18
INTERVIEW
H
ave you ever wondered if people
who are funny on stage are also
able to make their friends laugh?
I’ve met a few professional
entertainers in my life who are pale
shadows of their performing selves
when the curtains drop and they have
to do personal interaction. It can be
a bit disconcerting. Where did that
jovial, confident person go and please
will you ask them to come back? Steve
claims to be a man of few words, not
the life and soul of the party he seems
at the front, but I’m happy to tell you
that I found him to be exactly who
you would hope he was if you’ve ever
seen his act – warm, cheerful, sincere
and awfully silly. As he says his dentist
would put it, you laugh as soon as he
opens his mouth. He’s genuinely funny,
but there’s a serious mission driving
him – his focus on sharing the gospel
is razor sharp.
After lunch and a good bit of banter,
we settled down in the sunny
conservatory and I began firing
questions at him. It turns out there are
a lot of things I want to know about
his line of work and this is my chance
to get some answers.
JS I’m really interested by how
people end up doing what they
do. How did you become a funny
magician?
When I was twelve or thirteen I
saw the late Paul Daniels make an
elephant disappear on the telly. It was
in the eighties, and every Saturday
night was Paul Daniels’ magic show.
I’ll never forget it – he was in a field
with an elephant and the beautiful
Debbie Magee in a pink bikini. A
tent went around the elephant, Paul
Daniels fired a gun and the tent fell to
the floor: the elephant disappeared.
And I thought, ‘This is incredible!
Wouldn’t this be a fantastic job!’
I tell people, dreams can come true. It
was my dream to become a magician.
I became a magician and the comedy
followed. As a thirteen-year-old I went
to the library and took out a book on
magic and subsequently bought other
books and I’ve been into it ever since.
I left school at 16, worked for Barclays
bank for five years, resigned after five
years and I’ve been on the road ever
since.
JS Is there such a thing as a magic
school – a real life Hogwarts?
I’ve learnt from books, and you
buy props. YouTube is great. And
there’s loads of magic dealers. You can
do incredible stuff with technology
these days.
JS So what’s the skill set? What does
it take to be good at doing magic?
Mainly bravado, charm and cheek
for me. Not much sleight-of-hand.
Most of it is having the courage to
stand up and do it – in a club or a pub.
It’s nerve-wracking.
JS Are there any magicians out
there who draw on weird occult
powers?
I’ve never seen anything like
that. It’s all trickery, sleight-of-hand,
misdirection. I mean Derren Brown
was a Bible-believing committed
Christian belonging to a lively church
in Bristol. So many people criticised
his magic that he is a fervent atheist
now. He hates Christians, he hates the
church, he hates Christianity.
JS Have you had any Christians
with issues about you doing magic?
It comes in waves. I’ve had a few
recently. It is stupid. Because it talks
about witchcraft and magic in the
Bible they have a problem with it. Talk
about ironic – I did something for a
vicar in Chelmsford in his back garden
last summer. He had a big hog roast
for all the volunteers in his church,
and there was one woman tucking
into all the seafood and pork at the
buffet. When the magic came on, she
stormed off because it was forbidden
in Scripture. There’s about 38 verses in
the Bible about magic, and 39 about
not eating pork and seafood. She’s
picking and choosing. I’m not a witch,
and I’m telling you that what I’m doing
is tricks. It would be very different if
I was in church, saying I was giving
words of knowledge and actually I had
a little earpiece. Unfortunately we’ve
seen some American televangelists do
that kind of thing.
JS So you can identify the strategies
and tricks they use?
Easy. Things like cold reading.
There are nine vague-ish phrases
you can use that apply to everyone.
You can buy books on it. You then
look at faces and develop it. If you
ask a woman to think of a card, most
women say seven of hearts. You can
do amazing things with that. Nine out
of ten times you can force the seven of
hearts. With men it’s ace of spades.
JS So most of what you see from
magicians, certainly all of what you
do, has nothing to do with actual
magic. But do you believe in the
reality of dark magic?
I do. I’ve not seen snakes coming
out of people or levitation or anything,
but I have credible friends who say
they’ve seen things like that. I had
a word of knowledge for someone
once and he literally threw himself
against the wall. I do believe in the
supernatural for sure, but the stuff I
do is just tricks.
JS When you describe yourself you
say you are an evangelist before a
magician or a comedian. When did
Christianity and your desire to share
your faith come into the story?
I became a Christian along the
way, at a Boy’s Brigade camp. I joined
the Boy’s Brigade in Bournemouth
because I heard you could play
football every Saturday and I heard
there was a Girl’s Brigade and they
were my two favourite activities. I
went on their camp and there was
a vicar there who believed in God. I
was about thirteen, and this vicar
explained the gospel in a way that
I understood. I’d never heard it
explained like that before. My family
aren’t Christians. You had to go to
church every week if you were in