I wanted to post a note here to thank Phil for his invaluable insights into his business approach, his performance philosophy and his career history.

I've known Phil and Philippa for nearly 25 years. It really feels unbelievable to be writing that - how time zips by.

I met them both when I was working as the MC at a comedy club in Canberra, The Private Bin. This venue was notoriously tough - probably one of the toughest gigs in Australia. The main reason (apart from alcohol and testosterone) was that it was a favoured night out for officer cadets at the Australian Defence Force Academy. While you could have a dream night there, it was pretty common to have to deal with some drunk moron who wanted to get into a heckling match. I’d seen some of the biggest and baddest names in Australian comedy in a flop sweat dealing with real jerks. I myself had died a few times and had been forced to work on my own comebacks and putdowns, some of which were so brutal it embarrasses me to even think about them.

But Phil and Philippa OWNED that room for an hour or so. They literally had that crowd alternatively mesmerised and in stitches. It helped that Phil, as an ex-pro footballer, looked like a bad ass motor scooter. He also had a real street look in his eye and a confidence that showed he was in control. (He would have made a very good con-man or politician, but I repeat myself). But it was the tightness of the act that really struck me. To throw out yet another cliche, their act was and remains a well-oiled machine, with every moment working to support and build the experience.

I was also immediately struck, from my side stage view, with the way both Phil and Philippa worked sotto voce to cue the assistants on stage. This was constant and invisible to the audience, yet it allowed them to make fun out of the bullying experience of being one of Phil’s onstage victims. At close hand, I could see that this was the real magic of this act - that the target for much ridicule was in fact enjoying the experience on a different level to the audience, because he was made to realise that he was why the act was succeeding.

I helped Phil to load out after the show - something I wouldn’t do for anyone else, but Phil was such a great guy. He knew I was in to magic (I was doing restaurants around then) and I was eager to hear about how to make it from a guy who had CLEARLY made it. I mean, the guy’s “van” was a gold E-Class Mercedes Benz. Phil clearly wasn’t hopping from kids show to kids show in a busted-out Honda.

Phil was kind enough to talk openly about his philosophy, negotiating fees and of course his love for magic as a performance art. We stayed in touch and hooked whenever he was in Canberra for a show, and I have since spent quite some time with Phil and Philippa, mostly into the wee wee hours of the morning at the bar of some convention, with James Galea playing the piano and Ray Crowe being brilliant, and lots of shouts of Bundy and Coke.

When Phil later worked at the A-1 Convention, he created a huge scandal by doing a real electric chair routine. This caused much misguided angst from magicians who had no comprehension of the massive success that Phil has enjoyed as a magician via his (ironic) treatment of them. I interviewed Phil for an Australian magic magazine (Hocus) and we tried to set the record straight. I think Phil covered some of that well here this week, and I was glad to see many had reversed their earlier views - having understood that the mistreatment of the spectator is a perfect illusion, in which the victim is entirely and happily complicit.

(It’s a hobby horse of mine, this failure of many magicians to really understand how a lay audience perceives both character and events, but let’s move on…)

I’d also like to note that Phil’s act would not have attained the success it has enjoyed without the key role played by Philippa, both in smooth staging and misdirection. Philippa is also a wickedly funny person. I mean, really, as wicked as Phil. I remember the last time I saw them - in Stockholm at FISM - laughing uncontrollably at Philippa’s acid review of a very famous magician who had a “verandah over the toy shop” and not much on display downstairs due to the unfortunate choice of stocking as stage attire. Brutal and as caustic as an Oxford Street queen.

I was fortunate enough to have attended Phil’s Roast in Sydney a few years back - an event attended mostly by a who’s who of Australian professional variety performers and comedians, with a few magicians in the audience. Funniest line of the night, for me, was a Vince Sorrenti asking the question, “Why did the magician cross the road?” which he answered with, “I don’t know, I didn’t stay for the end.”

But of course, everyone stays for the end of Phil’s act. His act is a steam train (but never a train wreck) and never sacrifices the magic for the comedy. It’s STRONG comedy and STRONG magic driven by a fully realised larrakin character. There’s no question in my mind that Phil is one of the most successful Australian magicians of all time, both financially (I have been privy to some honest discussion here) and in terms of artistic integrity.

I’m very proud to say that Phil and Philippa are friends of mine, and it’s been an honour to have known them for (gasp) a quarter of a century.

Andrew Wimhurst

You certainly have a turn of phrase Andrew. A bad ass motor scooter? Roflmao.

Seriously though, I'm speechless. I don’t know what to say.

You’ve made this old bugger of a warhorse tear up mate.

Thank you so much for these very kind words and surprising me with them here on The Magic Café.

Reading what you've written here so publicly truly means a great deal to me... and Philippa too, I assure you.
We are stunned and truly humbled by your insights, praise and support.

It was my pleasure! Hope to see you both again someday soon. Perhaps another FISM?

We're booked in already for FISM next year in Rimini, Italy. (I've got to go to them all now... I've attended everyone since 1991 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Philippa since 1994 in Yokohama, Japan).
See you there... rum and cokes all round... it'll be your shout
Mate can you be so kind as to send me your current contact details. (Go to www.philcass.com )