Job title: Mike Tyler, naked magician

Duo will bare all at the Wood in GF this week

By Cathy DeDe, Chronicle Managing Editor

How do they pull it off?

Mike Tyler and partner Christopher Wayne are The Naked Magicians, two Australian masters of the sleight-of-hand who pull it off, they like to say, “with nothing up our sleeves.”

Yeah. No sleeves. Or pants either. That’s their shtick, and it’s been bringing them to theaters around the world for three years straight, Mr. Tyler tells The Chronicle.

The duo will take the stage at the Charles R. Wood Theater in downtown Glens Falls for four shows, Friday and Saturday, March 3 and 4, at 6 p.m. and 8:30 each night.

Tix: $41.50. Box office: 480-4878.

Mr. Tyler says, “We were both full-time magicians for eight or 10 years, doing regular clothed shows. We met and became best mates,” he says (read that in full-out Australian accent for truest effect) before we became a duo act.”

Both are 32; raised in Brisbane, on the East Coast in Queensland, Australia.

“It’s strange that we were both full time magicians, the same age, in the same city and we’d never crossed paths before,” Mr. Tyler says. They finally met, not surprisingly, at a magic show where both were performing, and they hit it off, he says.

“Seven years later, we are best mates and touring the world together.”

Which one turned to the other and said, Hey, I have this idea…?

Mr. Tyler says it was the 2012 Steven Soderbergh movie Magic Mike, which starred Channing Tatum as a male stripper.

“Even though it’s nothing about magic,” Mr. Tyler says, “everyone was calling me Magic Mike. Chris got an idea of developing this show,” from that.

The thought?

“It’s something that would appeal to an audience that would not usually come to a magic show. We like to call it the world’s naughtiest and funniest magic show.”

‘The ultimate misdirection’

They also claim, “Good magicians don’t need sleeves. Great magicians don’t need pants.”

Is it more of a challenge, not having hiding places for purposes of misdirection?

Mr. Tyler laughs, “Sometimes. But, at the same time, we also have the ultimate misdirection with our bodies as a distraction. Everyone wants to see if they can catch a glance of our magic wands.”

Mr. Tyler says, “To be clear, in the show itself, we start out clothed, then slowly get naked throughout. “We like to compare it to a first date,” he says. “We’ll have some fun, a lot of laughs, but you’re guaranteed to have us naked at the end.”

It’s not an illusion, he says.

They call it a perfect girls night out — and groups of women are their main audience, “but we’ll also see couples, gay men and lesbians,” he says. “It’s a celebration of sexuality.”

It’s also audience-interactive he says, and organized into “naughty themes like celebrities you might want to have sex with, or drunk texting. There’s an amazing escape, and knife throw, but all very naughty.”

The show was an overnight success, Mr. Tyler says.

They launched it three years ago on Valentine’s Day 2014, in their hometown of in Brisbane. They sold out two weeks of shows before they even hit the stage.

“That was mainly based on the great poster (which features a pose similar to the one on this page),” Mr. Tyler says, “and the name itself. And of course, the show reviewed really well.”

He is adamant: Nudity may be their calling card, but — “It’s not just two naked guys doing card tricks,” he says.

The first year, they did 50 shows in Australia, Mr. Tyler says. The second, 103 in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong (a real hit, he says). Last year, they performed in 45 cities across the U.S., and also toured to London’s West End, Scotland and Canada. “We haven’t stopped since then,” he says.

Any trouble? In one town in Illinois whose name Mr. Tyler says he can’t remember, locals protested over bringing such an act to a publicly funded civic theater, and their show was cancelled.

“That was good and bad. Bad not to do the show, but good that we god so much attention for it, and we did 60 other cities in America and Canada, so just one, that’s fine with us.”

Okay, we had to ask: They must have to really work out, to put themselves on display like that.

Mr. Tyler laughs: “I’m hitting the gym as soon as this interview is over. It’s a lot harder when we’re on the road with shows every night,” he says. We try to get at least one thing in every day, a run, swim, weights session, so there is something good to look at. No one wants to see two tubby guys doing naked magic.”’

‘No bad naked moments’

Mr. Tyler adds, “There’s good naked, and bad naked.” He said they learned, “No one wants to see you pulling your socks off and tripping over yourself. We’ve really choreograph it. The show is much better than when we first started. There are no bad naked moments. You want to look good on stage.”

He laughs again, “We’ve found out, you Americans like naked Aussie boys. Back home, no one cares what we sound like, but here, they love the accent.”

He adds, “That works for us. We have a thing for American girls.”

That begs the question.

“We’re both single right now,” Mr. Tyler claims. “It’s sort of hard to have time to be in a relationship when you’re touring so much and getting naked with audiences every night.”

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