David Knight is a 33 year old Bristol Born professional magician who has been based in Dublin for the last three years. He is a psychological illusionist and specializes in very natural feeling mental entertainment. He has just launched an international tour and will leave for the UK and beyond at the start of May. David will be premiering the new show “Mind Man” in Dublin before he leaves, this will be happening at Sin nightclub in Dublin on the 25th of April at 7.30pm, tickets are €10 and will be available at the door, or in advance from the venue.

David, if you could provide any piece of advice to an aspiring magician, what would it be?

Try and be original, don’t try and be Keith or Derren. Take from them but deliver in your own style. It is far more important to have an original persona that clever tricks. Magicians forget that they are entertainers first and foremost and I hate to say it but, NO ONE BELIEVES IN MAGIC so you have to offer something more than a well rehearsed trick. The presentation and you yourself are everything.

When you were first getting into magic, and as your own career was developing, what magicians influenced you?

David Copperfield above all, then later Derren Brown who introduced me to the field I now work in and the like of Theo Annemann

Is there any commercially available effects, be it a book, a DVD or a single effect that you rate very highly? Why?

The last one I purchased was a doozy – so I’m not promoting it! Overall I think Menny Lindenfeld’s ‘Hollow’ card effect is wonderful and dreadful businessman though he is, theres much to be said for Jay Sankey. my friend Owen Lean – whom is represented on the site has some great tips and effects in his e-books too and shouldn’t be overlooked.

Do you find that exposure today, be it the likes of the Masked Magician, or more recently, youtube, file sharing etc is having an adverse effect on the art?

I think the behind the scenes clips of Copperfield’s big end effects on youtube have hammered home the final nails into the coffin of stage illusion. It is dying out and on the whole thats a good thing as everyone is doing the same stuff. Unless you have Copperfield’s budget and time, leave it alone. There are too many acts built around second rate box effects – I should know, I was one of them! On the whole I think the masked magician did a great job in not revealing anything of practical stage use and exposing those who were performing poor standards of predictable rubbish.

How important do you feel membership of an orginization (IBM, Magic Circle etc) is to the career of a magician?

To their career – not at all. To the starting magician, they’re a great resource. remember that they are predominantly social clubs and you should seek many avenues of research to further you art. Areas outside of magic are great for providing original ideas and presentation techniques as other magician’s won’t have stumbled onto them in such vast numbers. Hard to be different if we all learn from the same magic shop or club.

What ‘type’ of magic do you feel most drawn to? What do you
associate yourself with the most? (Mentalism, Grand Illusion, Close-up etc)

I am in the mentalist category but I work regularly in bars and functions as a close up magician. Close up mentalism is the new budding area I am into and with my almost prop-less approach, it is really starting people getting excited about seeing magic again. They’ll never accept it as real and I am going against the grain by offering real world explanations including science and psychology which, although they still don’t understand and are thrilled by, at least they don’t feel that I’m insulting their intelligence.