The Steve Faulkner Podcast

Pete Heat performs for some of the most famous people on the planet. We get into how those gigs actually come about, the Jude Law moment that reminded him to stop throwing his own tricks away, and why one rough show on a half-empty cruise ship says nothing about you.

Plus an exclusive: Pete’s finishing a book on filming magic, drawn from years as a TV consultant and cameraman, and he shares some of what’s in it.

Pete: peteheat.co.uk and @peteheat on Instagram. He’s also performing regularly at Magician’s Table in London.

This episode is sponsored by AbraCircle, custom-coded websites for magicians and performers. Special discount for podcast listeners: https://stevefaulkner.com/abrapod

Newsletter: https://stevefaulkner.com/newsletter
Online Magic membership: https://www.onlinemagic.co
Steve on Instagram: @stevefaulkner
Real Magic Review on Instagram: @realmagicreview

Thanks to Stuart Davies for editing.

Chapters

00:00 Intro
05:36 Coming back after a break
07:51 Cruise ships and the second 45
10:53 Wanting to do magic you’d actually watch
14:16 Close-up as a job, not your art
16:56 AbraCircle
17:40 Rough gigs and not beating yourself up
21:16 Hitting the wall at a close-up gig
24:14 The Fringe and the stage show
26:01 Celebrity gigs, Margot Robbie and Mumford and Sons
29:11 How do you get those gigs?
32:52 Remembering what you do isn’t rubbish
33:18 Jude Law and the Omni Deck
36:37 Magic is a tiny part of most people’s lives
41:56 New toys in the bag
49:53 Why don’t magicians make more content?
59:59 Positioning yourself as a high-end magician
1:08:57 AI, tools and terrible posters
1:13:48 Pete’s book on filming magic
1:21:42 Taking charge when you’re being filmed
1:26:14 Saying no without being a diva
1:30:49 Where to find Pete

Andy Gladwin on Stealing Magic, the documentary about his years tracking down the people behind magic's biggest piracy sites, fresh from its premiere at Tribeca.

This one was recorded a little while back, but everything in it is just as relevant now.

We talk about the pirates who asked for $20,000 a month in Bitcoin to leave Vanishing Inc alone, being scared on camera with a film crew who aren't allowed to help you, why he never wanted to be the magic police, and what the documentary audiences keep saying about magicians. Plus the thing about pirate sites and your passwords that every magician needs to hear.

This episode is sponsored by AbraCircle, custom-coded websites for magicians and performers. Special discount for podcast listeners: stevefaulkner.com/abrapod

Newsletter: https://stevefaulkner.com/newsletter
Online Magic membership: https://www.onlinemagic.co
Steve on Instagram: @stevefaulkner
Real Magic Review on Instagram: @realmagicreview

This one goes deep, and I'll be honest, it was partly selfish. I've been struggling with how you put actual meaning into magic without it becoming meaning for the sake of it. So I got Perseus Arkomanis on to help me work it out, and hopefully help some of you along the way.

Thank you to my sponsor Abracircle. They create amazing websites for magicians. I'm very grateful for their support, so please click on the link and have a look.

https://www.abracircle.website/steve-faulkner-podcast-promo

We get properly into the weeds. Perseus talks about the moment he realised that between tables everyone was commenting on how funny he was and nobody was commenting on the magic, and the conscious decision to ban himself from jokes in the first five minutes. Terrifying, in his words. He talks about being asked "why are we demonstrating this?" about one of his own routines and having no real answer, and how that one conversation changed his whole approach.

There's a lot in here about themes, about scripting, about jazzing, about leaving your ego at the door when people give you feedback, and about the difference between what he calls rollercoaster or firecracker magic and something that actually lands.

If you've ever looked at Perseus's material and thought this isn't really for me, that was me too. It really is. Have a listen and see what you think.

Perseus's stuff: orionmagicproductions.com
His latest release, The Resonance, is a video of his lecture recorded in Vienna with extra material added. Genuinely a bargain for what you learn.

Get it here 

Newsletter: https://stevefaulkner.com/newsletter
Online Magic membership: https://www.onlinemagic.co
Steve on Instagram: @stevefaulkner
Real Magic Review on Instagram: @realmagicreview

Thanks to Stuart Davis for editing. Apologies for a bit of background noise on this one, houses have things happening in them. Stuart worked wonders.

I've been trying to get Peter Nardi on for ages, and when we finally sat down we just started talking and hit record to see where it went. No plan, no structure, and it turned into one of the most open conversations I've had on here.

Peter built Alakazam from a bloke ordering tricks nobody else could get, off the back of daily lunch breaks at Davenports in Charing Cross, into one of the biggest magic companies in the world. We go right back to that, the £100 a week dream, building the first website out of a Programming for Dummies book, and the morning he rang up a brand new job and said he wasn't coming in.

But the bit that really stayed with me is him admitting that for six or seven years before lockdown, the passion had gone. Coming in, watching the clock, going home. And how his son Harry stepping up brought that energy back into the building and into him.

We also get into what a magic shop actually is to people, why customers ring up to tell Harry their parents have died, magicians who feel the need to prove how clever they are by calling out a double lift in the comments, why old tricks are not worse tricks, and Peter's genuinely brilliant method for getting through an eight hour download without losing your mind.

Plus a confession from me about a box of Alakazam review copies I've been sitting on for four years.

Alakazam Magic: alakazammagic.com

Thank you to my sponsor Abracircle. They create amazing websites for magicians. I'm very grateful for their support, so please click on the link and have a look.

https://www.abracircle.website/steve-faulkner-podcast-promo

 

Newsletter: https://stevefaulkner.com/newsletter
Online Magic membership: https://onlinemagic.co
Steve on Instagram: @stevefaulkner
Real Magic Review on Instagram: @realmagicreview

Arthur Benjamin is a mathematician. When I tell people that, I watch their eyes glaze over a little, and I get it, because that was me too, until I saw him perform at a convention years ago and it became one of the most entertaining things I've ever watched live.

Thank you to my sponsor Abracircle. They create amazing websites for magicians. I'm very grateful for their support, so please click on the link and have a look.

https://www.abracircle.website/steve-faulkner-podcast-promo

We talk about how a kid who did children's magic shows in Cleveland, Ohio ended up as a professor doing mental math as performance, why his father telling him "that might be more entertaining than the fake mind reading stuff" changed the direction of his whole career, and his friendship with James Randi, who genuinely helped launch his career after being won over by logic puzzles at a magicians' convention in the early 80s.

He teaches me the doomsday algorithm live on the podcast, a genuinely simple method for working out the day of the week for any date this year, and by the end of it I actually knew my birthday would fall on a Monday. If you've ever thought you're "not a numbers person," this conversation will quietly take that belief apart.

We also talk about growth mindset, why one bad maths teacher can shape your whole relationship with a subject for life, and his brand new off-Broadway show, That Math Show, running in New York until 16th August 2026.

Genuinely one of my favourite conversations. Have a listen.

That Math Show tickets: https://thatmathshow.com (running until 16th August 2026)
Secrets of Mental Math (book, audiobook, video course): search Arthur Benjamin on Audible or thegreatcourses.com
New book, How to Win: out October 2026

Newsletter: https://stevefaulkner.com/newsletter
Online Magic membership: https://onlinemagic.co
Steve on Instagram: @stevefaulkner
Real Magic Review on Instagram: @realmagicreview