What’s In A Name?

In 2016 I landed a resident show at a seafront cabaret venue in Blackpool, England. The performances were twice weekly during every ‘school holiday’. Not including the winter but accounting for the fact that different parts of the UK offset their school terms by a couple of weeks, this amounted to around 16 weeks.

Each show was two 45-60 minute halves with a cast of one.

Me.

Then a simple question caught me entirely off guard.

“What’s it called?”

I’d never had to name a show before. Up until then my shows began with ‘Please welcome Mark James’ and were talked about as ‘On Thursday we have Mark James’.

For my entire career so far, the show title was the one my parents gave me 30 years earlier.

My audiences were already at the places I performed with tickets not required. Suddenly I had to sell seats or there would be nobody sitting in them.

Even though I’d lived in Blackpool for ten years, the only people who knew me there were my friends, the local corner shop and the lady in the local Chinese takeaway who once cooked my order in her own kitchen rather than tell me they were closed when I called and she just happened to be downstairs and answered. (Another story for another day)

The point is that ‘Mark James’ wouldn’t sell tickets. I needed a name that caught attention, told people what it might be and didn’t sound like everything else happening that week.

In order to differentiate between the two halves, I decided to have them adjacently themed but not the same. The first half was magic, the second half was sideshow.
I toyed with ‘Magic Sideshow’, ‘Magic & Stunts’, ‘Magician & Weirdo’. You name it.
When you’re hunting around for a name there are no bad ideas.

In fact, whatever you’re doing. THERE ARE NO BAD IDEAS.

‘Magic Sideshow’ always felt closest but I didn’t want to make it seem like the sideshow stuff (hammering nails into my nose and escaping a straitjacket etc) was fake, because it isn’t.
‘Sideshow Magic’ had the same problem but eventually, settled on ‘Sideshow Tricks’.

The title was fairly literal and allowed for some easy scripting as the introduction to the actual show.

I became hooked on naming shows and quickly realised the benefits. Having a name achieves many things. It solidifies an idea, even occasionally pulls it together. It tells people that what they’re seeing is a finished thing and not just a person standing there making it up.
It gives identity to ideas and allows you to separate those ideas from other ideas you may have.

It allows forward movement and progression across years and gives you a new signpost to stick in the ground every once in a while. It tells people you’re a person who makes things as well as does them.

It helps the audience navigate your idea, especially when combined with a strong theme. It allows you to more quickly see which routines don’t fit the narrative. It also elevates tricks that on their own aren’t necessarily strong but get a Super Mario style mushroom eating expansion when they’re part of a show that truly allows them to shine.

So, how do you think of a name? Here’s how I thought of mine:

MODERN MAGIC

I stole it.
More kindly to myself… I ‘homaged’ it from a guy who’d been dead for 99 years.

Professor Hoffmann essentially invented the ‘Multiple Selection/Revelation’ trick in which a series of cards are chosen from a deck, lost and shuffled, then rediscovered in increasingly amazing ways.
I performed that trick in the show and used the original book as a physical prop during its introduction. It seemed like a good title and I even painted my stool for the show in the exact same shade of orange (and I mean the same… I went to B&Q and had it scanned and colour matched) as the title on my copy of the book.

Method: Took the title from a singular part of a routine.

INSTANT MAGIC

This is a fairly obvious evolution. Hoffman had many books with slightly altered titles. Later Magic & Latest Magic. I didn’t want to take from him again but I did want a title that felt like a follow up.

So, I looked at the material again with the knowledge that the second word had to be Magic.

In that show, I start taking a polaroid picture of me and my volunteer to give them as they left the stage. That part of my show was (and as far as I know remains) unique. I wanted to make a feature of it and so ‘Photo Magic’, ‘Polaroid Magic’ etc all floated around but didn’t make sense. There’s no double meaning.

In conversation I told a friend I was getting into instant photography and immediately realised that ‘Instant Magic’ was the title I’d been ‘waiting to develop…’.

Method: Evolve a previous title while once again linking something from the show.

THE VANISHING ELEPHANT
This one is easy. Ready for a clean break I wanted something totally different and ‘Insert Name Here Magic’ was out. I had already been working on a routine called the Vanishing Elephant and was doing it in occasional shows. I loved the grandiosity of the statement and the link to ‘The Great Carter’ who’d always been a hero of mine.
I’d seen a poster of his ‘Vanishing The Sacred Elephant’ and thought it would be a cool title for the whole show.
I’d also heard that Lance Burton always liked the idea of a ‘marquee trick’. Something you could put on a billboard to get attention. He said that the ‘Vanishing Corvette’ wasn’t the best trick in his show, but it was the best trick on the poster.
That idea really stuck with me and I knew I had the right name.

Method: Taking the title of a full routine from the show. Worked well as the trick was the opener.

CURIOUS MYSTERIES

During the lockdown, I started a playing card/fun stuff company called Curious Monkey. My wife started a baking company called The Curious Cakeshop.
I wanted to expand that branding outwards into more things.
I probably tried every word in the English language after Curious just to see how they sounded.

I’m a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock and once read a review of his ‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents’ show.

SIDENOTE: My calling shows ‘Mark James Presents’ and then their title was obviously inspired by his show.

The review referred to the episodes as ‘miniseries mysteries’ and the words rolled around in my head for a while. The connection became a fun title and went on to influence the show, rather than the other way around.

I used the Eminem track ‘Alfred’s Theme’ as the overture to the show. It combined the original theme tune with hip-hop beats. This style has been a constant part of my shows so it fit perfectly. I also included famous lines from different Hitchcock movies in each routine without every mentioning it.

The line "Tell me, have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid?” could not worked with Silk To Egg better. Sadly, it’s not from a movie but a famous quotation from a Hitchcock interview.

However, lines like ”Everyone has somebody that they want to put out of the way... Your husband, for instance?” from Strangers On A Train when I had a female volunteer on stage with me were fun.

And "We all go a little mad sometimes.” from Psycho was the easiest to fit in, but… every single routine had at least one Hitchcock line hidden in it’s fabric.

Method: Just think of cool names you like and have them sit around waiting for the right project.

WONDERS

My current show as I write this. The name was partially inspired by my friend Taylor Hughes, whose show I’d almost just finished working on. “Chasing Wonder”, now a popular special on Amazon is a show that we’re both incredibly proud of.
He got an incredible taped performance out of it and I, went and got a tattoo of the title on my arm.

Having spent an extended period of time considering the subject of ‘Wonder’ with a pile of ideas that we both decided suited me better than him, I started working on my own version of the concept. My show is a collection of Wonder’s in it’s various forms and so the title came almost immediately.
I liked that it was generic enough to mean anything but specific enough to influence the ideas.

CONCLUSION

When seeking a title to your show, my advice is to follow the Buddhist tradition of ‘looking inside’. The name of a routine or a line from the script will probably serve as a show title that will make the audience smile when they hear it as part of the performance.

Secondly, write down titles all of the time. Keep a note in your phone for them. Fun phrases and combinations of words that you can look at in future.

Thirdly, have fun with it. A title is suppose to inspire. It can inspire you to work on the show in a new way and then inspire an audience to come and see it when it’s done. Remember, the longer it is, the smaller it will be on a poster, so one or two words is always good.

Just know that giving your show a title is the singular, most free thing you can do to make your process better and your product more bookable.

Good luck thinking of yours!