Bringing the magic home

By Dave Flaherty/The Oshawa Express

Fresh off a two-month tour of China, an Oshawa magician is returning home to perform at the Regent Theatre this holiday season.

Richard Forget has been performing magic for more than 30 years.

He tells The Oshawa Express he became interested in the hobby as a youth.

“When I was a little boy, I inherited a magic kit from my brother as he never really used it,” he recalls.

He began performing for his extended family, a large one, as he notes his father came from a family of 11 children.

Forget credits magic for allowing him to express himself in a way he never had before.

“Basically I was a shy child coming out. It took me out of the shy mode,” he says.

As he grew older, Forget knew he wanted to pursue magic as a career. “My whole life it was all I ever wanted to be.”

His father had aspirations to become a musician, but eventually settled for raising a family and getting a “normal job.”

With this in mind, Forget’s father encouraged him to follow his dreams.

“He always said ‘Go for it, don’t be like me and look back and say I could have or I should have,'” he recollects.

But the life of a professional magician is not an easy one.

“It’s not like when you want to be a lawyer if you become proficient, you can make a living,” he says. “You are left to your own devices. It’s sort of a manic way of living.”

Calling himself a “late bloomer,” Forget didn’t stray too far from Oshawa to perform for a long time.

“I was a 40-miler, which is a performer who doesn’t perform beyond 40 miles of where they live,” he says.

To reach another level in his career, Forget knew he had to branch out further.

“What I latched onto was competitions. It is kind of like the Olympics of magic and I set my sights on winning one of those competitions,” he says.

Forget says he wanted to create “something that was really different,” and developed an act he describes as “urban fantasy.”

His show ended up winning what he considers to be the “world championships of magic.”

This opened a whole new slew of opportunities for Forget, and he began performing frequently in Asia, notably China.

He performed there for the first time in 2001 and has been back several times. “I just kept building it up and building it up as the years went by,” he says.

According to Forget, his last trip was a “quite a grueling tour.”

“I was in 30 different cities in a few months. I was either in a hotel, on a bus, plane or train going somewhere, at a theatre or somewhere eating.”

He has noticed over the years that the Asian audiences have become “more westernized.”

“They tend to enjoy the show a little bit more. They are kind of getting used to enjoying live entertainment,” he says.

When Forget first became interested in magic, the only real ways to learn were by reading books or studying another performer.

“Now, you have a bunch of videos on YouTube of people performing magic or ‘apparently’ giving away the secrets of magic,” he explains.

However, he feels “in a lot of ways, it’s not the best way to do it,” because there is a lot of duplication, which generates a lack of creativity in his view.

On the other hand, he acknowledges if a performer is able to create an act that becomes viral, their popularity can grow immensely in a short period of time.

“You are being seen by so many people. There is no doubt that the internet has changed everything in terms of being a performer,” he says.

In an unusual way, Forget believes shows such as American’s Got Talent has helped magicians, although that may not have been the intention.

“It was more of a freak show. They’d bring out acts basically to be made fun of,” he says.

However, he thinks as audiences saw the ability of magicians they realized it is a legitimate form of entertainment.

In turn, that has helped create more respect for the art form.

Performing close to home is something Forget says he doesn’t get to do often but he has wanted to for some time.

He will be joined at the Regent Theatre by his friend, Craig Douglas, a juggler and comedian.

“He’s a really entertaining performer,” Forget says.

The show runs Tuesday, Dec. 18 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 and $40 for VIP.

For more information, visit regenttheatre.ca

To learn more about Forget and his show, visit richardforget.com.