Adorable young magician opens Showzam!

Blackpool Gazette

Meet the cute youngster with a huge passion for magic - and who says his favourite hobby has helped him to boost his confidence and cope with the challenges of having autism.  Cillian O Connor, who opened Blackpool's Showzam! festivities with an impressive performance, tells Lucinda Herbert how  learning card tricks has helped him with his fine motor skills - and the charismatic youngster would have struggled with public speaking before he discovered magic.  Watch the former Britain's Got Talent finalist, and Guinness Book of World Records holder, as he dazzled the crowd on Showzam!'s opening night.

Transcript

00:00My name is Killian O'Connor and I've been doing magic for eight years now. Some of my tricks include

00:08One where I give the spectator a chance to win some money

00:13Where they will always win that money no matter what. I have three envelopes and inside one of them is a five pound note

00:20In a moment, I'll give you the chance to win the five pounds and I'll do everything in my power to make sure you win

00:27I can weigh a deck of cards and tell you how many cards are there and then with one quick glance

00:32I can tell you what those cards are from memory. What I love about magic is being able to perform for people and

00:41Seeing the reactions I can get, seeing the smiles on their faces

00:45when

00:46They see this and they just can't figure it out. Magic is my universe and my life

00:54Is now whole.

00:56Appearance on Britain's Got Talent in

01:002023 it was

01:02Just something else, you know, it was my first time on stage

01:06I think being able to fight through those nerves and get through the whole performance was what made me

01:11break down and have tears at the end and

01:16Being able to share my story with having autism was also a

01:21A major moment in my magic career. When I was younger, I chose to interact with people.

01:30I felt a bit empty

01:34Incomplete

01:37I felt invisible. The magic has helped me sort of

01:42overcome the autism as

01:45Before I had magic, I would have been very bad at public speaking, but also with my fine motor skills.

01:51But being able to mess around with decks of cards and Rubik's Cubes and

02:00Being able to practice tricks where I can memorize the scripts

02:03Really helped because it gave me something to talk about

02:07I'd like to bring you on my journey

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Transcript

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