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[0:14] Robert Bannon: Welcome to the round table, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon. You're listening to us on Umbral World over here on the Broadway Podcast Network, iHeart and Spotify. You know, theater comes in all shapes and sizes, and some of my favorite theater in the entire world is magic. And I took magic classes when I was a kid. Two summers in New Jersey, taught by a clown. And could I make those little red balls multiply? Sometimes. Sometimes I could. So when I see people like Jamie Allan who are out here with sold-out shows in the West End, the highest grossing magic show of all time in Chicago, and now coming to New York City, Amaze is probably the right name because he's pretty amazing. Jamie Allan is here to tell us all about. I want the full scoop. I want all, well, not the secrets. I want the scoop though. What are we going to see? Jamie Allan, welcome to the show.

[0:59] Jamie Allan: Oh, Robert. What a great introduction. I hope we can live up to it for you.

[1:02] Robert Bannon: Jamie, do you know how to make little red balls multiply?

[1:05] Jamie Allan: Do you know what? I have my little girl, Nevada, who lives here in town with us, and I taught her that trick last week. And I have a video of the time that she got it right. And it was a very heartwarming moment. I don't want to be that dad that's trying to push you into magic, you know, but I'll give it, I'll give it a little go.

[1:21] Robert Bannon: Well, I dropped out of magic school after that lesson. That's as far as like I got the coloring book. I can do the coloring book. I think that I started when I was five. My daughter's five. I thought, given to them now, then you've maybe got half a shot too, right?

[1:35] Jamie Allan: Um I grew up in England. Um I grew up in the Midlands, uh near near Birmingham or near Stratford upon Avon, as I mentioned in the show, uh would be the closest geographical place that people would have heard of. Um, and uh yeah, I I I grew up in a little pub um that my mum and dad bought um that they turned into a cabaret venue when they stopped touring around so that I could go to school. And uh yeah, and that's where I learned magic, and it's actually where I did my first show in a hundred seat theater that my parents ran.

[2:05] Robert Bannon: So you really grew you were born into this business.

[2:08] Jamie Allan: Yeah, no magicians in the family. My mum and dad were musicians, but, you know, but my mum and dad were supportive of anything. I mean, and also I think they were happy that I was getting into something to do with the arts.

[2:19] Robert Bannon: How do you fall in love with magic? Like, was there a person, a moment, a show, a trick?

[2:26] Jamie Allan: There was, well, I mean, like most magicians will tell you that they got a magic set, and so did I. In fact, my original magic set was a Fisher Price magic box that forms part of my original Fisher Price magic set is actually on the stage of this show. It's referred to because our whole show is set in the attic of the pub that I grew up in. The stage set is that. And, um, yeah, but that wasn't that was the thing that got my interest going, but it wasn't really the thing that really started it. That was when I was about, I want to say eight or nine years old after I'd already done a show. It didn't mean much to me at the time, it was just a hobby. But I went into an antique shop with my mom, and in that antique shop was the entire estate of a magician that had passed away, and my mom in return for a lot of favors from me and a lot of bargaining, she managed to get all of this stuff.

So I kind of grew up with all this history around me, which has made me today, I'm still more fascinated by what magicians were doing a hundred years ago and trying to find a new way of doing it than I am whatever new trick has come out.

[3:27] Robert Bannon: Wait, you randomly went to an estate sale of a, it was almost like call talking about magic.

[3:33] Jamie Allan: I mean, yeah, well I'm old enough that this was before eBay, so it this wasn't like it was a completely random thing, and also this stuff was far, far more valuable than we paid for it. It was just, you know, that somebody family member of this magician had all this stuff and didn't know what to do and took it to this antique shop and this guy sold it all to us.

[3:57] Robert Bannon: Oh, I'm amazed. That is an amazing story. So you're probably lucky because sometimes the magicians have been on the show who have been to New York or are on tour, and I'm always amazed because saying I want to be on Broadway or I want to be in New York, I want to be off Broadway, I want to be in theater, is a lot for some parents to take.

[4:17] Jamie Allan: Yeah, I can imagine if you're gonna join the circus, it's a lot for your parents to take. I'm sure it's similar to saying I'm gonna be a professional magician. It I suppose there's always that worry. I mean, they encouraged me to try and do the best I could with my education, and I did, I did the best that I could, but I was never really academic because my head was always in the clouds with this. I always knew because bearing in mind that all of my parents' friends were entertainers, well, nearly all of them. So including some magicians. So to me, it seemed to be a completely reasonable job. I just had to figure out how to get it done. And my mom and dad were, you know, were a big help in that.

But I mean, we didn't have money as such. I mean, we were running this venue that was very successful, but that comes with a huge amount of overheads and stress and problems, and yeah, so we did, you know, but that my dad helped me build all my illusions when I was young and everything, and my mom used to make all the outfits, she was a great seamstress. So I had I couldn't have had more support, which I'm eternally grateful for because it's landed in this show, and actually, all of these things I'm talking about is a huge part of the subject matter because our show is more than a magic show, it's a storytelling.

[5:21] Robert Bannon: Okay, that's what I was gonna ask you. So it's not just you're gonna come out and do a bunch of tricks, you're gonna, it's a theatrical experience, it's more like a one-man play.

[5:29] Jamie Allan: Um, and it really is. If you're a child that remembers the big movies in the 80s, early 90s, if you're a, because the show is set in the 80s, it all takes place in real time. It's first person in the room, and we're relating these incredible stories, include and it has a true story arc to it. And it's also, dare I say it, it's really emotional. I mean, for me too, because we tried to set off doing this show. Previously, I'd run a big show called iMagician, which is just a big spectacular high-tech magic show. And it had a little bit of an arc to it, but not nothing to really speak of. It was mainly magic forward facing. And then this time, I said, what if we how much truth could we put into magic?

Because there's with a magician, we all agree to participate in a deception, right? When we come to watch a magic show. We all agree that the magician might be saying that box is empty when maybe it isn't. And we're all on board with that, but we have to lie. And I said, is there a way that we could do a magic show where we don't lie? Well, and where we base so much in the truth, and also importantly for this show, one of the big reveals at the end of this show, which I won't say what it is, but it feels like a magic trick. The conclusion of the story, it gets a similar reaction to a magic trick. And that was something we wanted to experiment with, and it's highly emotive. We have a lot of people that feel very, very emotional about this show and the way that it ends.

[6:52] Robert Bannon: Oh, amazemagic.com, everybody, is where you can get your tickets. It's going to be at the beautiful New World Stages. It's such a great venue. You can see all and you have very interesting and fun times. So, like people on the weekends on a Friday, on a Saturday, like there's a time for you to take your family, take your friends, take your loved ones. Like, you're not, you don't have to, the shows are not all eight o'clock at night for the grown.

[7:16] Jamie Allan: No, no. I mean, in the weeks, we're mostly adults with, you know, there's always maybe two or three kids in the audience, but I mean, mostly we are adults in the week, and, um, but we're getting a lot of date nights of retirees. I mean, we, uh, with a magic show, we get everybody across the spectrum, and of course we get the families on the weekend, which is why we've added those additional shows. So we have a 2 p.m., 5 p.m. and an 8 p.m. on a Saturday, and then two shows on a Sunday.

[7:40] Robert Bannon: Is it a lot for you to do it three times a day?

[7:43] Jamie Allan: Um, well, actually, I also have an incredible understudy called Harry DeCruz, who helped me create the show, and some of these stories in the show, you know, we wrote it together with an incredible team and our director, Jonathan Goodwin. Um, but it's all based on truth. But Harry does, um, and I don't want to, I want to try and get this right. Harry does Wednesday nights, um, and he does um Saturday, one of the shows on Saturday regularly, and then sometimes if I may have two days off, because we're running 52 weeks of the year, so then Harry does the show as well. But I'm doing we are usually nine shows a week. I think we may be going to 10, and um, and then Harry will probably do two or three of those shows. So I do a regular theater week.

[8:28] Robert Bannon: Ten shows, ten shows.

[8:30] Jamie Allan: Well, we have so I mean, here's the story behind that, though, because this is all a very purposeful decision on our part. If you want to talk at all about the business about this, but I mean, we turned down an offer to do this on Broadway because I just had a feeling how that story may have ended, with the extreme costs involved. And um, we looked at, you know, one of the four nine nine uh theater, and we ended up. I said, if we can cram this show into the one nine nine, we're in stage five, 199 seats, but this is the full West End production, and it's a massive scale show. So I'm very confident that this is the largest show that's ever been in this theater. And we're blessed that we're also the highest grossing show they've ever had in this theater.

Because we know that magic just works in this small environment. If you can see large scale illusions that close, you really feel like you're part of it. And although we never involve anybody in the audience if they don't want to be involved, there are moments in the show when everybody gets to participate and they really feel like we're part of a family in there, and it just works. So it's all purposeful because people ask me, oh, are you here trying to get on Broadway?

[9:37] Robert Bannon: I'm like, no, we're here trying to stay right here. I mean, another another another 50 or 80 seats would be nice. Yes, uh, sure, especially when you look at the calendar, everybody. There are shows that sell out, there are shows that don't have many tickets. So if you want to get your tickets for the holidays, if you want to get the perfect idea for your family, now's the time, like now, don't wait. Now is a good time because it's September. So this is our quiet month on Broadway, right? Everybody's doing two for ones and things, and uh, we are uh, but we we're doing we're doing good. But um, in September for the next couple of weeks, there should be reasonable tickets availability on the midweeks.

Uh, but as soon as we start to wrap up into October, yeah, we do sell out most shows. And you your producing team and everybody that's over with your your entire incredible production, they do have accessible tickets for people who are looking for they're not all you don't have to mortgage your house to come see the show.

[10:24] Jamie Allan: No, we absolutely do, and we do have rush tickets available through telecharge, which um I'm not too entirely sure um how that works, but I know that it is a thing, and students and everything. So there's no excuse, go go go see the show.

[10:36] Robert Bannon: Exactly, yes. And also, our accessible seats for um uh if you're a wheelchair user, it's phenomenal. They're really great in this venue, which I was something I liked about it. No excuses, that's it. No homework. Go, go. So for you, there are other magicians. New York City is a magic city. There's lots of shows. There's lots of shows that tour around. What what is different about your show than some of the other shows you can see?

[10:58] Jamie Allan: Some of the things one of the things I mentioned, you will never see a show of this scale in such an intimate space. Um, so that's that's the main thing about it. But also, it's as I mentioned, it's a really emotive experience. Uh people leave saying that they just were not expecting that. They come along seeing the poster. It depends on which ad reel they happen to have seen if they came in through social media. Some of them show the big illusions, some of them tell a little of the storytelling, but that's really it is that it's a a throwback and it's just got such beauty and heart to it. It's got so much truth, and we all connect with it. There's nobody who comes into the show who doesn't feel a connection.

Uh it's exciting. You have like um when this came out, when I tell you four star reviews, like literally on the West End in Chicago, wherever you go, the reviews are crazy. But it's very vulnerable. Not only are you doing your magic, but it's your story. So, what is it like to get the feedback from reviews and fans?

[11:57] Jamie Allan: I don't read the reviews unless somebody points one to me directly and says, You probably do want to read this. Um, because this show is very personal to me. It's my story, it's me. I'm giving a lot of myself, it's my whole life, and it's uh, you know, and if if if somebody you know doesn't like it, then it's probably better that I don't uh I don't need to uh see it. Well, I'm aware, I'm aware of the headlines, and I'm aware that we have um, you know, the vast majority of four or five star reviews. I I mean I don't I haven't seen any that have been less than that, so we're really blessed. But you know, but I love it. And if you come to the show, you you'll see I'm I'm having the time of my life here.

Uh it's fantastic. And every night is like a party, and getting people that are passionate about what I want to share with them, and um, and letting them inside to know a bit more about why these things are done and and why some of them are important. Um, I think people feel enlightened by it.

[12:57] Robert Bannon: Well, don't worry, Jamie. We're gonna spend the rest of this interview reading every review that's ever been written about your so when when you read the Chicago Tribune, that's the good one. Okay, done. We could do that when you when you look out in the audience and you see young kids, you see families. This might be their first experience in a theater, this might be their first magic show. You're inspiring them to think create. There's why I loved magic as a kid is because when kids come from homes that sometimes may have issues, maybe they have issues with family, school, work is hard. Magic makes us believe that anything is possible. It is escaped, it escapes us from our reality.

[13:31] Jamie Allan: Yeah, not just for the kids, right? It's for every adult. It's um, I mean, good all good theaters should do that. Um, but magic particularly, it's a and it's such a great diverse art form because every five minutes something completely new is happening, and we're starting another little story on another little journey. Uh, it's not just music driven, so you think that there's there's such a lot of diverse and up and down around it every time, but also all of our tricks are interconnected, like even things that feel random in the show. Every single thing in the show is part of the narrative, and it all makes sense.

[14:03] Robert Bannon: So, my question to you, you brought up before that you you create or craft, or you use the fancy word for like making and these illusions. So I don't we don't think about this. I'm fascinated. I know you're not going to give us the scoop, but what is the process? Do you come up with the idea? Do you write it down? Do you have to mark model? Like, what do you do?

[14:21] Jamie Allan: Yeah, so I mean, there's many ways the magic comes into the show. Some of these things are classics from over a hundred years ago that I have found a new twist and angle to. Um, some things are things that friends of mine have created that we've worked with them to uh do something, and then the bulk of the second half of the show um is all original material that I've created, but it follows the arc of my my creative process as well. Um, so in the case of uh, I mean, we'll give a little spoiler. At one point in the show, um, a full-scale Harley Davidson appears in the blink of an eye, and it's a um, and it's not there's pictures of it on the posters. I think some people come in expecting to see it at some point.

And so that's an illusion I designed, and um it's something I'm particularly proud of because it's it's done, you know, that this bike appears less than three feet away from the front row. It's incredibly close to them, and um it's so incredibly fast. And the the process for that was just years. I mean, that illusion was four different illusions before it became to this, which is why sometimes magicians really take the hump if somebody steals a magic trick from them because you can't copyright you we can protect the show, we can protect the script, but we can't protect the magic that's in it. Um, not completely. And if somebody steals the end result of it, then it's very frustrating because by this point with this trick, I may be you know 70, 80,000 pounds into this idea, and you know, that's not the case with all of them, but it you know, with some certain things, and I may have worked so much and so long for somebody to come along and just grab the end result.

Um, that can be very frustrating. But we tried to keep the stuff off of offline, and we have a very strict no videos policy in the theater, so we try to control um that people are seeing these things and they exist in their imagination. Um, because nowadays you post it onto live and it's gone. Over.

[16:10] Robert Bannon: Jamie, I refuse to think I believe that you're magic and they're all real. I'm not even gonna try to figure it out. There's a moment in this show that is that it feels like real magic, and it's completely true.

[16:20] Jamie Allan: Okay, well, that's all. I'm sold. I'm ready to come see the show. I have a friend Mike, and me and Mike have made a point to go to every magic show that comes to New York, and there are great ones, and there are ones that are a work in progress, and there are new people and legends like you, and everybody needs to support this art form because it's one of the oldest art forms in the entire world.

[16:40] Jamie Allan: Yeah, second oldest profession in the world. We won't talk about that one. Times Square knows all about the first one back in the day. They're gone, most of most of them, but you're here, but you're here.

[16:57] Robert Bannon: Right? That a whole new tricks has many meanings. Perfect. That was you couldn't have paid me to come up with a better joke than that, Jamie. Amazemagic.com. Where can we follow you? Go to your website, but I'm sure we're we're on social media as well.

[17:09] Jamie Allan: We have, yeah, we're on Instagram at Amaze Live, and I think we're at uh on Jamie Allan's Amaze on Facebook. Um, and we're actually making a push in the next couple of weeks that we'll be doing some more fun stuff on there to show people some actual magic rather than just all flash, and you're here for as long as you want to be. We are, we've just extended. Um, so we've extended through February, and um, we'll see where we go from there.

[17:33] Robert Bannon: Well, when you're coming to New York this winter, and it's this holiday season, it's a magical time to be in New York City, you're not gonna want to miss it. Amazemagic.com. You could get your tickets, grab them now. I'm telling you, don't write him on Instagram on December 19th asking for a ticket. They'll be gone. There's nothing we can do about it. Um, it's such an honor to be here. I'm so excited to take my family and go see the show. And congratulations, because for you to be here in New York City in the middle of Times Square and doing this show with this incredible reviews and incredible audiences every night is quite the feat. That is that is not only magic, but real hard work and showmanship.

[18:07] Jamie Allan: So we wrap it. An overnight success that was 40 years in the making. I'm gonna go find myself an estate sale and maybe I can find some.

[18:16] Robert Bannon: That's insane. It's insane. It's a crazy coincidence, right? But I mean, sometimes these things happen. But I mean, you know, this show is about crazy coincidences, decisions and moments that shape our lives and who and why we become the people that we do.

[18:31] Jamie Allan: Well, everyone, there's a show in you too. So make sure it find those connections. Thank you for being here inspiring me. I'm gonna take out those those little red balls. I'm gonna get back to it.

[18:41] Jamie Allan: Yo, you do it when you come, let me know, and you can demonstrate it to me.

[18:44] Robert Bannon: Okay, oh my god, never in a million years would I do a magic trick to you, Jamie Allan. But I'll be looking forward for yours. Thanks for being here.

[18:53] Jamie Allan: Thank you so much, Robert. It was lovely talking with you.