Experience the magic of laughter

Published Feb 25, 2014

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Ihave to admit it. I still remain intrigued by the ability of a magician to pull a dove out of an empty top hat.

I guess that’s just the pure mystery of magic and one of the many fascinating things to witness as a member of the audience.

And speaking of fascinating, Mo Magic ( pictured) is one of those entertainers who is known to leave the audience spellbound with his world class abilities.

Having been featured on SABC3’s Top Billing and SABC2’s Eastern Mosaic, Mo has now tackled stand-up comedy magic – an interesting subject.

For Durbanites who would like a piece of the magic, Mo is bring- ing his Amazing You! tour to KwaZulu-Natal.

In an interview with Tonight, the magician explains what his tour will entail and what magic signifies to him.

Mo is a genuine guy. Highly influenced by American magician, illusionist and endurance artist David Blaine’s Street Magic TV special, he says it was from that point on that something inside of him shifted and he wanted to learn and perform magic to share the extra- ordinary experience with people.

With regards to his Amazing You! tour, the show received much praise back in 2012 when it ran at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre.

“One of my intentions has been to take my show on the road, share it with live audiences, first in the province, then nationally.

“The show debuted in Durban and time seems to have flown by with other TV and corporate commitments. At the end of last year, I made the intention to get the proverbial ball rolling with the KZN road show in March.”

Steering the conversation towards his recent stand-up comedy stint at the Amsterdam Bar, Mo shares what this means for his career: “In recent months, I have begun writing comedy based on my experiences and observations, and have included this in my show.

“The Amsterdam Bar stint was an experiment to try new material in front of an audience who were not familiar with my performance style.

“I performed a little magic and more comedy on the night and the responses were lovely. And while my first love will always be magic, I am enjoying the process of writing and performing comedy thus far.

“The use of ‘clean’ comedy has provided a new facet to my performance and the production value of the show. The magic amazes and astonishes the audience while the comedy works well to relax them and make them laugh.

“It’s is an opportunity for the audience to get to know me better.”

As an entertainer, I ask him what it feels like when to see people’s reactions to his illusions.

“In the early years I was filled with a sense of purpose and excitement. I still am, however, now through my performance of magic and sharing my life story, this has expanded to include inspiring people to live their dreams. The responses and reactions to this have been wonderful and I am thankful for this.”

Because of the rapid advance- ments in technology these days, I ask Mo what he sees as the future of magic and if technology has made illusions possible today that weren’t able to be done in the past.

“While using technology is helping to make new illusions possible and creating a new field of magic with electronic devices such as cellphones, tablets, LED screens etc, some of the modern TV magic productions seem to be moving away from sharing the experience of magic to shocking their audiences and using camera edits to create a lot of magic that is not really possible.

“While it may be impressive for the TV audience at first, it has created unrealistic expectations for some viewers. I do feel there will come a point where audiences will realise this and choose to appreciate the experience of beautiful magic with a message rather than the shock treatment and unrealistic effects they are seeing in some productions – I repeat, in some TV productions.”

Steering the conversation back to his road show, Mo says it is entitled Amazing You! because he intends to amaze you (the audience), with amazing magic: “The magic routines include sleight-of-hand magic, mind reading, metal bending and levitation.

“Without giving too much away, some of the humour revolves around being an Indian magician, people’s responses to magic and so on.”

 

•  Mo Magic’s Amazing You! tour starts on Saturday, March 15 at the Umfolozi Casino Con-vention Centre in Empan-geni/ Richards Bay for one night only and thereafter will move to other towns in the province. Tickets for March 15 cost R120 and are available from the Umfolozi Resort or online. Call 035 787 8200 to book. For more information on the full Amazing You! tour schedule and all show date queries, please visit www.momagic.co.za.

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