Illusionist Paul Kieve created many of the magic effects in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and was personal magic tutor to Daniel Radcliffe. Now working on the lavish stage production of Roald Dahl’s The Witches, he spoke to Laura Kendall.

Bills, traffic jams, late-running trains: these are the biggest problems most of us face each day. Spare a thought, then, for Paul Kieve, whose daily challenges include shrinking children, drowning theatre critics in buckets and persuading maps to fold themselves.

One of Britain’s most sought-after illusionists, Kieve’s day job involves making film, theatre and television audiences believe the unbelievable.

From working as a performing magician, his career has evolved into consulting and creating illusions for more than 100 international productions including West End musicals, opera, ballet and blockbuster movies.

And it all started when he was given a magic set as a birthday present. “I’d always had an interest,” says Kieve. “My older brother was quite interested in magic and I can remember him playing around with quite simple tricks at home. But I did get a magic set for my 10th birthday, which sort of triggered it.”

His big break came at just 16, when pop star Sade chose Kieve to appear in the video for her song Your Love Is King. That experience, he says, fired his determination to become a professional magician. “I think that was the turning point,” he says. “I remember having such an amazing time with it and so much fun with Sade and the band.

“I had a series of lucky breaks when I was at school and was given the opportunity to really enjoy it and it seemed daft for me to even consider anything else.

“I don’t think, at the time, it was based on a sensible decision but it seemed very exciting to me. My parents were very supportive, though my father was very keen I should stay on and do my A levels, so I did that.”

In 1986 he formed a double act, The Zodiac Brothers, which performed around the world for five years – but a new challenge soon presented itself. “My local theatre was the Theatre Royal Stratford East and, in 1991, they’d just started a production of H.G Wells’ The Invisible Man,” he says.

Kieve created more than 50 special effects – a world record – for the production, including the astonishing moment the title character removed his bandages to reveal absolutely nothing – his head and face were “invisible”.

“I didn’t really imagine anything would come of it but there was a huge fuss about it and it moved into the West End,” he says. “I’d worked very hard on it and had amazing reviews. I didn’t even think it would go beyond Stratford but, even now, I get work from that show.

“The business is quite small, in a way, if you’re specialised, and I think I became known as the guy to get in to do funny moments on stage.”

He is now busily creating rather more gruesome illusions for the play Theatre of Blood, which stars Jim Broadbent as as an actor who kills critics in the style of Shakespearean plays. “I’m spending all my time electrocuting people and drowning them in buckets,” he says.

He is also working on the hotly anticipated Lord of the Rings stage musical, which has its world premiere in Toronto next February. The production has a budget of £11.7 million.

Kieve’s magical prowess can currently be seen in Birmingham Rep’s production of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s story, The Witches, at the New Wimbledon Theatre from Wednesday.

He worked on the original production – the tale of a young boy who is turned into a mouse after stumbling across a witch’s convention – in 1992 and was “delighted” to have the chance to refine the illusions he created. “It’s lovely to be able to return to it,” he says. “The Witches is still one of the trickiest shows I can remember working on because the particular challenges are very specific. The idea of children shrinking and turning into mice on stage was not easy.”

Nor was creating a myriad of magical moments in the last Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Kieve is the only illusionist to have worked on any of the films. “They had a new director, Alfonso Cuaron, for the third film and he was keen to explore the idea of using real live magic in addition to the effects,” he says. “He wanted to create an extra layer of magic so they wouldn’t have to rely on computer-generated images alone. His idea was there should be lots of stuff going on in the background.”

Kieve was summoned before “everybody involved with the film” to demonstrate his bag of tricks.

“It was pretty terrifying,” he says. “It was in a funny, cold marquee and I felt I wasn’t just representing what I could do but the possibilities of illusion in general because no one else had ever been given that opportunity.”

Among the illusions he devised for the movie was the Marauders’ Map, which cleverly folds and unfolds itself according to who wishes to use it.

He also filled a classroom with levitating orbs – after practising the illusion with a £1 Christmas bauble bought from his local corner shop in Hackney. “It gives me an enormous joy to see my illusions sit alongside the CGI stuff,” he says. “I constructed that map and operated it and invented it, so to see it gives me a real sense of satisfaction.

“It’s unbelievable when I think about how many people have seen these things.”

However, millions of cinema-goers weren’t the only ones to be dazzled by Kieve’s skills – the star of the Harry Potter films, Daniel Radcliffe, was so impressed he became Kieve’s pupil. “Like me, he’d been given a magic set and was curious about it. It was joyful teaching him, not because of who he plays in the film but because he’s a really fun, bright, intelligent kid,” he says of Radcliffe.

“He worked really hard at it and became really good, I have to say. He definitely had an aptitude for it. I learned a lot by teaching him. He was very insightful and asked some really good questions.”

Radcliffe was apparently also quick to pick up on magic’s mischievous side. “He spent a lot of time on that film going round showing people tricks,” Kieve says. “He told me the first time he ever met Emma Thompson he showed her a card trick I’d taught him and she screamed.”

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Ruby Wax in The Witches at Birmingham Rep

Article by Diane Parkes for the Birmingham Post / Birmingham Mail group to tie in with a production of The Witches at Birmingham Rep.

What do you need to turn children into mice and make witches into giants? Well, a magician of course.

Step in illusionist Paul Kieve who has created a whole host of special effects for the adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic The Witches.

It is the fifth time Paul has worked on the show, alongside David Wood, who adapted the tale of two small boys and a grandma battling against witches.

All the cast members involved in the illusions are sworn to secrecy and while Paul is more than happy to talk about the show, his lips are sealed on the mechanics. And he is still working even as we speak. Our interview takes place hours before the first preview but he is on the hunt for a slight adaptation to one of the effects.

“You just have to make sure it is right,”he says. “With magic or illusion there are no half measures, it has to be exactly right for it to work.”

Magic Circle member Paul has an impressive CV when it comes to creating illusions for the theatre. He has worked on a host of West End shows including Scrooge with Tommy Steele and Richard Chamberlain, The Witches of Eastwick, pantomime, and is currently creating effects for a Lord of the Rings musical.

He was also the first real magician to be called on for help with a Harry Potter film and his work can be seen in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

“I was asked to do a ‘show and tell’, in which I stood in a freezing marquee for two hours presenting my ideas. They were really helpful in adapting them for the show,” he says.
“So, for example, I showed them an illusion of making a note fold by itself and they used this at the end of the film when the map folds itself up. We spent days doing that shot.

“They were keen to use magic as well as special effects as it gave the film a whole new layer so Iwas involved in about five or six scenes.

“For one part I had to teach all the children in the film how to do tricks. This bit was actually cut but it has made it to the deleted scenes in the DVD, which I was very pleased about. But DanielRadcliffe, who plays Harry,was not in that scene and he came up to me afterwards and said ‘I can’t believe everyone around here now knows magic tricks except me’.

“So we did some one-to-one sessions whenever he had some time off. He practised very hard and got very good.”

Paul says Harry Potter was hard work but great fun and he was even given a cameo role – look out for him in the pub.

It is just one of a number of projects he has been working on, which have also seen him become a wizard on a website, and a consultant to the Guinness Book of Records.

“I am lucky because there is always something new to do,” he says. “I always said I wanted no two days to be the same and that is very true.”

Paul was a youngster when he performed his first magic trick.

“As a child I was totally obsessed with a trick called the zig-zag girl and I wanted my parents to buy it for me,” he says. “Instead, my mum said I should buy some wood and make it – and I did. I then performed it at school. I got my real lucky break because I did a pop video with Sade. At the time she wasn’t very well known but it was that song ‘Your Love is King’ which really caught on for her. She was so supportive. She would mention me on Saturday morning television and she would always ring and tell me first. I was only 16.”

And it was Paul’s work on the video which gained him a slot in a London theatre and brought him to the attention of the producers of the musical The Invisible Man. And 37-year-old Paul has not looked back since.

He retains a real enthusiasm for his role. “I was never interested in that TV show patter which is followed by a trick,” he says. “I always loved the idea of creating illusions in front of an audience. Creating that real magical moment is what it is all about.”

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