By Bejay Browne
LIKE MANY others I find magicians and their tricks compelling. At a young age I was given a magic set and tried out my tricks on anyone and everyone. I wasn’t very good and much to the relief of my parents, friends and neighbours, I soon gave up. However my fascination with magic and illusions continued into adulthood.
So, I jumped at the chance of a magic lesson from Mike Mondeo, who says he can take anyone’s skills from beginner to professional. And minutes later I am able to ‘predict’ what card my audience would choose and to make a card ‘jump’ to the top of the deck. I’m also shown how to predict a card which has ‘randomly’ been cut in a deck. Unfortunately Mondeo swears me to secrecy and I’m not allowed to reveal how any of the tricks are done but for €20 you can find out by buying the self working card trick complete with a book showing you how to perform a further 100 tricks with the deck.
Mondeo offers the lessons at his Kato Paphos store, Top Hat Magic. At 54, he has over 30 years experience as a professional magician, performing at celebrity events, weddings, hen parties and more. His tiny shop spans magic props to novelties and fancy dress.
But if you want to delve deeper, the lessons will teach you “all the basic stuff, like slight of hand before progressing onto a variety of other tricks”. Lessons usually don’t last more than an hour and a half and cost €15 an hour.
“Magic has been my job for over thirty years and I feel very down if I don’t have a chance to show my magic off. It’s like a drug and I live off the feedback. Most magicians are children locked away in an adult’s body. I’m also an attention seeker,” Mondeo admits.
Living in Paphos for the last few years, the magician was a former member of the magic circle’s elite ‘inner circle’, and has appeared on a number of TV shows. He set up his magic shop two and a half years ago.
“Being a magician, I always wanted to have a little shop where I could sell magic and teach magic as well as go out and perform. I love doing table magic, as well as ‘mentalism’ (a form of mind reading he says) and stand up in front of a large audience.”
Mondeo’s clients come from all over the world as he says he is one of the cheapest magic stores, and include professionals from the UK, America, China and Europe. “It’s great to interact with other magicians as we bounce ideas off each other. I don’t make stuff myself, but for I will modify tricks so they work or look better.”
At this point Mondeo takes a large book of the shelf and asks me to open it at any page and randomly choose one of the words, writing it down on a piece of paper and putting it in my back pocket “for later”.
But back to earlier – Mondeo explains he became interested in magic at the age of 16. “I was in Covent Garden in London watching a magician. I thought it was brilliant, so I bought a few bits off him and went to watch him every weekend. He trained me up to cover his stall at weekends. On my first weekend a group of people saw my tricks and they signed me for a three year contract. It was a lucky break.”
He went on to perform magic at VIP hospitality events in the UK, including Formula One and Touring Car races. He also did numerous shopping centre promotions and says he loved it. “I was at all of the big events and during that time I got to meet the top agents and lots of celebrities, so my career progressed from there.”
While the magician has his back to me, I’m asked to colour in a sketch of a man decked out in a shirt, tie and shorts using marker pens I select from a jar. Without looking, Mondeo uses exactly the same colours. Impressive.
He has performed at numerous wedding receptions, charity balls, celebrity parties, private parties and galas with weddings being his favourite. “I love performing magic at weddings and going around tables as I love close up magic, mentalism and cabaret. I love the buzz from seeing people’s reactions. A lot of what I do is comedy based magic.”
For him it’s all in the reaction he provokes. “Mentalism freaks people out, as does bending a coin in their hand. Everything you do gets a different response and it’s great. I’m constantly doing things, thinking about tricks, setting them up – I must know thousands of tricks by now. But you only use a few – it’s the same with every magician.”
Mondeo says his family have been supportive of his chosen profession – his parents’ shed in the UK is still crammed full of his tricks and props – and says he is a globe trotter at heart. “I have lived in other countries and I get itchy feet easily. I’m always looking around the corner for the next opportunity and I want to spread my magic.”
During our conversation, Mondeo has asked me to pick two cubes – once again without him looking – one marked with different colours and one with different symbols. I place them facing upwards in two separate boxes, before closing them. At this point he reaches for a sealed envelope he showed me when I first walked in and placed in my view. I now open it. It states my name, the date and which cubes – colour and shape – I would choose. He was spot on.
In another example of mentalism, the paper which has been sitting in my back pocket for the last hour and a half with a word I randomly picked from a book is placed on the table next to his piece of paper. They both show the same word.
“This mentalism stuff can be done on stage as well as close up – it blows people away.” It certainly does, but these are tricks he won’t reveal the true magic of.
Top Hat magic store
21 Artemidos street, Kato Paphos, Tel: 96 829918, www.tophatmagicltd.com, [email protected]
