In preparation for my interview Mike Tyler, who is one half off comedy duo The Naked Magicians, I used my supreme investigative journalism skills and searched “the naked magicians” in YouTube. The first option to pop-up was entitled ‘2 Magicians, 2 Cups’ and was accompanied an image of two fit looking blokes bereft of clothing with an upside-down cylindrical shiny silver cup (more like a thermos in size) covering their genitalia. During the video the magicians execute the classic ‘which cup is a ball under?’ sleight of hand trick and manage not show any of their own ‘balls’, if you get the drift. “It took us about 50 takes to get it right because we kept flashing our bits and pieces, a little bit of nutsack would come into view. Of course we knew we couldn’t put it on YouTube if it had any male genitalia in shot,” explains an upbeat Tyler.
Both Tyler and the other naked magician Christopher Wayne are full-time career magicians with their ‘craft’ paying the bills and also seeing both men travel around the world. Performing magic naked creates many challenges, not the least of which is having no sleeves to hide objects in, but the nudity has an obvious shock-value to it. It seemed apparent to ask Tyler if he was concerned the nudity would take away from the real magic? “It’s interesting because we have been magicians for about seven to eight years each. I’ve been doing high-end corporate and Chris family shows,” he notes. “But we realised that we wanted to create a show that attracted an audience that otherwise wouldn’t go and see a normal magic show. We believe that everyone has that naughty cheeky side bottled up inside of them and we wanted to play on that ‘naughtiness’ to attract an audience that otherwise wouldn’t go to a magic show. People may come along for the nudity element but there are a lot of different elements of the show that appeals to different people like the really incredible magic, the non-stop laughs and of course we do promise full frontal nudity.”
Clearly the idea of getting naked in front of hundreds of people doesn’t bother him. A part of this comfort with his own naked form will come from Tyler’s experience on stage but it would also come from the fact he is fully ripped – as a teenager Tyler was an elite swimmer and he clearly has kept the physique of a high powered aerobic athlete. Wayne likewise is a fairly taunt and terrific specimen of the male form, but clearly his non-elite training base means that when he is placed naked beside the fully ripped Tyler his pale torso pales in comparison. “We had an interview with Star Observer last year and they put us on the front cover of the magazine but in the middle of the face-to-face interview the editor rang the interviewer and when he got off the phone he said to use ‘which one of you guys has got the abs? Let’s just do the interview with you’ And Chris was like ‘ouch, that hurts so much,” explains Tyler with a droll chuckle.
Concluding our chat, I ask Tyler to leave me with a pitch to explain why The Naked Magicians is bound to become one of highlights of Melbourne International Comedy Festival. “It’s a very engaging and interactive show,” he notes. “One of the tricks that we are very proud of – and we are the first people to ever perform it in Australia – is one where everybody gets a gift when they walk into the theatre, and the trick actually happens 100% in the audience’s own hands.”
BY DENVER MAXX
