www.russstyler.co.uk

As a child, the very thought of standing on a stage, with or without an audience, would have been enough for me to break into a cold sweat. Up until my early teens my dream job was to be a cartoonist. A hobby that reached its zenith when a comic-strip story of mine was published in a national children's comic earning me a £2 postal order and a tuppenny-hap'eny plastic puzzle game for sending in the best story of the week. Fame and fortune indeed!

My interest in magic was born at the age of 13 when I read Gyles Brandreth's "Beaver Book of Magic". From this thin paperback I learned the secrets of how to saw a woman in half, how to perform the sword cabinet illusion and more amazingly, how to pick up a dinner plate with half a radish. I'll leave you to guess which one of these three miracles ended up in my repertoire.

Thus my journey towards a magical career had begun. After taking drama as an option at school my performing confidence grew and I applied to join the WCM. I auditioned and was proud to be accepted as a member in early 1983.

Leaving school that same year I needed a job. Fearing for my financial future my dad got me to apply for a job at Littleton Colliery where he worked as an electrical engineer. To keep him happy I decided I would at least turn up for the interview. After giving the most ambivalent and uninterested interview possible, the personnel manager shook his head, then shook my hand and told me I start on Monday. Nepotism! Argh! So there I stayed for 8 long years whilst working semi-pro as a magician, doing close-up magic, children's shows and the odd cabaret gig here and there. Then, in early 1993 I nearly gave my mortgage lenders a heart attack when I took voluntary redundancy and went in pursuit of a full-time career as a magician.

In the years that followed I learnt the joys of holiday camp work (see my members page for proof of that ordeal) and the perils of working for a Scandinavian ferry line which taught me how to survive on apples, biscuits and ice-cream in order to avoid anything that had been cooked in the crew mess. Not only was I the ships cabaret, close-up and children's magician...I was apparently also the "assistant cruise manager". I say apparently as I'm mystified to this day as to what other part of the cruise I was meant to be managing.

Back on dry land once more, I then took a residency at a Hilton National Hotel near east midlands airport where I was required to perform close-up magic on Sunday lunchtimes. A residency that I was to keep for the next 5 years. I was also attending part-time Drama College at that time, where I did L.A.M.D.A examinations (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts) and achieved Gold Medal with Honours for acting. Doing walk-on work for various TV shows proved to be a handy way to fill in some weekday gaps in the diary. Also, an appearance on T.V.s Bargain Hunt as a contestant with fellow WCM member Sean Carpenter proved to be a fun if un-lucrative affair. The disappointment of our paltry £3 winnings was thankfully offset by the sight of David Dickenson stepping backwards into some sheep s**t with his nice white shoes. There is a God!

Thankfully the magical work has continued to grow and so have the fees! I've had the pleasure of working at many top venues for countless big organisations up and down the UK. Venues like the Grosvenor and Dorchester hotels in London, various convention and exhibition centres, working for companies such as BT, BBC, Jaguar, Ferrari, Vodafone etc.

Whether it's been big corporate events, student balls, weddings or whatever, thankfully it continues to be an enjoyable and rewarding way of making a living. To keep my creative juices flowing, I've written several series of magical articles for "Abracadabra" magazine hopefully with more to come as soon as I can find the discipline to put pen to paper again. Or rather, fingers to keyboard keys!