I must have been around nine when a classmate explained a card trick to me. It was fun, but nothing more came of it. Then, when I was 12 or 13, someone showed and explained another card trick to me, and that was when I got hooked. It was the combination of being able to sit and lose myself in a technique, and then the element of being able to perform with it afterwards, that I found so much fun.
That is the kind of moment that stays with you. Not because the trick itself was advanced, but because it was the first time I experienced what happens in a room when someone sees something they cannot explain. It was a powerful feeling.
How it all started
From there, the first several years went on borrowing books from the library (this was before YouTube took off), taking them home to practise, and then showing it all to my mother and little brother afterwards. The number of card tricks they have sat through over the years is impressive! I also know that by the end they were not exactly thrilled when I came running into the kitchen saying, “look at this one, I have just learned it”. To them it was probably just another card trick where I could, funnily enough, find their chosen card again. But to me it was a completely new piece of magic.
My mother soon discovered that there was a magic shop in Horsens , Pegani, which was very convenient since my grandparents lived quite close to Horsens. I remember clearly the first time I walked into that shop. Steen Pegani demonstrated all sorts of things for me, and I went home happy with a pile of new things to practise.
What I took with me from back then, and still build my shows around today, is that magic is never only about the trick itself. It is about what happens in the audience's faces while it unfolds.
From magic to stand-up
At some point comedy came into the picture alongside the magic.
I spent all my time doing magic when I started at upper secondary school. I did magic during the breaks, at the parties and in lessons. I performed for as many people as I could get hold of, all the time. My best friend, Mathias, started doing stand-up while we were at school, so we spent a lot of time watching stand-up at open mics. He mentioned several times that I should start too, but I was not entirely convinced.
It was only a couple of years after school that I began. The reason was that I got my first Christmas party booking right after finishing. I had mostly been used to doing close-up magic in the schoolyard, and suddenly I had to perform in front of a larger group of people all at once. That called for something different, so I decided it would be good to get some experience with it.
Today the two have grown together into one thing for me. A show is very rarely only magic or only comedy, it is a mixture, and it gets adjusted to whoever is in the room, whether that is a group of colleagues at a Christmas party or a corporate event, a family at a confirmation party, or guests at a wedding.
What that means for you, the person booking me
I have a great many performances behind me by now, both paid shows and a lot of open mics where I have been able to test and refine material and my own style on stage. And that matters for what you actually get when you book an evening with me. You do not get a standard show read off a script, you get something shaped by years on stage and a genuine interest in what makes your particular group laugh and gasp.
If you would like to see what that looks like in practice, have a look at the video page or read what previous clients have said on the reviews page. And if you are booking entertainment for a Christmas party right now, you can start by reading along here.
Try it yourself: a small trick you can learn right now
If you fancy trying your hand at a little magic, I have put up a short video where I show a single rubber band trick. It takes nothing more than a rubber band, and it is easy enough to show the colleagues by the coffee machine or the guests at your next party.
It is small stuff, of course, compared with what happens when I am on a real stage, but it gives a glimpse of why I have never grown tired of watching people's reactions when they cannot work out a trick. Enjoy showing it to someone. And if you get bitten by it, then the magic shop Pegani in Horsens comes highly recommended. And if you want to meet other magicians who share the same interest, then Magisk Cirkel is a really good place to start.