“If you have ever wanted to be the star of a comedy festival show then this is your chance,” says Pip Comic Illusionist.
“If you have ever wanted to be the star of a comedy festival show then this is your chance,” says Pip Comic Illusionist. “Or, if you think you friend should be one, then come along and push them on stage”.
On any given night Pip will have up to ten audience members on stage, hypnotised.
“I like it being around the ten mark as then you have a few different personalities reacting in very different ways to situations,” he says of this Las Vegas style show.
Pip’s show for this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival is a return season of Hypnolarious, which he performed for one night only last year, whilst doing a longer run of his sleight of hand magic show The Funny Side of Prestidigitation. As the title hints, Hypnolarious mixes hypnosis with a touch of magic and mirth.
The laughs, he says, comes from the way he interacts with those on stage. “I don’t so much go out there to make fools of a bunch of people and I like to think what happens on stage is a little bit more creative,” says Pip, who first started performing magic at the age of four. “It’s a comedy show and should therefore be funny for everyone, no matter whether they are in the crowd or up on stage. Making a few feel dumb and stupid for the enjoyment of the majority, although might be funny at the time, for some will wane over time but when everyone is laughing together and enjoying it, then it becomes something so much more memorable”.
One memorable show for Pip was in Broken Hill, where, unlike any other show he’s done – and he’s performed everywhere including on five star cruise ships, toured Australia, NZ and the USA – he couldn’t entice anyone onto the stage. “I am normally flooded with volunteers,” he says. But not in Broken Hill. “One guy finally came up and just before getting on stage gave me the finger, yelled out, ‘Fuck you, hypnotist!’ and ran out of the auditorium.”
Although magic is a part of this show and his repertoire generally, calls himself an illusionist, as opposed to a magician. The difference, which he says is “a bit wishy washy”, is that an illusionist encompasses many different things including what a magician would do. “It’s also a title usually referred to if you do the big box tricks, like in Vegas. At the moment I am having my first Illusion being built in Vegas by the same guy who builds all the Illusions for the guys who play Vegas including Copperfield,” says Pip, who is from Sydney but has a home in Las Vegas.
For this reason, “this year will be the last of my hypnosis shows for a while”. With the siren call of Sin City luring this self described nomad back, “it will be the last time you get to see me perform it for a long time”. So don’t miss your chance to star in his show.
PiP Comic Illusionist performs Hypnolarious at The Kodiak Club from March 30 – April 1 from Wednesday – Friday at 8pm, except on April 6 and April 20 when it’s at 9.15pm. He then performs it at The Order Of Melbourne from April 19 – April 23 at 7.45pm on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Tickets are $18 – $26 from Ticketmaster online, 1300 660 013 and at the door.
