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This week Jonah connects with Chris Cox to discuss his unique brand of mentalism, what it’s been like to go from touring every day to virtual shows at home, and why he loves magic but doesn’t find magic very interesting.

Chis Cox is a mentalist who has performed on Broadway and on the BBC and toured as “The Mentalist” in the Illusionists. He’s also spent the past year crushing it in virtual shows, after thinking he would pass on it and enjoy the break after his grueling non-stop touring schedule was abruptly cancelled along with everything else. 

Always A Performer 

Chris has always been a performer and has always had a love for theatre. Unfortunately for him he can’t sing, can’t dance, and wasn’t funny enough for stand up. But he always loved magic and in his early teens discovered mentalism and realized instantly that this was the thing for him, as mentalism was all performance. 

Loves Theatre More Than Magic

A lot of people love magic and have no desire to be on TV or perform in front of a large audience. Chris is not those people. He loves theatre more than he loves magic and that has informed his presentation throughout his career. Watching a great play inspires him and investigating why it connects to him informs his thinking about everything he does. Consuming all kinds of theatre can inform you so much more about how the magic happens than watching the same tricks performed the same way over and over again. The goal is the performance and the presentation. 

Happiest on Stage

Chris is happiest on stage. He loves it, it’s exhausting, and he misses it terribly. When the pandemic started Chris avoided adopting any kind of virtual show performance. He was burnt out from two years of touring and thought he could just wait it out. Eventually it got to the point where he couldn’t avoid it anymore and he found his background in radio helped get him excited about virtual show producing. Since launching his virtual shows he’s learned lots of lessons about what to exploit and how to make it fun with his audiences. 

Wrap-Up

Endless Chain

Here comes a list of people that Chris gets a lot from when he talks to them:
– Mark Cailen

• Mark Kalin
• Jonathan Goodwin
• Andy Nyman
• Tyler Wilson 
• Noel Qualter
• Young & Strange
• And also Paul Dabek!

What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like?

What they like

What they don’t like

Take home point

Who you are now isn’t who you were or who you are going to be but who you are now is what you’ve got to work with. Finding out who you are as a performer is more important than anything else.

Plugs

Everything Chris Cox can be found at MagicCox.com

Or Facebook at facebook.com/ilovecox

Or Twitter @bigcox

And also, fingers crossed, Wonderment will be returning soon to the London West End and if you are able to attend you should drop Chris a message and let him know so you can say hi from a safe distance.