Magic man sets sights on Kilkenny
IT'S not every sday a living, breathing 31-year-old man flatlines on the table in front of you. Unless perhaps you're a doctor.
But as a journalist, it's a pretty rare event. In fact, before I met celebrity magician Keith Barry, I was happy to say it had never happened.
But sitting in front of a man who pulls tricks and deliberately puts himself in harm's way for a living, it was never going to be a regular interview.
In order to convince me of his freaky skills and showcase his talent, he proffered his wrist.
"Here, feel my pulse and tap it out on the table with this pen so we can both hear it," he said.
Easy enough, I thought. But even before that thought had time to finish running through my head, my tapping pen slowed, then stopped and his pulse had disappeared.
For the next five or 10 seconds, there was nothing. Not a murmur. But then slowly, it came back and Barry came back to life.
It's a strange sort of feeling, he assured me, but not too uncomfortable and doesn't feel like he's dying.
Waterford-born Barry, who has spent the past six years making a name for himself internationally, will be appearing in Kilkenny for the first time ever on July 11 and 12 when he plays the Watergate Theatre.
Barry, who is known for his crazy antics, such as driving a car blindfolded or playing with sticks of dynamite as much as for his slick magic tricks, will be performing an all-new show in Kilkenny as part of his latest Irish tour, so audiences can expect the unexpected.
He plans to hold a seance mid-show using audience members, not to prove that he's psychic but that anyone with the right talent can fake communication with the dearly departed.
"I'll do a full-blown seance in the middle of the show where I'll grab a few people up and I'll tell them all these weird things about their dead loved ones," he said.
"See, I don't believe in psychics and that's why I put it in there to show them how to use the five senses to create the illusion of a sixth sense and how easy it is to fake.
"That's why I put it in the show."
He will also give someone in the crowd, the chance to win 10,000 euro by resisting his psychological mind-games.
"I'm going to put 10 grand up for grabs as part of the show," he said.
"But I don't want to give it away, I want to hold on to it.
"The idea is that there's five envelopes and four have a blank piece of paper in them and the fifth has a cheque for 10,000 grand.
"Four people will grab an envelope each, leaving me with one envelope, and I'll know which one has the cheque and I'll have to try and mentally influence them to leave me with that one, so I'll try and get you to change your mind and give it to me, it's like a psychological game.
"But if you end up with the cheque, then you get to keep it."
And a Keith Barry show just wouldn't be complete without a dangerously crazy manoeuvre – there'll be no blind driving this time, just a Russian Roulette-style game with full-sized wolf traps.
"I've got these three giant wolf traps and I'll demonstrate that if you put your hand in it, it'll take it off," he said.
"On one of them, I've weakened the springs just enough so that if you put your hand in it, it'll hurt like hell but it won't break any bones or take your hand off.
"So they'll be all mixed up and the traps are set and the audience gets to decide which one I put my hand in.
"It'll be kind of nerve-wracking and it's a risky one for me, because if they get it wrong, it will take my hand off."
But that's no deterrent for Barry, who has already chipped a bone in his hand practicing this trick, and is just keen to entertain the crowd.
"Magicians aren't normal people, but we do what we do because we love it and we're a bit mad anyway," he said.
"I love entertaining people and in this day of technology and everything, everyone is very knowledgeable about the world and how things work, but one thing that nobody really understands is magic.
"There's very little mystery left in the world and I like to bring people back to that childhood sense of wonder, forgetting about their problems and just enjoying two hours of laughing and being fooled at the same time."
Even though he's been practicing his magic since practically the day he was born, Barry said it took him a long, long time to become the household name he is today.
He started out performing at kids' birthday parties around Waterford and at the age of 15, landed himself a weekly gig performing table magic in a local restaurant.
"My parents thought I was mad and even though I always wanted to be a full time magician, my parents were like 'Magic is great, as a hobby', so they encouraged, slash forced, me to go to college."
After four years studying Chemistry in Galway, Barry graduated with an honours degree and found a job as a cosmetic scientist.
"I used to invent women's makeup and there was always a bit of magic involved in that," he said.
"I used to stand there and make all sorts of strange stuff, putting mascara on myself and rubbing it off, but then I realised how heterosexual I actually was and decided that wasn't for me.
"So I decided to call it a day and become a full time magician, which was a big step because there's no guarantees, even of a wage, at the end of the day.
"But I just took a chance and it's paid off now, you know."
Barry first made his mark in Dublin with a hugely-successful residency at The Kitchen nightclub, owned by U2, where he appeared weekly for more than two years, but even securing that gig required a little magic.
"One night I was out in Temple Bar and I managed to blag my way into The Kitchen," he said.
"There was like 200 people outside who couldn't get in and I went up to the bouncer and tried to walk in and they said, you know, 'Where are you going?' and I said 'Don't you know who I am? I'm a celebrity magician' but sure, I was a nobody at the time.
"Anyway, he said 'Do us a trick' so I did him a trick and he let me in.
"Then they asked me to stay back for a drink afterwards and I ended up working there every Friday night for two-and-a-half years in the VIP section and that's how I got pretty well known in Dublin, then I got a manager out of that and got on the Late Late Show, which is when it all started."
Shortly afterwards, Barry and his manager planned their assault on the US.
And after six years of hard work, knocking on doors and spending a lot of money, it looks like he's finally made it.
Barry, who now splits his time between Dublin and America, is in line to have a residency in the home of the weird and wacky, Las Vegas, by the end of the year.
"That's what I've been aiming for during the eight years I've been doing full time magic," he said. "It's really the ultimate gig.
"I've just returned from Las Vegas where I did a showcase in front of all the owners of the theatres and at least three of them have expressed serious interest in bringing me in there."
"I got my first big break in the States in about 2003 or 2004 when I was in a nightclub doing magic for Paris Hilton and Paul Rosenberg, who was Eminem's manager and Jack Osbourne and some MTV executive was sitting in the nightclub and she came up to me and said they were filming Spring Break in Mexico the next week for MTV and they wanted to do a special with me. So that's how I got started in America."
But it wasn't an easy ride and there were some dangerous stops along the way.
You can only imagine the shock experienced by the medical staff at celebrity-hotspot hospital, Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in the heart of Hollywood, when the mad Irishman turned up on their doorstep with a . . . unique problem.
"I got a black-eyed bean, which is like a pea, stuck in my ear canal, so try explaining that to the doctor," Barry said.
"I was out in LA and I was about to appear on the Jimmy Kimmel show and I was practicing this trick I was going to do on the show where I take a pea, pop it in my ear, squeeze it through the duct along the side of my face, and get someone to feel it, then I pop it out my eye.
"It's not magic, it's just weird, but it's only a magician who would do something like that.
"Anyway, I popped it in the wrong way and it got sucked into my ear canal and I could seriously hear it working its way through.
"So I did what any Irish man would do and I got the hoover and tried to suck it out and when that didn't work, I rang my publicist who was the only person in LA I knew and she said go straight to Cedars-Sinai, which is where Britney Spears and that lot go.
"So I got to A&E there and they're all looking at me like I'm a nutcase because I've got a black-eyed bean stuck in my ear, but luckily they managed to take it out."
Keith Barry will appear at the Watergate Theatre on July 11 and 12.
Tickets are 27.50 euro and available from the theatre's box office.
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Monday 21 May 2012
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