and lectures.”

The Gig Guide 6
Favourite Bar Snack?
“Chicken Teriyaki Walkers Crisps.”

Myspace, Twitter or Facebook?
“Twitter. Facebook is for old people!”

What’s the biggest animal you could defend yourself against in unarmed combat?
“Most animals if you strike them with the base of your palm on their nose they really freak out. I don’t know.. I tend to get along with animals. I’ve been in cages with lions and tigers and they like me. Probably because I’m not big enough to eat! What animal would attack me? I would say a dog.”

What would be your message to the world?
“Just do it.”

Got anything you want to get off your chest?
“[laughs] Interviews! I don’t know, I’m kind of an easy going guy. I don’t like idleness and I think people should have to pass an exam before getting a passport as we do let some idiots go abroad and show up the British nation! I’m really against racism. I was reading the other day that police are stopping the English wearing world cup shirts as it is upsetting people from other cultures. If you stop them wearing it, you are being racist against English people! I think it’s all silly.”

Tea or Coffee?
“Yes please! I like both and I mix them up. In fact that’s how I eat; a little bit of everything and a lot of nothing.”

Tags: Alan Yentob, Ant & Dec, Britain's Got Talent, Cliff Richard, David Blaine, David Copperfield, Debbie McGhee, Derren Brown, Eartha Kitt, Ella Fitzgerald, Facebook, Harry Blackstone, Interview, Lance Burton, Matt King, Myspace, Opportunity Knocks, Paul Daniels, Quarterhouse (Folkestone), Shirley Bassey, Simon Cowell, Stuart Keeler, Twitter, Walkers, Wheel Tappers and Shunters, Wizbit, X-Factor

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