Inspired by David Blaine, 24-year-old Troy Von Scheibner has arrived on E4 with his brand of “personable” magic. Combining his love of music, fashion and good old fashioned entertainment, Troy has spent the last 12 years practising his art, winning competitions and using his sleight of hand to get him out of some sticky situations. FIASCO meets Troy before the launch of his new show… and sits there until he baffles us with a card trick.
“When you think of a magician,” says Troy, “a stereotype comes to mind, like the big stage illusionists – David Copperfield or Paul Daniels or Lance Burton. But when I saw David Blaine I was like, this guy looks like me, he dresses casual, he’s not making a big deal out of what he’s doing but it’s still amazing. And I could see myself doing that and tried to watch it over and over, copying the way he used the cards, the way he handled them.”
As a kid he spent hours rewatching the Blaine shows. He says ‘hours’ all drawn out and he means it. Before and after school, spending all his weekend glued to the TV set. It was his father, after seeing his son so intrigued, that signed him up to the Young Magician’s Club, a junior wing of the famous Magic Circle.
“There I learned more about magic, the theory side and performance. Learning how to be yourself and be creative with it. Then it developed from there, like doing competitions, but it’s totally up to us to come up with a way to make it magical. You can’t just learn it like that,” he says grinning and snapping his fingers. “I’ve been doing magic for 12 years and I’m still learning, it takes years of practise and you have to fail to make it better. Sometimes one magic trick can take a year to perfect.”
I imagine that finding that patience as a teenage boy wasn’t easy. Troy agrees. “It takes a special kind of person. Many want that quick gratification but you need time. And effort. And you need a bit of a gift at it as well, you need to be able to understand it mentally. And when you combine that, it’s not for everyone.”
His spur was the reaactions and feedback he recieved as he got better and when he won Close Up Magician of the Year at the tender age of 15 and that was a lightbulb moment for him. “When you’re achieving things like that, it’s like, I must be good at it. But I think it was my performance rather than the magic itself, because in magic it’s stressed so much that you should be original, be yourself and make it fun, and still have that magical effect. That’s what I feel I’m good at, I take all my interests and combine it into magic. And still today people don’t do that, they don’t make it original to themselves. So they can be a copy of each other.”
Troy neither resembles the dour, hunched figure of Blaine nor the slightly shadowy intensity of Dynamo; he’s wearing a trilby at a rakish angle, tinted sunglasses and a rather covetable jacket. The man, in short, has style. A bit Pharrell, a smidge of Will.I.Am in his got-it-right moments. He’s got armfuls of tattoos (including a rather staggering portrait of Michael Jackson in the BAD era), a quick smile and a lazy charm that’s no doubt worked on the girls just as much as the ability to magic cocktails out of thin air.
“When I perform for people it’s far removed from the idea of magic because I’m quite unassuming. I like to just do magic, not announce it and that’s what I do on the show.,” he says casually. “If you look at me you wouldn’t think I’m a magician. Maybe I’m in the music industry or a dancer. So when I say I’m a magician, do you wanna see some magic, they’re like, yeah, whatever, show me a trick. I always say Michael Jackson was my favourite magician. As a performer, he…. if I was to compare him to a magician what a magician tries to achieve is that effect of awe and astonishment”
“Your mouth just opens, like, how are you doing this? And when you see Michael Jackson on stage or in music videos, you think the same thing. To me he has that aura about him. He can look to the left for five minutes, then look to the right and people are dying and scremaing and fainting. And he’s just standing there. If I could have that effect as a magician…”
TROY has a hidden camera element, which eliminates some of the overwrought reactions you get from people.
“Yeah, and that’s what we’re accustomed to, the big big reaction. That’s why we use the hidden camera, cos the camera can sometimes change someone’s personality. If they’re aware of the camera they feel like they have to play up or done to it, so with me the person’s reaction is really genuine.”
At this point, having seen the trailers where Troy pushes items through glass or levitates, it might be time to ask… what makes this different to what’s come before him? It’s not like we haven’t seen these illusions before. Troy takes this in his stride. Perhaps he’s already come across the skepticism, perhaps he’s holding back on the rest of the show so as not to ruin the expectation.
“There’s not a lot of magicians on TV right now,” he points out genially, “and so there’s not a lot of options. If you look at music or acting, there’s lots of options and you can appreciate them for their characteristics and the way they execute their crafts. Everyone’s foundation is the same – Tinie Tempah, Dizzee Rascal, Beyonce, Rihanna, Dynamo, David Blaine – the only way you make it different is the way you execute it, the way you come across and deliver things. I like to mix up my interests in the show too – music, fashion, a lot of one on one with the camera and giving little anecdotes about magic and me as a person, rather than a character magician.”
He is, however, quick to point out that he’s well aware of the playing field and how much it’s already been raked over. “There’s a mixture of everything in the show, I hardly do any card magic inthe show because we’ve seen so much. There’s a few in there for the card lovers, I love it, it’s what I grew up on. But when you’re doing a show like this you wanna show what else you can do. I’m in every day situations and using the environment around me. So you see me in a shisha lounge using a pipe and the smoke, you see me in my barbar shop and with their big mirrors and scissors. It’s non stop for six episodes.”
Magic is one thing, but Troy, given that he’s come full circle with a show on the network that televised the very one that inspired him, dallies with the idea of fate.
“I was on my way home in Lewisham, at the bus stop and these two guys came up to me and were, like, ‘what have you got for me, bruv?’ Then he was like,’ is that your phone, take out your phone’. So I took out my phone, put it up in the air and said, really I don’t want no trouble. He said, ‘give me the phone or I’ll shank you’. But I had my hand up and as I brought them back down my phone was gone and they were like, ‘What?! Bruv, where’s your phone!!’ Then the bus appeared and I just ran for it. That moment felt like it was meant to happen, the distraction, then the bus turning up at that very second.”
Another moment that sticks is the manner in which he got the E4 gig.
“I met a guy called Danny Fenton when I was performing at a restaurant. I wasn’t meant to meet him, it’s like the stars aligned,” he says, half mockingly with a laugh. “I was downstairs and there was a party upstairs which I wasn’t doing but as I was about to go the manager calls me and says ‘Troy, can you do upstairs?’, and I was like, oh I’m gonna miss my train but fuck it, I’ll do it. The last table was Danny’s. At the end he asked for my business card, emailed me the next day and said I think you’d be great on TV. I’ve had emails before offering me this, that and the other and never had high expectations of them so I was like, oh, this is cool, might be a good opportunity.”
That’s a fairly relaxed attitude towards something so big. “I do everything quite chilled out cos it could end up as nothing,” Troy admits. “I get that from my mum. Like with the show, let’s say no one watched it, I’d be devastated but I spent so long making it, there’s over 100 different tricks in it, but I’d at least feel like it’s such an achievement for me. I’ve ticked a thing off that I wanted to do in my life.”
Do other close up or street magicians need to watch their backs in the future? He laughs. “I feel like there’s enough space for everyone to do their own thing. I’ve got no beef with anyone! I feel like what I’m coming across as is different, I want to make my own path and if I’m one of the magicians that people want to see then that’s great! Blaine inspired me, so there’s no way I’d be like, I’m coming after you! And Dynamo in the UK opened the door for someone like me to come through. Everyone opens doors for everyone else. Each to their own.”
TROY airs on E4, 11 Feb @ 10pm
Interview by Taylor Glasby
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