Magic, Comedy and Discipline

“Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” — Roald Dahl

When I was a kid, magic was pretty popular.

You know, in an odd kind of way.

I mean, we hadn’t a lot of choice really.

We lived on a strange diet of snooker, wrestling, horse jumping and Cagney and Lacey.

Weird stuff, big then though.

Tommy Cooper was one of the early magicians I remember.

Half comedy, half magic and generally, as I understand it, half pissed.

His trick, was to seem clueless. Trick-less (see spoon jar jar).

But that, was probably harder.

See, they’re similar things, magic and comedy.

I mean, beyond entertainment.

Magicians manipulate our experience and our attention.

It’s not just the misdirection, it’s the whole experience, the structure of events.

And it’s the wonder that results from experiencing the impossible.

The story of the magician Ching Ling Foo is told in the movie The Prestige.

He had a trick, where he made items appear on a table.

Like a large drum, and a filled glass fish bowl, complete with goldfish.

The bowl was hidden beneath his robes.

But, that wasn’t really the trick.

The trick was fooling people to believe he walked like an old man.

Which allowed him to hold the fishbowl between his legs, under his robes.

And, he maintained that walk on and off stage.

That discipline, that craft, that was the trick.

That’s the magic.

Discipline and craft.

Comedy, too, is manipulating experiences and attention.

The art of effortlessness in comedy, is also misdirection.

Because, it’s been painstakingly crafted, arranged, manipulated and scripted.

As Louis CK (sorry) says here “I’m trying to make it seem like I’m just getting this out, but I know all the moves, I know every little piece of it”.

Second by second, word by word, the entire experience is micromanaged.

In Stuart Lee’s book on “How I escaped Certain Death” he describes the architecture of comedy.

The scene setting, the interactions and the attention.

Everything is part of the show. Everything is manipulated.

Right down to the music he puts on as the audience takes their seat, which he says “signals they’re not going to be in for an easy ride”.

Classic experience engineering.

And just like Ching Ling Foo, discipline is the trick.

Not some fortunate piece of inspiration.

But the steady, consistent and repeatable drumbeat of discipline and craft.

That’s the magic.

We want magic.

No. We need magic.

Cause, everything’s a little greyer without it, isn’t it.

That’s the job of brands.

To bring the magic.

To turn the ordinary, into the extraordinary.

To create value, from nothing.

To turn a person, into a performer, or a product into a brand.

To set the stage, for an exceptional performance.

Like Tommy Cooper, Stuart Lee and Ching Ling Foo, that magic is about craft and discipline.

The craft of understanding and leveraging how people behave and think.

And the discipline of executing that insight with excellence.

That’s it.

That’s the trick.

Took me a while to really understand that.

But just like the best comedians and magicians, the best shows are built over time.

Cause you know, that’s magic.