Magicians under no illusion of lockdown.

Award-winning magicians Jay & Joss, who confess, were slow to react to lockdown, thinking it a short-term hurdle, eventually adapted their shows to go virtual during lockdown and have now been recognised by The Magic Circle for their efforts.

The revamped online performance was assessed by The Magic Circle Examination board and they were awarded Associates of The Inner Magic Circle (with a Silver Star) - the highest degree you can be awarded in The Magic Circle through examination.

Jay (Jamie Docherty) and Joss (Lewis Joss) have spent the past 10 years performing their slick, stylish and witty shows across the world at hundreds of events, on cruises, and in corporate and private settings growing a loyal fanbase. But when lockdown struck, and it was clear in-person shows were no longer possible they had to tailor their act for a new, remote, online audience – and they clearly succeeded growing their social audience by 3X and having to turn down gigs – even with the ability to offer more shows due to their new, fixed stage in their warehouse.

Described by critics as “brilliant”, “smart” and “clever”, their hugely popular virtual show has also been commended for its “great audience interaction”.

Following incredible feedback from online spectators, audience interaction will now play a leading role in their new show and tour, planned for late 2021.

Jay & Joss, based in Northamptonshire, a couple both professionally and in their private life are working on new shows which will incorporate more technology as well as advanced projections and really bring the audience into the show.

Joss said: "The pandemic has been extremely hard on the performing arts industry and like many others, we've had to adapt our show for online audiences with platforms like Zoom.

We received amazingly complimentary feedback from our audiences saying how much more they enjoyed the shows being so close to the action – recording the screen and trying to figure out how we did it! This is definitely something we want to make sure is part of our future live shows.”

Jay said “The move to digital shows was quite daunting at the end of last year, but now we're really enjoying them – so much so we will actually miss them. It's so lovely to be able to keep doing what we love and putting smiles on people’s faces during a very difficult time for a lot of people."