Paul Kieve
Past Productions
- Our House – Illusions and Costume Effects
Paul Kieve is the only illusionist to have been connected to the Harry Potter films – as physical magic consultant to Prisoner Of Azkaban (in which he also appears) and as a pre-production consultant on The Goblet Of Fire. He privately tutored Daniel Radcliffe who became hooked on magic and has written the introduction to Paul’s book Hocus Pocus – A Tale Of Magnificent Magicians And Their Amazing Feats just published by Bloomsbury. The title has already been translated into German and Spanish and is published in the USA by Scholastic. Further editions are planned in Portugal, Brazil, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands and China. It was named BBC Blue Peter book of the month in December 2007.
Paul’s professional career started at 16 by performing magic in the video for Sade’s hit ‘Your Love Is King’. He was runner up in the Young Magician of the Year competition in 1985 and after leaving school toured the globe for four years performing his act around the world, including an appearance at the Magic Castle in Hollywood.
Since 1991 Paul has mainly concentrated on creating innovative magical effects for theatre. The Invisible Man, initially staged at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, became the first of many West End productions featuring his work including The Lord Of The Rings, Alice In Wonderland (English National Ballet at the Coliseum), Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Woman In White; Our House; The Witches of Eastwick; Angela Carter Cinderella; Scrooge, The Musical and The Witches starring Ruby Wax. Paul has also worked on many productions at the National Theatre including Theatre Of Blood starring Jim Broadbent, The Night Season and La Grande Magia and work with the Royal Shakespeare Company including Sam Mendes’ production of The Tempest. Opera includes L’Heure Epagnole at Covent Garden (director Richard Jones), Das Reingold in Strasbourg (director David McVicar), Parsifal (Paris Bastille) and Macbeth in Hamburg.
Work on the American continent includes The Lord Of The Rings in Toronto, The Woman In White on Broadway and Scrooge, The Musical tour. Paul also designed an ‘online wizardry course’ to promote Sci Fi’s Earthsea US TV project (still online at www.scifi.com/earthsea/wizard). He was a consultant to Walt Disney Theatrical Productions in Burbank for two years. He has worked as a consultant to many magicians including David Copperfield, Geoffrey Durham, Hans Klok’s Las Vegas show and Derren Brown’s Trick Of The Mind series and Séance special.
He appeared as an on-screen contributor in the BBC History of Magic series. Paul has tutored many celebrities including Mel C, Ant and Dec and even supervised the sawing in half of Pop Idol/American Idol star Simon Cowell live on Children In Need! He most recently appeared alongside Andrew Lloyd Webber on the BBC 1 show I’d Do Anything.
As a consultant to Guinness World Records Paul created magic spreads for the 2005 and 2006 books. He was awarded a joint Guinness World Record for his work on Our House. He is the recipient of the 2006 British Magical Society Award for Outstanding Contribution to Magic and is a Gold Star member of the Inner Magic Circle.
Website: www.stageillusion.com