A few years back, I did a panel at Blackpool Magic Convention on TV Magic. A question that was asked repeatedly was…

All of us did our best to answer the question, but I’m not sure our answers were the ones people wanted to hear. A few months ago, my friend Richard Young wrote about how the most famous magicians landed their first TV gig. I asked him to write this to help illustrate how there is no set route to get your own TV show as a magician. Not only that, the best way to go about it changes every few years.

Before the pandemic, I pitched a magic show and was told quite definitely that no channel wants a magic show this quarter. Magic shows have become expensive and disposable. A lot of money is spent on an episode of television viewers are unlikely to revisit. The commissioner told me solo magic shows had been blacklisted much like how Sketch Comedy had been. Several years ago in the U.K., it felt like every channel had its own comedy duo with a sketch comedy series. This is no longer the case.

Solo magic shows are a big bet for a channel; what if viewers don’t like the magician? Worse, what if they love them and the magician runs off to another channel? Even when you see a comedian given a huge new show, you’ll notice that the format will continue without them if they move to another channel. The channel will replace the host with another and plough forwards. This is so difficult to do with a solo magic show. If you’re watching Dynamo or Blaine, you’re watching them, not the format.

There remains, however, a solid opportunity for magicians to appear in two types of television formats.

1. Guest Spots, like on America’s Got Talent, Penn and Teller: Fool Us, and talk shows like Jimmy Fallon.

2. Gang Shows, like any of the six failed attempts at “Impractical Jokers with Magic.”

Today, let’s look at Gang Shows.

Btw, I hate the term “gang show”…

What’s a Gang Show?

A gang show is a TV format in which a group of individual talent comes together to act as a gang or team for the show. It’s a popular format for magic as it minimises the risk that one artist will take ownership of the audience. It lets the channel target a wider variety of viewers, and they’re often cheaper to produce.

Some magic examples of this magic gang format include:

Are Gang Shows Really That Popular?

I work on development shows quite a lot, and without fail, there are a few gang shows in development every year. I know some production companies like to include a magic show in their deck when they meet with channels. It’s a nice thing to add to a meeting. Production companies won’t pitch anything they can’t own, and so when they pitch magic formats, they tend to pitch gang shows.

Here’s why I think magicians should take gang shows seriously. They’re a great foot in the door to TV. Barry and Stuart’s first entrance into the world of television was a gang show called Monkey Magic. They’ve since starred in multiple gang shows and had their own TV series. You can see baby Justin Willman on Totally Hidden Extreme Magic, and now he’s the poster boy for family comedy on Netflix.

Meanwhile, Ryan Tricks met with Vice to discuss a gang show for Channel Five and managed to impress them enough with a calculator trick that they changed the entire television show to be about him.

I know of a U.K. magician who took a meeting with a successful producer about a gang show. Upon ordering food, he turned to the producer and said, “look, I’m not doing your gang show, but as we’ve ordered, we might as well talk about a possible solo show we can do?” The producer was actually quite impressed by this.

While this newsletter post is not telling you you need to get onto a gang show. It’s here as a reminder that being the person a channel thinks of for gang shows is absolutely worthwhile and a huge step towards getting your own television show.

Who hires the magicians?

So the way it works is TV channels commission formats that get pitched by production companies. Even the Netflix original series Magic for Humans was produced by Absolutely Productions on behalf of Netflix.

Different people can own the format of the television shows. But when it comes to gang shows, it tends to be the production company that will often sell the show without confirming talent. A channel might give a company some development money to shoot a pilot or even a taster tape and cast magicians. They might like a deck but want to see the magicians before commissioning an entire series or pilot. That’s when the company must go out and find magicians.

It’s the production companies you need to impress. But be wary; they will replace you as quickly as a channel commissioner can say, “We like the show, but we don’t like that one magician.”

I’ve worked on two magic shows in development in the U.K. Both had magicians in the taster tapes and in the decks who entirely believed they were indeed the show's stars. The taster tapes and decks both included the wording, “Starring magicians like…” — it was clear they were signalling to the channel they’d be buying the format, not the magicians.

You’d be surprised at how limited an everyday person’s contact book of magicians might be. If you’re frustrated that the same five magicians get all of the TV gigs, it’s because the channels only know of the same five magicians.

When a production company has an idea for a magic show, they will not spend weeks searching online for magicians. They’ll go to the first people they know off the top of their head. This tends to be one of very few people in the U.K…

Magicians like Katherine Mills, Troy, Ben Hanlin, Ben Hart, Magical Bones, John Archer come to mind in most development rooms in the U.K.

There’s not really a benefit for a production company to look beyond the first person they think of or find for a pitch deck. You see, at this point, they need a name and a face and hopefully some good video footage to show the channel. They need a placeholder, and that placeholder will often become the star if the show gets commissioned.

A production company is working out of pocket and losing money when hiring writers, designers, and editors to craft a new format for pitch decks and taster tapes. They’re losing money when they pay a production manager to put together a budget. They’re wasting time when they show it to a channel over something else they’ve worked on. But they need to show it to the channel; it adds variety to their pitch, and they can’t just walk in with seven comedy panel shows (a popular U.K. format).

There’s literally no motivation at all for them to look for a magician who doesn’t instantly come to mind. And I’m not neglecting the magicians who do come to mind. They’ve done brilliantly. They’re in a position most magicians should want to be in.

How to be the first person a production company thinks of for their next gang show?

I worked on a TV show that booked Ben Hanlin for multiple spots. Out of interest, I asked why they booked Hanlin. He had his own TV show on the same channel, so I assumed they wanted to remain on brand and promote another of their own TV shows. This was not why they thought of Ben Hanlin.

The talent booker told me Ben had once guessed her pin code in the reception at ITV. She wasn’t even aware he had his own TV show.

Ben is brilliant, and I mean brilliant at being one of the first magicians to come to mind for shows like these. For a gang show, you’re looking for people who can adapt and improvise; you basically want TV presenters who can do magic.

In the U.K., there is a comedy and arts festival called the Fringe Festival. The show that booked Ben Hanlin sent three casting producers to the fringe for two weeks to scout talent.

My advice comes in two parts:

1. Actually Be The Right Person

Get some experience hosting and improvising. Realize who you are and embrace that person. If you’re going to be the geeky, funny one or the cool and charming one, deep dive into that. Be happy and willing to adapt and share the limelight with others. Get together a showreel, make their job easy for them.

Producers are ticking a bunch of imaginary boxes that you can’t predict or expect. Maybe they need a British resident with a foreign accent because the show will syndicate abroad, but they don’t have the budget to fly talent over and deal with visas. We once sent an American performer studying in the UK on a train trip to Paris for the day because legally, they had to exit and re-enter the UK with a working visa.

Maybe they need magicians who have a background in teaching, or science or streetwear. Find what makes you you and run with it. You’d be surprised. I’ve been asked by development shows to recommend Magicians with scientific backgrounds, with “regional” accents, who can dance, are good with animals, great with kids, have lots of tattoos, have disabilities. There’s one blind magician who I see on multiple pitch decks.

2. RE: Think of Me

Send an email every few months for the next ten years—update production companies with your latest showreel, social media posts. Do go into the waiting rooms, receptions and perform for them and their families. Many magicians feel that social media is the best way for production companies to find you, and I think this is a bit backwards. You can guess the email of almost anyone today; send them an email. Be the person they think of when a junior producer says they need a magician for a development show.

I remember working with Piff The Magic Dragon once, and I asked him how he got booked on the show. It was in the U.K., and I knew the show wouldn’t have had the budget to fly any act over to appear on it. He said he was visiting the U.K., and his manager emailed the show to tell say he’s in the U.K. if they want him, and they did. Don’t be afraid to email and ask. The best of us do it all the time.

What’s the best gang show name?

Tap your favourite, and I’ll share the results on my insta story.

Trickheads, Killer Magic, Monkey Magic, Dirty Tricks, Big Trick Energy.

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