Magic Tips: Tommy Cooper’s Applause Generator
Tommy Cooper used a script very similar to this before performing a magic trick:
Tommy Cooper: Ladies and gentleman, this next trick that I’m about to perform for you is so dangerous that I may die during the trick. Therefore, just in case I do not make it to the end, I would like to take my applause…. now!
[audience applauds]
Tommy Cooper (sounding disappointed): Oh well for that, I won’t bother doing it then!
This script itself is very clever in that it doubles as both a joke and an applause generator. The audience will feel compelled to applaud as otherwise they feel they might not get to see the trick. If you use this line you could then perform a card trick or sponge balls trick that involves no real threat to your life as a bit of humor afterwards.
Magic Tips: Entertain rather than decieve
“Magicians are the only ones who care about secrets. Everyone else wants to be entertained.”
- Regina Benedict Reynolds
Magicians often worry too much about keeping the magic secrets or methods from the audience. Magic often comes across as the art of deception. This should not be the case. Instead consider magic to be the art of creating illusions of the impossible in an entertaining way.
The fact of the matter is that it is less important that you fool the audience than it is to entertain them. This is best illustrated by Tommy Cooper who built his act around his discovery that people enjoyed themselves much more when the tricks went wrong. (His show would consist largely of tricks going wrong.)