After the Close up Gala at this year’s Melbourne Magic Festival, a performer who I greatly respect came  over and congratulated me for a job well done. Adrian Krebbe has been performing as Harry Houdidn’t for years and years, though he’s just about retired from the performing life. I got to talking with him and told him a little bit about some of the rough times I’d been going through leading up to the Melbourne Magic Festival. He offered to meet up again and talk some more. I immediately agreed as I of course was eager to get some advice from him. He’s got a brilliant act, one of those acts that you see and think, “Man that’s clever, why didn’t I think of that!”

A few weeks later I was sitting having a coffee with Adrian, and I showed him a video of my show. He was very encouraging and said I have lots of good material, and gave me some pointers as to what part would be a good opener and which parts needed tightening up.

One of the tricks I have been working on for a long time is a trick with a thimble. And in the video which I showed to Adrian I performed the trick near the middle of my act as a little throwaway gag. He suggested opening with it as it is very eye-catching and entertaining.

So I later tried it as an opener and boy was he right. I was booked to do a holiday program magic show with three other performers. IT was a pretty lively bunch of children and could have turned out to be quite a challenging audience. I opened my act with the thimble piece and the response was phenomenal. I could hear the kids whispering: “It’s real magic!” I can’t speak for all other magicians, but I think it’s pretty flattering when I get that kind of response.

Some magic is complicated. Some magic is…. thimble.