Interview: Christopher Wayne is Magical when Naked

Do you like magical entertainment, but just a bit naughty? Like cheeky humor with a hint of cheek to go along with it? Does the "world's naughtiest and funniest magic show" sound like an entertaining way to spend a night? Then you need to get to the Balboa Theatre, Saturday April 1st for THE NAKED MAGICIANS.

I had a chance to chat with Christopher Wayne, one of the magical Australian duo, to chat about what brought him to magic and how performing a show on stage, naked, with his best friend seemed like a good idea.

So how did he first become interested in magic?

"For me, I've loved magic since I was 6 years old and my first ever memory is sitting down with my Grandfather and watching David Copperfield on videotape. So my love of magic, even though our show is very naughty, my love for magic is quite innocent in its origins. It's the cool thing about the Naked Magicians, that what we do with magic lets me introduce my favorite thing in the world to people who normally may not want to see a magic show. "

For Wayne, living a magical life was the only thing that actually felt like it made sense as a career.

"Magic is the only thing that ever made sense to me, in my life. For some reason it's in my blood, it's the one thing I'm sure about. I was meant to get on stage to make magic and make people laugh. And now I get to do it with my best friend in the world in front of 500 - 2000 people in the audience, with the added bonus of not having to wear pants to work."

His best friend and partner in crime in this magical adventure is Mike Tyler, and both he and Christopher had successful and clothed careers as magicians separate of each other prior to this show. But as Wayne explains this show is borne out of a shared love of magic, friendship, and the desire to do something never done before.

"Something that we both connected on as friends and entertainers is that we wanted to do something in magic that hasn't ever been done before. So one thing that we would discover as we searched around, is no one had made a naughty magic show. What was happening when Magic Mike came out, Mike, my costar Mike was a magician, people were making all these jokes ; about his magic wand, "Can you make your clothes disappear magically Mike?" That's where it started but we didn't rush into it.

We spent over 12 months working on this show because we knew that if it were done right it would have the potential to change our lives. And it really has, it's one of the biggest touring magic shows in the world right now. We are so grateful for that. We get to go on stage and make people laugh and amaze people every night."

Adapting traditional magic tricks to be workable by a naked magician is one kind of challenge, but what Wayne found was even more challenging was adapting an act that put the magic into the hands of the audience.

"We decided to do something, because the show is hilarious and we do get naked, but we wanted the magic to be incredible. So we decided to do a trick that left the stage and happened entirely in the hands of the audience. The audience doesn't have to take their clothes off. But we wondered if it's possible to magic happen in the audiences hands and if even person who comes to the show gets to do the magic instead of us? So we came up with this amazing trick

So that was the most difficult trick and the most magical. It was the most difficult to take the trick out of our hands. "

This sounds like a very modern, and minimalist approach to magic, but Christopher says there the audience is free to bring any magical misconceptions or predetermined ideas to the show with them. That way the show can really highlight how different they are.

"Those stereotypes are all there. A magician doesn't dress well; it's all about the bunny rabbit and the top hat, pulling handkerchiefs out, and the wand. We don't want people to forget that because we are the polar opposite of that. So when people see our show it really is, it's not that there's no magic show like this, there is no stage show like this on planet earth. It is wild, it is naughty, and it is one big finger up to everything that is traditional magic. So we want people to remember those stereotypes because the contrast to our show is an incredible thing."

So to recap: amazing of magic, cute guys, delightful accents, cheeky humor, anything else we need to know about this show?

"We do exactly what we say; we get onstage, we do some incredible magic, and we do it with no clothes on. There may be some people who don't want to see a show like that, but there are more people who do and that's why we love America."

I don't know why I'm still writing, you know you want to see this show! Tickets are available at http://sandiegotheatres.org/the-naked-magicians/ It probably goes without saying, but This show is for ages 18+ only due to language, sexual references and nudity. Absolutely no one under 18 will be allowed into this performance.

Photo Credit: THE NAKED MAGICIANS

To post a comment, you must register and login.