Is This The Naughtiest Magic Show On The Planet?

Magic shows are usually associated with fluffy bunnies, tuxedos, intense staring, hand gestures and miscellaneous pyrotechnics, but never naked men: a damn shame. Thankfully, that void has now been filled by a couple of men who do things a little differently.  

“We describe it confidently as the naughtiest, cheekiest, funniest, sexiest magic show on the planet,” Christopher Wayne says of The Naked Magicians. They do the whole thing with no sleeves up which to hide their magic and still manage to deceive you.

It all started around the time of the movie, Magic Mike, a rom-com about male strippers that starred Channing Tatum, which collided with the tour of magic show, The Illusionists, where Wayne collaborated with producer, Simon Painter. These moments, along with a year of hard work, writing, editing and performing, made The Naked Magicians. They wanted to capture what was funny, cheeky and engaging, and put it together with their years of magic experience.

The pair weren’t always magic makers though, and this has been invaluable to their current success. Mike Tyler worked in banking, while Wayne actually used to weigh cocoa in an Arnott’s biscuit factory. “I’m glad I haven’t been an entertainer all my life,” Wayne admits. “It makes me really value hard work. Lots of people just want to be famous, but we really enjoy working hard.” Tyler adds, “Also, we’ve worked our arses off, literally, at the gym. Wayne has lost about 30 kilos for the show.”

After three years of close friendship and working on their craft together, “if anything,” Wayne concludes, “this show has made us more comfortable in our own skin”.

They do both agree that being entertaining was key to feeling accepted and fulfilled, even as kids: “High school is survival of the fittest,” Wayne suggests. “It’s Darwinism. Social acceptance was to be funny. I used to like pissing off my teachers. Now as an adult I really like making people happy.” But, “People shouldn’t come and expect to see a show, they should come and expect to be part of a show.”

“This is a show that we planned to be around for longer than 12 months,” adds Tyler. “When we started it didn’t show our penis in it – we got naked and there was always something in front of it, and then I made a slight timing mistake, and the crowd just went insane. There were shrieks of excitement, laughter and amazement at the same time. I remember Chris saying that this mistake was the best thing we’d done so far. It got naughtier and cheekier as the show progressed.”