James, thanks for taking the time to talk to us. Firstly can you tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get into it and how did you get to be an award winning magician?

- although I didn’t come to magic until I was about 22 (about 10 years ago) I can look back at my childhood and see that there were many thinks being put in place. For example: I grew up on a holiday park surrounded by entertainers. They used to get the brass of the day as well, so it wasn’t the red coat brigade!
As well as that general influence, I was also a devious little gig! Nothing insidious you understand, just mischievous. At the age of 5 I used to wait in the on site supermarket for a large harrassed family, drop an ice cream into their basket, and pick it up when they had paid! I also used to stand and shiver next to the hotdog stand till someone took pity on me and bought me one!
After school (I got into loads of trouble but that’s another story) I followed in my mums footsteps and studied nursing.
At about 22 I saw David Blaines first TV special and was hooked. I bought a pack of cards and started to work out what he was doing. I think what made it different for me was that I had a good understanding of psychology and coimmunication. I understood WHY magic worked! The HOW could wait a bit. I joined the local magic society for a short time (Wessex Magical Society) but felt their direction wasn’t right for me. My big learning curve came when I got a residency in a fairly rough bar. I did Thurs Fri & Sat nights and really cut my teeth.
The awards were won because I was the right person at the right time. I don’t think magic ability can be judged by comp acts!

What books and videos (besides your own excellent ones which you can plug at this point if you want) would you recommend?

Doc Eason was a great inspiration during my time at the bar. Tommy Wonder for his incredible understanding of performance. Gary Kurtz for leading me with his head! And Greg Wilson for his naturalness in performance.

My dvd & lecture notes will give you an understanding of my attitude towards misdirection (not always conformist). Please buy them. This way I will have enough money to maybe do some more!

Recently you seem to be leaning heavily towards blending magic with hypnosis, can you tell us more about this?

I have always been interested in Psychology, NLP and hypnosis. I have used aspects in all my work but specifically the misdirection and state management. Recently I began to experiment with full inductions and the impact they have with magic and found I can blend hypnosis, magic and pick pocketing to enormous effect.

Do you not feel that some effects such as reverse mind reading or a hypnotic card force are almost too damn powerful?

Like any magic, it is up to you to pace the audience and then ‘tell’ them how to repond. This is done ideally on an unconscious level without them being aware. Saying that though, everyone responds differently to different things so it is as much about feeling the moment as it is about anything else.

Now you’re entirely self taught in hypnosis, what books and/or DVD’s would you recommend?

Reality is Plastic by Anthony Jacquin and Deeper and Deeper by Jon Chase.

It is also worth looking at youtube but not until you know enough to sift through the crap!

Rumour has it that you actually got punched at Blackpool over some hypnosis.

Not strictly true. After a good hypnosis session this young lad went back to his ‘friends’ who convinced him I had mistreated him in some way. Add lots of alcohol. He came over shouting and hit me on the back of the neck. Once he calmed down we had a quick chat and by the end of the evening he was buying me drinks and all was fine. No hard feels. I did learn from the experience though!

Would you mind giving us your side of the story and what, if anything, you learnt from it?

Be in control. Think about the effect the hypnosis COULD have and build in safety features! All experience is there to be learnt from!

Right we’ll bring it back towards magic more. You seem to really favour some sleights, the side steal and cull mainly. Do you deliberately focus on them or is it just an accident that they feature so much in your work?

Just the most efficient tools for the job I found, that’s all!

In your Lecture DVD you talk about just not caring if a spectator catches a move, how long did it take you to get to this point?

As I said earlier, my life experience lead me to this. It is just a state of mind born from an understanding that, quite frankly, its not that important! If you get caught, so what. Brush it away as irrelevent and get on to something good. The less you focus on it the less they will. If its important to you its important to them!

Who has influenced you most in your work?

Everyone I meet is an influence. I model people. Its a really good way to develope.

How do you feel exposure and file sharing is affecting the art as a whole?

I realise why many magicians are passioonate about all this, but the truth is it makes no difference to a working pro. So what if they know what a thumb tip is! Fool them with it anyway. The more magicians go on about it the more interest they create. I bet the masked magician is watched by more magicians than anyone else!

Is there a question you’d like to have been asked? What is it and what’s the answer?

Are you available for lectures and conventions?

Yes!