The Naked Magicians uncovered

We ask artists and performers about how some of their most famous work happened. This week Dani McDonald talks to to Mike Tyler about how the Australian came up with naughtiest magic show around, The Naked Magicians.

here are a few different, contributing factors that helped create the idea and then move on to create the actual show.

‘‘Have you heard of The Illusionist with Simon Painter? He’s the creator and one of the producers of The Illusionist and Chris (our producer) and Sam (the other naked magician) were working on The Illusionist back in 2012/13 when the movie Magic Mike came out. Of course, my name’s Mike and I’m out doing magic and when

"I don't mind being objectified, if that bothered us we definitely would be in the wrong job."

that movie came out all of a sudden I got a lot of strip related jokes at me after my clothed shows.

‘‘Our audience members came up to me afterwards and said things like, ‘how bigs ya magic wand?’ and ‘can you make your clothes disappear’ that kind of stuff.

‘‘I don’t mind being objectified, if that bothered us we definitely would be in the wrong job.

‘‘It was kind of part the movie and part that Simon came to us and was chatting to Chris and Sam and he came up with the idea for a show called The Naked Magician, a one man show. The poster would be a guy standing naked with a top hat covering his bits and pieces.

‘‘At that point Chris and I were best mates and I had already telling him about these experiences I had been having at shows, with people making these strip related jokes and stuff.

‘‘So he came to me and said, what about if we did a duo act and called it The Naked Magicians and made the world’s funniest and naughtiest magic show - and do a show that no magician has ever done before?

‘‘We thought, let’s take magic to an audience that wouldn’t normally see a magic show. So, instead of doing shows for families or kids shows, even corporate events, we wanted to take it to the girls’ night out kind of crowd.

‘‘The show now is an orgy of magic, comedy and nudity all intertwined. It is the perfect girls’ night out and we get a lot of guys coming to the show as well - straight and gay guys - and we love that too.’’

❚

The Naked Magicians take the stage at the Auckland Town Hall from May 1-5 as part of the NZ International Comedy Festival.