Nothing Is Impossible: The Real-Life Adventures of a Street Magician Read Online Free PDF

I had days, weeks, months and, ultimately, years to perfect my magic.
    As a kid, I would practice with my cards, with bits of string, or matchboxes, for hours and hours after school. I bought those ‘starter’ magician boxes but would bore of them immediately and instead use the props that they came with to further my own ideas. I was absorbed in the world of magic and what I could do with it.
    My room was pretty small. There was a window to the right of the bed that I’d sometimes stare out of absent-mindedly while shuffling cards. I’m a Bradford City fan so I painted my walls in claret and amber in honour of my football team. It was me, on my bed, watching films and working on my magic.
    As I got older, my mum let me go out a little more after school, even suggesting I could get a part-time or Saturday job. She didn’t have money to spare, so if I wanted to buy myself clothes or CDs, then I’d have to earn my own way.
    I had a couple of different jobs as a teenager. I got myself a paper round and then, when I was fourteen, I got a job in a local video store, which I really loved.
    Although it wasn’t that glamorous, the video store inadvertently informed a huge part of my approach to magic. I’d get to see all the new films before anyone else. I’d go home with two or three of the latest releases and watch them until my eyes were too heavy and I’d fall asleep. I’d spend hours absorbed in the world of Superman, Spider-Man and Batman. I became even more obsessed with film than when I was a kid and almost without realising it I built up an encyclopaedic knowledge.
    Someone else who worked in a video store is the film director Quentin Tarantino. It’s perhaps no coincidence that we both ended up in the creative industries; although Tarantino’s a filmmaker and I’m a magician, I don’t see what we do as particularly different. We both entertain people in a very visual sense. Film and magic are able to transport people away from life as we know it, to the realms of the impossible.



When I was seventeen I started working at a hardware store as pretty much the dogsbody. When I wasn’t lifting and carrying I’d be sent out back to bag up nails. I’d have to count them one by one and I’d be covered in cuts and dust. It was hard work but the boss was really cool. He even bought me a magic book!

    OVER THE YEARS , I’ve tried to push the envelope with what I do, but there’s nothing purer than having a pack of cards in my hand and just jamming. I can entertain myself for hours. I can create art with cards. I can generate moments of astonishment. All I need is me and a pack of cards, and I’m pretty sure I could walk into any room anywhere in the world and do stuff that no one’s ever seen before. I practise with my cards the whole time. I’ll be watching TV and not realise that I’m doing it. My cards have become an extension of me.
    A deck of cards is a pretty magical thing in itself. The more I found out about their history, the more fascinated I was by them. Did you know they were invented in ancient China during the Tang dynasty? They spread throughout Asia in the 1300s and came into Europe, via Egypt, in the fourteenth century. There are four suits in each deck and there are four seasons in the year. If you add up all the pips (that’s the suit symbols) on all the cards, they add up to 364, plus one for the Joker, that comes to 365. There are 365 days in a year. Everything stands for something.

    When I was a teenager, I used to go to the MAPA Youth Club in West Bowling. You could play football or learn breakdancing. I was really into my magic and I was beginning to want to take it in my own direction. I would practise breakdancing every week and then I’d do my magic after the classes or during the breaks.
    There were three guys who used to teach us breakdancing – Rash, Jimmy and Dennis John, who choreographs a lot of my shows now. Rash and Jimmy were two Asian guys who were amazing body