Nothing Is Impossible: The Real-Life Adventures of a Street Magician (7 page)

PEOPLE BEGAN TAKING
me more seriously as a magician when I hit my mid-teens. I started to get asked to work around the estate at birthday parties, or my mum’s friends would want me to come over and perform at a party or a christening. Word spread slowly around Delph Hill, then Bradford, then Sheffield, and before I knew it, I was performing all over the North of England at clubs and parties.

Initially, people would just offer to pay for my petrol; so if I was playing a show in Leeds, I wouldn’t make much money. But me and my boys found a great system to make a few tips. I always liked people to tip because they wanted to. That said, sometimes of course you have to give people a little nudge.

Though I didn’t have many friends at school, I made lifelong friends when I was a teenager. Alex, Johnny and Marcus were my
boys back then and still are today. I had all of them involved in my work: Alex would drive us, Marcus would be security, and Johnny would collect the cash and deal with the bookings.

With the help of my friends, I formulated a routine that enabled me to make tips without really asking for them. I’d have a card, which just said ‘Dynamo’ and my logo on the front. I’d also have a glass full of props like pens, coins and cards, which I’d use for my magic. At the end of my act I’d say something like, ‘Here’s your card, the ace of spades. I’m Dynamo, thank you very much’… I’d then flip my logo card over and on the back it said ‘Tips please’.

My boy Marcus would pick up the empty prop glass, and Johnny, who’s in there pretending he’s not with us, would rush over and throw a fiver in it. Before you know it, everyone else would start chucking in cash.

It was all about the turnover. I’d do ten minutes and hit them with the tips. Usually, by that point I would have created a crowd of at least fifty people. They wouldn’t all tip but it was nice to have a few quid in your pocket.

I started doing this at sixteen years old, sneaking into student gigs and the odd club night. As my name continued to grow, I went from earning just a bit of petrol money, to getting paid to turn up, plus petrol money, plus tips. Student nights especially were always great, because they were always up for a bit of fun and would part with what they could.

Because people wanted the ‘product’ I was delivering, I started looking at merchandising and branding – albeit in a very informal, low-budget way. I would burn CD-ROMs with five Windows Media clips of me doing magic and sell them for a pound after each performance. I’d also sell Dynamo stickers which people would collect and cover themselves in from head to toe. We killed it.

the street has always been my stage

We’d make a lot of money playing in Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield or Manchester and then drive home.

We’d get back to Nan’s, where I was living at the time, at three in the morning, or whenever the club shut. ‘Shush, Marcus, you’ll wake me Nan up,’ I’d whisper as we sat around Nan’s dinner table and shared all the tips. ‘One pound for Alex, one pound for Johnny, one pound for Marcus and two pound for me.’ Everyone agreed that was a fair way to divvy up the cash.

Whatever time we got home Nan would appear. ‘Oh, you’re back, boys. Who wants some bacon sandwiches?’ she’d ask. I think she worried about me and couldn’t sleep until I was home and safe. Nan did everything for me and tried to keep my feet on the
ground. If I said I wanted to be a magician she’d say, ‘Yeah and I’ve heard ducks farting in deep water before.’

Nan fed me, she did my washing, and she paid the rent. I can’t even tell you what I spent all that money on. Stupid stuff that I couldn’t afford growing up: adidas trainers, Eckõ hoodies and New Era caps, rather than the non-branded cheap clothes from Woolies or hand-me-downs that I’d had as a child. ‘I’m gonna buy us all an Xbox each, then we can all play at the same time,’ I told the boys. We couldn’t have all just played on one together, of course. Stupid.

These were the days, though, before I had any formal business plan. In my mind, I loved magic and performing, and it happened to be a great way of making money to buy nice trainers, but I didn’t even consider I could make a career out of it. We were just living day-to-day on whatever money we had. It was just pocket money really but it was nice to feel like I was making my own way in the world.

With every booking I did, I quoted a low fee, so I was pretty much guaranteed to get three bookings off the back of it. I’d always set myself up for the next week on the night of the first gig. I wouldn’t charge people the earth so they’d book me, but then they’d tip me on top, and their friends would tip me, and before you know it you’ve covered your costs with a little extra. Occasionally, you would see the high rollers who want to show off to their friends. ‘Here you are mate, here’s fifty quid, good on ya,’ they’d say. But that rarely happened.

It’s funny but it felt like I had a lot more spending money, doing things the way I was back then, than I do now. I’m very comfortable financially now, of course, but because I had no outgoings the little bit of money I had went a long way.

Everywhere I went, my boys came with me. I wasn’t the leader of the group, but I was like the boss: a leader makes sure everyone knows to follow, but a boss makes sure everyone eats.

I suppose I had a certain sort of fame back then. ‘
I’m the king of Bradford, man!
’ said the arrogant voice inside my head. In reality, I was nothing; I was a local kid with a bit of local fame. But I was popular for the first time in my life, and that was an incredible feeling. I’d finished school, so all the people who’d had opinions about me and who had judged me didn’t matter anymore. The ones who were important were my friends and they stuck with me.

It was one of the most exciting times in my career. It was certainly when I was the most hungry. I’d get in at five in the morning and start preparing new ideas.

It was before I’d been tainted by any of the negatives that success can bring, and before I’d had many knock-backs. I felt like I was totally in control. I was, if I’m being honest, probably caught up in the idea of potentially being able to make money from my magic. As I got older, I realised that money can only buy you things that make you happy in the short term, but there’s a bigger picture too.

It wasn’t only at school and as a teenager that magic helped me. I’m not the biggest guy, so magic saved me at times. It got me out of scuffles, it’s distracted someone who was about to rob me. Magic would get me into a club even though the bouncers thought I wasn’t dressed right. It’s got me out of where I grew up in Delph Hill and taken me all the way around the world.

I let people come to me and with that, the money followed. If it had been the reverse and I was trying to win people’s attention because I wanted money, it would never have worked.

It wasn’t really that much of a conscious decision on my part; these are things I learnt along the way or have only come to realise now that I reflect on them. My initial hunger came from wanting to feel important and cool and popular, because I was bullied. I wasn’t the cool kid, I wasn’t popular, I didn’t have a dad and I guess I was a bit of a geek.

But it was being a geek that drove me to hone my skills almost to the point of obsession. That obsession has made me the magician that I am today. When I started to succeed, that’s when I began to find myself. People started to like me, and like my magic.

Despite the excitement of making money for the first time, it wasn’t my main motivation. Neither was it simply about chasing fame. It was about acceptance. That was where my hunger really came from. One of the most important things I’ve taken away from making my TV show
Dynamo: Magician Impossible
is that people not only respected my work, but also they accepted
me
. I didn’t pretend to be anything I wasn’t; I took the camera to my old estate, I featured my boys, I talked about being bullied. And people still accepted me. This was really the first time I not only felt that way, but, as cheesy as it sounds, I accepted myself. I let go of trying to be cool, I let go of hoping people would like me.

I approached
Dynamo: Magician Impossible
in exactly the same way as I have always approached my magic; I wanted people to accept me for who I was, and they have. Magic, like so many things in my life, was the key to that.

CHAPTER 3

MAGIC YOU CAN TOUCH

‘STEVEN, TIME TO
get up. I need a hand please.’ My Nana Lynne’s broad Bradford accent boomed outside my bedroom door just as dawn was breaking. Blearily opening my eyes, I checked the alarm clock: 5.45 a.m. I could hear the dogs barking already from the kennels down the back of the garden. I groaned and went back to sleep.

If you’ve ever wondered what living with nineteen dogs is like, I can tell you: smelly, loud and hairy. When I asked my Nana Lynne if I could stay in America with her for a few months, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.

She had moved to Memphis with her new husband, Martin, a few years before and set up her own dog-breeding business. A champion dog breeder, my Nana Lynne has nineteen award-winning Golden Retrievers. She travels across the US from state to state in her purpose-built Winnebago, doing all of the major dog shows. As I had decided to defer my place at college for a year, I thought it would be a good experience for me to hang out in America for a bit. Although I’d pictured Disneyland and supersized fast food, I got dog shows and Pedigree Chum.