Casting a spell of laughter with Barry Potter
Accio new Fringe show! Tim Motley, Fringe World regular and creator of the popular Dirk Darrow series, returns in 2024 with a magical new show, straight out of Hogwarts’ hallowed halls! Packed full of wizarding shenanigans, Barry Potter and the Magic of Wizardry hits Lynott’s Lounge from Saturday, January 20, with tickets on sale now. BEC WELDON spoke to the show’s leading wizard Tim Motley for more.
It’s great to have you back for Fringe World 2024! This is the second year for Barry Potter in Perth after a successful 2023 season. What can new and returning audiences expect from Barry Potter?
Actually, quite a lot of this show will be different from last year! That’s because last year’s Fringe World festival in Perth was the first time I’d ever performed Barry Potter as a show or even a character anywhere, ever. A whole hour of new content is a lot to break in all at once, so the shows always start out much rougher than the final product.
Any live show is very different the 20th time or the 50th time it’s performed from the first. In fact, in those first 10–20 shows, I usually have no idea what’s going to work and what isn’t, so they’re full of tonnes of changes, as I feel how the audience is reacting to different bits. This show is now returning after about 75 shows in a world tour, including a fully sold-out Edinburgh month-long run, so it’s now much more finely tuned. I’ve also swapped out the second magic routine entirely for a new one, and then an even newer one again, as I’ve been experimenting with different Potter-themed stage magic that is doable in real-world Fringe conditions.
And for new audiences, well, let’s just say the show is 100% different than last year! (Wink, wink.)
What inspired you to create a Harry Potter-themed comedy and magic show?
This is one of those ideas that has been sitting in the back drawer of my mind for years, cluttering up valuable storage space that would normally be better used by remembering where I put my keys. Ever since the Potter phenomenon swept the world in the late nineties, I thought, “Harumph, I can’t believe this is what kids think magic is like.” Eventually that evolved into “Huh, I bet this is what millennials who used to be kids think magic is like. I wonder why I’ve never seen a magic show with that theme.
Even in the exotic and storied halls of the world’s greatest magic conventions, magicians today reference Potter and use vocabulary from the movies to compliment each other on tricks. They even casually sneer at the “muggles” outside. But for whatever reason, none of them, to my knowledge, have ever done a whole show about the Wizarding World. So I thought, “Well, it’s been over twenty years since the first book. I’d better hunker down and do this show before someone else finally thinks of it, too.”
Then I took the deep dive, as I do with all my show topics, and researched the heck out of it for a year. And to my surprise, I found a lot of things, particularly in the books, about Harry Potter himself that I could identify with, which have been an enormous help in portraying the character.
You’ve been performing professionally for over twenty years as a comedian and magician. What first drew you to magic and comedy?
Life can be tough. It can be really easy to dwell on its most negative aspects, but laughter provides moments of joy. Ever since I was a boy, I’ve been cackling, guffawing, and releasing those pheromones. Nice in the good times, desperately necessary in the bad. And it makes me happy to make other people happy in the same way, if I can.
Magic provides that unique sense of wonder. That moment of astonishment when you think perhaps the underlying tenets of reality as you know it might have been overhyped—just for a moment before the logic side of your brain kicks in—you might wonder what else might be possible. Also, there’s tigers! And I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the influence of an elderly ex-vaudeville cabaret magician in Philadelphia named David Glenn when I was just a kid.
You’re a beloved Perth Fringe World regular; how do you keep yourself excited about shows and keep them fresh for yourself and your audiences?
I like to play. I try to build moments or sometimes entire routines incorporating improvisation in all of my shows. That way, there’s always something new to keep me on my toes. Plus, of course, there’s heaps of audience interaction, and you never really know what they’re going to do.
Do you have any advice for aspiring magicians or comedians?
Go be a Bitcoin trader, an influencer, or a social media brand designer—anything but this! It’s really hard. But if you feel you absolutely must, then…
Don’t do what everyone else is doing. Focus on your voice. There is a strong pull in the industry to do what everyone else is doing, the way they’re doing it, but with different details. Why bother? What’s the point of that?
Find your audience. Who are you doing this for? The number one thing I see performers do wrong, in my humble opinion, is ignore what the audience wants. I always try to imagine my work from their point of view.
If you could have the ability to master and perform any one spell from the Harry Potter universe, which would it be?
I demonstrate a few of them in the show, as you would expect. I assume you mean one that I can’t do already (laughs). Hmmm… I suppose “Lumos!” would really save on electricity, “Revelio!” would be handy on poker night, and healing spells would be great, but only one? Then I’d have to say “Legilimens!” to read minds.
What’s coming up for Tim Motley and his motley crew of characters in 2024?
Lots of festivals, cruise ship gigs, and exotic destinations. After Perth, I’m doing full runs of Barry Potter at Adelaide Fringe and Melbourne Comedy Fest, then straight over to American and Canadian festivals. And in my spare time, I’m tinkering with some new magic that I hope to use to create a Barry Potter sequel, currently untitled.