Im putting together a silent act perfromed to music, I have many many ideas and am curious to what you guys can offer.

Any ideas on a silent comedy act for family shows??

SIX

Why would you do silent comedy for family shows? Kids love audience participation with patter.

Kohl and Co. have an excellent comedy show set entirely to music, it works because he appears to screw everything up all throughout the show. HILARIOUS, and he never speaks a word.

Where can I see this act Jkvand??

And at a lot of kidshows you need to do a lot of silent acts due to the fact some kids don't speak english and its soemtimes easier to control certain groups of kids, as a working perfrome I have picked up when to use music, so now I am constructing an act.

All the best =)

SIX

Hi SIX,
I saw them at MagiFest in Columbus last year, not sure if it's on a DVD anywhere or not but it could be. Sorry I can't be more help, but I wanted to give you some assurance that it CAN be done! Best of luck, Jeff

The Great Nardini (Paul Nardini) does part of his comedy show to music, if not all (I havn't seen his full act, just bits n pieces) and it always goes down well. He won best comedy act at FISM I think. From what I remember he does spoof illusions to music, that play up and go wrong, lots of things exploding, trap doors opening too early, etc etc. I used to think he was making some of it as he goes along, cause you couldn't plan half the stuff that happens, he's a genius.

The Great Tomsoni

Comedy acts to music work really well for familys-kids appreciate & understand visual humour-look at Chaplin etc

Kohl & Co are brilliant at this

Any effect where you get into trouble-Linking Rings caught in your jacket etc & around your legs etc-good visual humour to music works

Good luck-keep us posted

Children do love "audience participation with patter" but I love steak and that doesn't mean I don't like the odd trifle.

I also love ridiculous metaphors that only make sense to me.

What I'm trying to say is that there is a place for silent comedy in family/children shows and just because one thing works it doesn't mean something completely different won't work too.

The reason why a silent act seems like a bad idea is that the odd uninformed magi will try out a straight manipulation act to music and wonder why the kids all wander off halfway through.

I'm a bit of a blabbermouth and tend to rabbit on through my whole show. Over Christmas I took on too much work and got a sore throat so spoke a lot less during my show. Some of the jokes I do worked so much better when I just shut the heck up. They where more humorous and got a bigger reaction because the kids new exactly what was going through my mind even though I wasn't saying it, I also came up with new physical gags that I wouldn't have thought of if I had been performing my usual way.

I would find a long silent act difficult because it makes some aspects of audience control, volunteer instructions and routining harder but I have no doubt a silent comedy spot to music could be hugely successfull.

George

If you want a silent Act why not Learn how to do Pantomine. there is supposed to be a great book out on pantomine. but right now the title escapes my mind.

The "saber dance" is a great song for comedy