Simon Nicholson

Simon Nicholson

About Author

Simon Nicholson began his career writing and directing British theatrical productions, including a period with the Royal Shakespeare Company, before moving into children's television where he has written scripts for programmes including Fireman Sam, Bob the Builder and Paw Patrol.

Simon also writes children's books and these have included The Oldmoor Orphans and the fast-paced Young Houdini series, which is published by OUP.

Author link

www.simonbnicholson.com; twitter.com/simonbnicholson

Interview

YOUNG HOUDINI: THE MAGICIAN'S FIRE

PUBLISHED BY OUP

FEBRUARY 2015

How did Houdini the child become the sensational, internationally-renowned escape artist Harry Houdini? In the action-packed YOUNG HOUDINI series, author and screenwriter Simon Nicholson creates a fictional childhood for Houdini in which we see Houdini's growing fascination with magic and the development of his early skills as a magician and performer.

The first book in the series, The Magician's Fire, sees Harry and his tight group of friends investigate the strange disappearance of a magician who was Harry's early inspiration.

We asked author Simon Nicholson to tell us more about his Young Houdini series:


Q: You've got a background in directing for the theatre and writing television scripts, so what took you into writing books for children?

A: I worked as an assistant director at the Royal Shakespeare Company which was great but I always liked the idea of moving into theatre for children. I went on to write and direct shows for children but it was at the time when children's television was really strong, you had shows like Teletubbies being incredibly successful, and I made a connection with the Jim Henson Company and started to write television shows with them, which was very inspiring.

Henson had this philosophy about television for children and had decided that, even if a child was living in a troubled area, you could still make inspiring programmes for them. Television was about more than having a box in the corner of a room; for him it was about inspiring social change.

It's very exciting writing for television or film, partly because you are working with groups of people who work together to bring those ideas to life. But I also liked the idea that, in writing a book, you have to do everything to build the scenes and characters yourself. When you're used to working in big teams, the idea of doing everything yourself is very exciting.


Q: As you're still working in television, how did you manage to also write a children's book?

A: I am still doing lots of work in television, including developing a brand new show, and I'm writing for several new shows with other writing teams.

Finding time to write isn't always easy but you just do it. I actually wrote Houdini while my family were living in Borneo. My wife is a social anthropologist and was given the opportunity to do a project studying child migration to Borneo. While she was working on this, I could write Young Houdini and I managed to come back to the UK with two completed Young Houdini books. Magician's Fire is the first and the second, The Demon Curse, will follow in June.


Q: Why did you decide to base your new series on Harry Houdini, the famous escape artist?

A: I have always been very interested in who Harry Houdini really was and the idea of magic and magicians.

He's a legendary figure and was one of the first figures - 150 or so years ago - to become internationally famous; he was a global figure although he was just really an ordinary guy. His fame was based on the phenomenal things he could do.

His tricks were so dangerous that if they had failed in any way, that would have been the end of him. In my stories, I see Houdini as a boy who is gripped by the desire to develop these skills; I wanted to show that happening.


Q: How hard was it to reinvent the spectacle of his shows in your stories, given that children are used to far more spectacular effects these days?

A: It took a lot of work to think it through because we have all seen Houdini's tricks, or tricks like them, and clips of him upside down escaping from a strait jacket. There's a danger that his acts will have lost their impact through their familiarity, so you have to break that open to remind people just how dangerous his acts really were.

One of Houdini's most famous tricks was being put into a milk churn full of water, from which he escapes. I wondered how he'd first learned to do his water escape, and how to escape from a strait jacket. So for the boy Houdini, I explored each of his famous tricks in turn and how he had first had the idea for them.

Often the reason the tricks worked for Houdini were simple, for example having a nail in his teeth to pick a lock, but the psychology of this kind of person was more interesting. If you're prone to taking risks because of the huge rush of adrenalin you get afterwards, then that is escalated to bigger and bigger risks.

I was interested in how that mind works and tried to isolate that psychology, to explore how a boy acquired the kind of bravery he would need to do the tricks he did as an adult.


Q: Did you need to do much research into Houdini for the book?

A: I read a lot of biographies about Houdini and found that he was a very difficult figure to write about because he created a lot of mystique about himself, so you're never quite sure what was the truth.

I'm also very clear that I am writing about him as a legendary figure rather than making my stories historically accurate. Houdini grew up quite peacefully in Wisconsin but, in my version, he gets separated from his family and ends up on his own.

One biography argues that the real Houdini was an international spy, it's very well researched and it made me think that if he led a double life as a child, maybe that could have led onto doing the same thing as an adult, and this also comes into my series.


Q: How did you find out about the setting for your stories, nineteenth century New York?

A: I'm Canadian so the setting in New York for the book felt fairly familiar. I've been there quite a lot, although it's hard to write about a nineteenth century New York because there were no skyscrapers then...


Q: How many Houdini books will there be, and where do you write them?

A: I have written the two Young Houdini books, Magician's Fire and The Demon Curse, and I have another two in mind. I'm also working on another book for slightly younger readers. I tend to write from 9am to 5pm. I write books pretty fast, at least the first draft, and then I edit them over and over, clearing things out and putting things in.

I drink lots of tea and coffee and tend not to be very good at stopping writing. Even if I've finished for the day my mind carries on working, but that's a good problem to have!


Q: Where is the best place you've written?

A: One of the best places I've written in was a hamlet in the middle of the mountains in Indonesia. My wife lived there for three years for her work with coffee farmers and I visited many times. It's a very, very different part of the world. I found I spent a lot of time with parrots...

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