Simon Drake

For the Australian writer, see Simon Drake (writer).
Simon Drake
Born Simon Alexander
(1957-03-01) 1 March 1957
Surrey, England
Occupation Magician, illusionist, director, producer, writer
Years active 1974–present
Website houseofmagic.co.uk

Simon Drake (born Simon Alexander 1 March 1957) is an English magician based in London. He is best known for the innovative and shocking television series The Secret Cabaret made for Britain's Channel 4.[1]

Early life

Born in Surrey, Drake is the son of a GP and both sides of his family were connected to the medical profession for some generations.[2][3] In an interview included in a recent book about Arthur Brown, Drake was working as a record plugger at Decca Records when he met Arthur Brown:

Arthur's single 'Fire' was the first record I bought at the age of 12. As the years went on I saw Arthur at the Rainbow with Kingdom Come. I was a huge fan...I was promoted to plugger. I took Arthur round for interviews with the radio, and got to know him as a person and he mentored my crossover between the security of a day job and the craft of magic.[4]

Performing career

He first came to wider attention in Kate Bush's UK live tour in 1979 for which he co-devised visuals and played seven characters.[5] He has a wide and diverse performing history, from Terayama's Tenjo Sajiki theatre in Japan to the Royal Variety Show at the London Palladium before Queen Elizabeth II. He advised Nicolas Roeg for the film Castaway, with the tricky task of coaching Oliver Reed in sleight of hand, and was magic advisor to Harvey Keitel on Fairy Tale, A True Story.[6] In two series of the award-nominated The Secret Cabaret for Channel Four, he won an international cult following for his original and shocking presentation of illusions and manipulation routines. He worked alongside magician Pat Page. He has performed and consulted with many stars including: Elton John, Phil Collins, Madness, David Gilmour, Meat Loaf, Steve Miller's Abracadabra, Darryl Hall, Bill Wyman, George Harrison, Julian Lennon, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel and Pamela Stephenson. In August 1993 he was seen on American TV in the special Raising Hell, in which he co-starred with Iron Maiden in their final show with Bruce Dickinson on vocals in those years (the singer rejoined the band some years later).[7] The same month Drake performed with Carl Davis and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Drake has met David Copperfield on several occasions, with Copperfield once saying Simon is "the English version of me, but from hell!".

Drake has performed twice as a guest with The Royal Ballet at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the London Coliseum. He has appeared at festivals and tours in Canada, New Zealand, Europe and in the UK and has had residencies at many London nightclubs as well as a month in cabaret at The Casino in Monte Carlo, Paris and Dubai. He was the magic and effects supervisor to Cameron Mackintosh for the West End production of The Witches of Eastwick and Ducktastic, directed by Kenneth Branagh.[8]

He was a consultant on the South London Theatre's Spring 2007 production of Dr Faustus. He was also a consultant on the production of episode 6 of the fourth series of the BBC television drama Hustle, broadcast in 2007, where he worked with producers and writers to resolve the problem of how to make $5 million in cash be stolen when it appeared to be actually still there. Inventing a complex and elaborate scam, the episodes final positioning in the series was testament to its effectiveness.[9] He was also a magic advisor on the Terry Gilliam film The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.

House of Magic

In 1996 he opened his own 5,000-square-foot (460 m2) venue, Simon Drake's House of Magic, in a converted Victorian building at an unpublicised location in London.[10] Described by the Northern Echo newspaper (19 Aug 1999) as a "grey, anonymous-looking building"[11] This performing space specialises in corporate entertainment functions with twice monthly public performance nights. Shows feature Drake's trademark effects as well as light-hearted amputations and decapitations of senior executives and celebrity guests.[12] His regular warm-up act is piano-based comedian Adam Kay, aka Amateur Transplants.

Feb 2009 Drake travelled across 5 American states on a quest for the strange and very peculiar. He met, interviewed and photographed jesters, jokers, crazed hoarders, automata collectors, strippers, mechanical geniuses, several stars of magic, the inventor of the first computer game and a private astronaut. He said, "It was supposed to be my holiday but turned into damn hard work and about the most fascinating and fun time I have had in years!" Drake's photos and interviews appear in Dennis Publishing's Bizarre Magazine over the next 12 months as 3–5-page features.

References

  1. ↑ "The Secret Cabaret information". at television production company Open Media. Retrieved 10 March 2007.
  2. ↑ Quinlan, Tim (3 October 2005), "Celebrity Interview: Simon Drake", Inside Magic, (link is to copy at www.branaghcompendium.com), retrieved 10 March 2007
  3. ↑ "Interview with Simon Drake", Daily Mirror, Mirror Group Newspapers, 19 February 2000
  4. ↑ The God of Hellfire: The Crazy Life and Times of Arthur Brown by Polly Marshall, SAF Publishing 2005
  5. ↑ "High Band: Kate Bush Live at the Hammersmith Odeon". British Film Institute database. Retrieved 1 April 2007.
  6. ↑ Simon Drake at the Internet Movie Database
  7. ↑ The show was shot at Pinewood Studios, near London, and broadcast live on American TV. It was later bought by the BBC for transmission in the UK and broadcast but heavily censored. See "Raising Hell". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 3 April 2007.
  8. ↑ Quinlan, "Celebrity Interview"
  9. ↑ "Hustle". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 3 April 2007.
  10. ↑ "Simon Drake's House of Magic News". Simon Drake. Retrieved 22 October 2009.
  11. ↑ Robinson, Karen (12 November 2006), "Mister spook", The Sunday Times online, retrieved 6 March 2007
  12. ↑ Robinson, Karen, "Mister spook", The Sunday Times online

Further reading

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