He’s been seen as a revelation in the world of magic in recent years – and it’s a scenario that Kevin Quantum is entirely comfortable with.
The Fife-raised illusionist and inventor first adopted his stage persona almost two decades ago as a contestant on Channel 4 reality show Faking It, when legendary American pranksters Penn and Teller helped him make the leap from geeky physicist-in-waiting to swaggering stage extrovert.
Since those heady days of 2005, Quantum’s long list of achievements have included establishing the UK’s first truly populist magic festival and reaching the semi-finals of ITV hit Britain’s Got Talent, as covered by The Courier.
How does Kevin feel about career?
Pausing to look back on his career to date, the ever-dapper 42-year-old from Rosyth – real name Kevin McMahon – says he feels proud that his performances have forged a connection between science and magic in hearts and minds.
“I got into magic quite late,” he reflects.
“I felt at the time that there were a lot of doubters that didn’t believe that I would be able to make a career out of this – that I would stumble and I would find myself back in physics.
“So I feel like I’ve done well, like I’ve found my place in magic – and I’ve made an impact.”
How did Kevin get into magic?
Brought up as the eldest of four children, Kevin was often top of his class at school, where his passion for physics first emerged.
“I was always enquiring,” the founder of the Edinburgh Fringe’s Magicfest reveals.
“I had a bit of an engineer’s head on me – I remember at primary school I took apart a television just to try and understand what was going on.
“It was an old cathode ray set and I wasn’t able to put it back together again, sadly – I wasn’t gifted, but I was happy to take it apart.”
Kevin says he also got into computer programming after being given a ZX Spectrum PC in the late 1980s.
“I was really fascinated by how these things worked,” he adds.
“I was one of these kids who would take out all the magic books at the library so no other kids could learn the secrets.
“I did love physics and science back then – it was more an intrigue in the world around me.”
Impact of sporting injury
Laid up for a spell with a football injury while studying for a PhD in computer science and physics in 2004, he read that Channel 4’s big-budget Faking It was seeking scientists looking for a challenge.
The decision to hastily send in an application was one that would ultimately change his life, impressing the show’s bosses by adopting the eccentric physicist persona that would become a kind of alter-ego.
For the series, Quantum spent just under a month taking a crash course in magic, with mentoring from some of the most respected figures in his craft.
“That was four weeks that changed my life,” says Kevin, who swiftly decided to call time on his PhD after a stint learning a few tricks from Hollywood’s best-known scientific skeptics Penn and Teller.
As it turned out, the comedy factor in the Emmy Award-winning Las Vegas mainstays’ act proved every bit as much of an influence on him as the duo’s sleight of hand.
“I’m not funny in like I can write jokes, but I’m really good at creating special situations,” he explains.
“That’s my talent – building a situation with people from the audience.”
How did he impress BGT judges?
The married father of one impressed judges by walking blindfolded through a “harmonic pendulum” consisting of burning cannonballs during his Britain’s Got Talent audition three years ago.
In the later semi-final, his antics included quite literally performing a vanishing act after seemingly becoming charged with dangerous levels of electricity and covering himself with an anti-static blanket.
Such death-defying, technology-fuelled illusions are a staple of Quantum’s performances, with his latest visual feast Momentum set to see him return to Perth following a mesmerising previous appearance in the Fair City during its Magical Christmas Weekend last December.
He’ll be blowing minds at back-to-back Perth Theatre evening shows on the last Friday and Saturday of this month, as well as at a matinee performance on the second of those days.
* Kevin Quantum, July 28 and 29, horsecross.co.uk
