I was going to make a YouTube video about my magician friend and dealer of highly illegal drugs. No, not really. He’s one of the only people in Camden not selling drugs. Michael sells magic tricks!
But my video ended up being too much fun to ignore the lovely journey through gorgeous central London. I took my first trip on a London hire bike. They are ace! Hire one. If you don’t want to ride round advertising that bank; wear a big ridiclous hat and everyone will not see the name on the bike.
YES! So excited to finally get me a green screen for my YouTube videos. As a magician I have bought tons of props, gadgets and gimmicks for my shows and 90% have ended up boxed away or sold to other entertainers (they all do the same haha!)
The GS was one of these things where I thought I wanted it but had a feeling I would be selling it again soon. But NO! Loving my first attempts at having fun with this and it looks great and I have hardly opened my imagiantion on it yet.
The Elgato green screen if you can find one is so easy to set up and pack down. It’s a nice size for solo sit down or standing filming.
The part I am troubled by is how tricky to light they are. I wanted to update my video lights for a while but when I shone them on me and tried to film green screen oh boy did I need to get some new ones.
A lot of video tutorials on my dearest YouTube were frothing at the mouth over the Aputure 120D but it is rather big to set up in my shoe box sized flat. I was tempted though but when I realised that for green screening you need even lighting and not the artistic type with one key light, I looked for a set and came across the awesome and way more flat pack/plays big Aputure Amaran’s. They are iPad size and are fantastic. Battery and mains powered a variety of light types, really bright and REMOTE CONTROLLED BABY! Forget your videos, flash them at the neighbours when they put the bins out while I hide behind the curtains that what I am mostly using them for.
Check out my funny vlog about
I am being told by lots of magician friends that the video is too long for a showreel so I am going to chop it down to a 1 minute reel later today. Enjoy! Please subscribe to my channel for more silly fun.
I had a brilliant time on Tuesday at the fabulous lecture of Oliver Graham. So many funny ideas.
Amazing photos by Mark Hesketh Jennings.
Check out Olly here. http://olivergraham.co.uk
I spent about 30 hours editing this! OK that might in part be because I was learning to use Adobe Premiere Pro. Wow, this software is so amazing! It was such a pleasure to play around with it. If you are a performer of any kind, I recommend very much to watch videos of your shows. It is very revealing and is helping me a lot to see the good things I do and the annoying habits that need to be dropped like laughing at my own jokes.
Check out Ritchie’s Youtube channel here
Ritchie Rosson is a children’s entertainer & magician based in Sutton, London UK.
Playing should not just be for kids and while I went down there to do some filming, I ended up having great fun playing with Juggling Jake‘s mini-bike, tightrope and walking plant pot thingies. I am doing some magic shows at Swan Shopping Centre in Leatherhead as part of their awesome Magic Mondays events every week in August. I think me and Miranda had more fun there than the kids.
Juggling Jakes does brilliant juggling shows and his workshops are so fun. He had so many fun toys which of course the kids were all over but so were the mums and dads. Really was great family fun. My favourites were the mini bikes. I used to own one and right it quite easily now I can barely get going on it without pulling 12 muscles.
Come down to Leatherhead; Swan Shopping Centre next Monday 20th August and 27th August. Bring the little ones too! Like Swan Shopping’s Facebook page here. They have great shops and cafes and lots of brill events.
Young Harry loves Spiderman. So why not hire “Spiderman” to come to his birthday party? Mascots are mostly a real disappointment to those who hire them. Firstly, most of them are illegally hiring themselves out in copyrighted costumes.
Secondly, it can often be a disappointment to meet the character you love from the amazing films especially for ages 6+; “why can’t he fly/climb the wall/fire webs/jump 100 feet?” Kids are not stupid. It can also for a little one be frightening to have a 6 foot tall Captain America suddenly in front of him out of the safety of the TV screen.
If you do hire a mascot character, book them to do a short 15-minute meet and greet, take photos and then bid them goodbye. That will make the experience more magical. A lot of cheap entertainment companies will offer for example “a Spiderman entertainer”. This will usually mean an out of work actor turning up in a fancy dress costume. The initial “It’s Spiderman!” excitement will wear off in 5 minutes and then the party is run by someone sweating profusely in a rubbish outfit.
Better is to hire a top rated entertainer who has his or her own unique style. This will be something new to everybody not a third rate version of an incredible Hollywood film.
Check out Ritchie’s Youtube channel here
Ritchie Rosson is a children’s entertainer & magician based in Sutton, London UK.
I performed as a contortionist for 10 years across the UK and sometimes across the world. I worked alongside some interesting and lovely characters such as Gary Stretch in the Circus of Horrors who had a rare disorder allowing his skin to stretch like elastic and to perform tricks that you could never copy and would never see again in your life. There was the crazy but sweet Prince Albert who had an epic collection of facial piercings. And there was the brilliant Rod Laver who could play music not with a bass guitar, not with a trombone but by firing ping pong balls at gin bottles. One of the best acts I ever saw.
But the locations of my gigs as a contortionist were also pretty odd. Aside from the cabarets, and circuses, I was booked to pretend to be a normal dinner guest in a restaurant with a group of friends, and 15 minutes in, go into my contortion act at the dinner table. Just one dude, trying to impress his mates.
I was always small as a boy. I was the smallest boy in my year until the top year of high school. I’m probably about average now as a man but the day of one of my contortionist gigs, I felt like a very small man; when I was booked to do a show at a bodybuilding competition. Everyone in the building was bulging with muscles especially the women. I had an idea for two big fellas at the end of my act to carry me off stage with my legs behind my head. They did it but seemed rather uncomfortable and unhappy about it for some reason. I cannot imagine why.
As a children’s entertainer/magician, I thought the gigs would get less weird, but last year, I was booked to do a show at a doctors surgery. I assumed it would be closed for people’s appointments. I got there, they had a face painter and had done a bit of advertising. 3 children turned up and so did people for their doctor’s appointments. Suddenly I found myself entertaining (?) a half-full room of people needing medical assistance. Those who were delighted by me, were the doctors as they would pop out to call their next patient into their rooms. The doctors did enjoy my stool sample joke.
Speaking of which; I registered at a new doctors a few years ago. I went to a check-up session with a nurse. She typed into the computer some details and took a urine sample from me that I had been asked to bring. I then said to her “I have brought my stool sample, look!” She continued to look at her computer as I repeated: “look, look, my stool sample!” As she fixed her gaze to her computer she sternly repeated “I do not need to see that!”
As I have lowered the tone already, I had a fun few days shooting a TV advert for Easyjet where I had to get in and out of a suitcase in central London. See the video here
At the time, I was a vegan and trying to build muscle in the gym so I was eating a lot of chickpeas and lentils. Yes, you guessed right. I farted while zipped in the suitcase, twice!
Ritchie Rosson is a children’s entertainer & magician based in Sutton, London UK.
Come to Magic Mondays in the Swan Shopping Centre this August. Ritchie Rosson and the fantastic Juggling Jake will be there. It is going to be loads of fun! Magic shows from myself and juggling shows and workshops from Jake.
Event page here:
Ritchie is also appearing at Parkway Shopping Newbury on July 7th.
Check out Ritchie’s Youtube channel here
Ritchie Rosson is a children’s entertainer & magician based in Sutton, London UK.
You can buy magic tricks all over the place these days. Even in the petrol station: “yeah, I’m pump number 4. And give me a Snickers, 3 foot of rope and head sword casket”.
The tricks inside magic sets tend to be poor quality and look rubbish when you perform and who doesn’t want to perform a magic trick they have learnt and even put on a magic show for your friends/family/at the bar down the local Wetherspoons?
You can buy tricks from all over the web but go for the websites/shops run by actual magicians. Give them a call or pay the shop a visit if possible. They know great tricks for the right ages and what beginners tricks will be easy to learn and will amaze people.
There are are many great DVDs to get but if you are more serious about magic, get some books and if possible attend a convention. Magic is like music, there are all kinds of styles. Not every trick will amaze or entertain everybody. I always loved the sillier, funny tricks and routines which is what led me to kids shows. Some have a stronger draw towards clever magic with card tricks, coin manipulations or….eugh. Mentalism! Booooooring!
Smaller tricks such as with elastic bands are great for showing a few people i.e. doing “close up magic” but if you use bigger items you can perform for a bigger audience. It does not necessarily require big items but needs things that “play big” like a large silk or a wand.
Buy/learn tricks that amaze you. And practice until you are confident before you show anyone. Practice in the mirror and video yourself to catch your mistakes. Performing a trick badly and nobody is impressed is a horrible feeling and believe me I know this feeling very well!
Also, join your local magic club. Email me if you need help finding one. There are many all over the UK. They are very friendly places and people share ideas and help one another with tricks and ideas. You will see lectures there from professional magicians. But if the lecture is about mentalism, bring a pillow.
It can get expensive if you get into magic to buy lots of tricks, but you can make your own tricks and do tricks with everyday items.
Brilliant website for children’s magic. Gary Dunn who runs it is a brilliant professional magician (and one of my biggest influences) with years of experience and only sells top quality tricks.
Propdog – online and fantastic magic shop in Hounslow
Run by Dave Bonsall who is a professional magician and magic engineer. He develops his own tricks and has a passion for the art and a passion for good quality products and will not sell the poor quality rubbish that you will find from many magic dealers. Visit his wonderful shop if you can. You will never forget going there!
Children’s magic convention held every May in Shropshire.
Children’s magic convention held every September in Birmingham.
Massive magic convention. Incredible magic shows in the evening and huge dealer hall and lectures in the daytime.
Gary Dunn – Keep Them Laughing
Terry Herbert – Magic For Under 5s
Check out Ritchie’s YouTube channel here
Ritchie Rosson is a children’s entertainer & magician based in Sutton, London UK.
Children’s Magician & Party Entertainer – Ritchie Rosson | Surrey, Kent & London 