An interview with Houdini's Greatest Escape Illusionist, Pete Firman

As hilarious 39 Steps-esque thriller, Houdini’s Greatest  Escape,  embarks on a UK Tour we caught up with TV’s Pete Firman (Amazon Prime series Good Omens/ BBC One’s The Magicians) who has teamed up producer New Old Friends and the talented cast to design the stunning magic illusions for the show.

As a stage illusionist yourself were you inspired by Houdini?
Undoubtedly, I mean, when you’re talking about magicians in history there’s no one more ionic than Harry Houdini. The surname alone… everyone knows who you’re talking about! I think every magician post Houdini, in some way, has been inspired by his work.

What do you love about creating illusions for theatre?
What’s fun for me about creating illusions for theatre shows is that I get to explore the kind of material that perhaps I wouldn’t do on my own. The kind of tricks I wouldn’t do myself, so that’s a lot of fun. Particularly with a show like this, where you’re working within the confines of the history of the piece, we’re throwing back to a lot of classics that Houdini would have done. So that’s been really interesting.

Were there any challenges working with untrained magicians to carry out the illusions on stage?
These guys have really thrown themselves into it, I said when I first met them ‘there’s no shortcuts with these tricks, these re professional magical illusions, they won’t work by themselves’, and they’ve worked incredibly hard. It’s really impressive actually what they’ve done with the tricks I’ve supplied.

Without giving anything away too much do you have a favourite illusion performed in this show?
I think the illusion that closes the show is my favourite, I don’t want to give any spoilers but it’s the trick that Harry Houdini is most famous for and we do it in a really spectacular way.

And if you had to sum up this show, Houdini’s Greatest Escapes in 3 words…?
Comedy, Magic, Hilarity