Meet Megan Swann, the eco magician

“You don’t often see magic and climate change talked about at the same time,” says Megan Swann. She’s clutching a thick book with a picture of Earth on the cover and, as she opens it, a spherical foam planet Earth pops out. She catches it deftly with her other hand. The book is a prop, and this is eco-magic.

I meet Swann, 33, in front of an ornate Victorian greenhouse in a park in south-east London. A suitcase full of tricks is at her side. As well as being the Magic Circle’s youngest president and the first woman to hold the position (she was in the post between 2020 and 2023), she’s also pioneering her brand of educational magic to bring climate awareness to her audiences.

“I can’t remember not loving magic,” says Swann. “I got my first magic set at five years old, and I absolutely loved it. For my eighth birthday party I had a magician, and it was also the day my little brother was born – it was quite a big deal! [The magician] got me up and involved, and it was a really lovely experience. He made me feel really special. I just loved magic even more after that.”

That early influence set Swann on the path to pursuing a career in magic. At 10, she joined the Magic Circle’s Young Magicians Club, where perks included lessons from professional magicians and a trip to a magic camp in Canada. When Swann turned 18, it was the magician from her eighth birthday party who supported her application to join the Magic Circle, a global membership organisation for professional and semi-professional magicians. They’re still friends to this day. “Magic is quite a small world,” she laughs.

So, how did climate change become a theme in Swann’s magic shows? “I’ve always loved magic and always loved nature, but I never thought about combining the two,” she explains. Swann did a degree in wildlife conservation (and when not doing magic, works part time at the British Veterinary Association). “There were several presentations I had to do as part of the course. I’d always put a trick in where it was relevant, it made it more fun. And I got more marks.”

Climate and conservation isn’t the first theme Swann has used in her performance. “I’ve always been quite good at theming tricks,” she says. “I used to have a stage act that was ballet-themed, I’d dress up as the swan from Swan Lake and dance around. It was something I always loved doing. Once upon a time, I did a close up-act that was all themed around makeup. I had whole shows themed around things I enjoyed, because that was the easiest thing to perform. The first conservation trick I did was on deforestation, but I couldn’t perform it very often because it was too negative.”

That trick involves Swann tearing up a newspaper, before the torn strips magically rejoin together, to represent the impact of deforestation and how action, like replanting trees and nature preservation, can mitigate the effects. In the earlier days of her magic career, she was performing evening gigs to adult audiences at private functions and the occasional corporate event, and a trick with a heavy-hitting message didn’t seem like the right choice for such bookings. “So I decided to do a free show for kids,” she says.

In one illusion to explain how fossil fuels make power, Swann lights a piece of touchpaper in a tin, slams the lid on, then takes it off again to reveal two foam pop-up lightning bolts. In another trick, green ropes miraculously turn into the words ‘Save the Planet’ when she tucks them inside a folded flag then unfurls it.

The idea first came to her in 2018, and by 2020 – when the Covid pandemic sent the world into lockdown – she had enough material, and started performing shows over Zoom, including for Girl Guides, for whom she serves as an ambassador. Now she gets to do those shows live, and she says they’re a hit with the Guides, especially those keen on earning one of the nature-focused badges.

“It’s really good fun, to go to a camp and do a load of tricks. They’re always nice audiences as well. I think it’s quite good for them to see a woman in magic.” (She’s not wrong about that: only 5% of the Magic Circle’s 1,700 members are women, and until 1991 it was a male-only organization.)

I ask if Swann thinks that magic can be an effective communication tool when it comes to talking about climate, given that overly scientific information, or abrasive activism, can be polarizing. “I think you need a whole range of ways. There’s a place for all these types of communication. I’m aware that magic is not the tool for the really serious, hard-hitting facts. But I can explain the concept of global warming and the science behind it using a balloon and a ball. I can explain concepts and most importantly, I like to use magic to show that it can be fun to care for nature. You don’t have to focus on the doom and gloom. I think my role is to motivate and inspire people who maybe are already engaged with the topic, and try and kick them into action.”

To ensure her tricks are factually accurate as well as fun, Swann has recently been working with Professor Ilan Kelman, an environmental researcher at University College London who specializes in disaster reduction and health. “We’re working on a show about hope for the future planet and combatting doomerism,” she says. “People don’t need lectures necessarily, they just need reminding with a few hard-hitting facts that I work into my show. I have had people say, ‘Oh, I never thought of things that way’.”

Not just any trick will work to explain a scientific fact. Swann has a process. “What I try and do is merge the trick and the messaging in a way people will remember,” she says. “I start with the message rather than the trick, and think, what’s the best way of demonstrating this, rather than, ‘what message can I put in this magic trick’?”

Sometimes, tricks come about by accident, such as one describing the interconnected web of nature – plants, animals, weather systems, and human activity. Swann’s grandfather bought Swann a pom-pom stick for her 14th birthday (a hollow pole with strands of yarn of different lengths inside it, where each strand hangs out of the end of the pole, and has a pom-pom on). It’s a simple, visual gag – pull on one pom-pom, and the others are pulled with it, making for an amusing spectacle of pom-poms bouncing around in disarray. At first, Swann sniffed at the gift, thinking it was too silly for her act, before she realised that each pom-pom could represent a different facet of nature. Pull on one, and it has a knock-on effect on another.

“It sat in the cupboard for years, because it just wasn’t my style,” Swann says. “But now I open my shows with it. I was looking to do a trick around connections, about how climate is connected to the economy, national security, the weather. And it just worked. It fit perfectly.”

Now she’s honed her skills in front of children by performing in schools and at Girlguiding gatherings, as well as reaching a business audience with slots at corporate events. “I’ve even done routines on climate finance,” she says. “I think it works really well for anyone who wants to share the message in a fun and unusual way, but obviously it’s not a replacement for lectures and facts. I like the idea that someone might book me thinking it’s an easy way to talk about the climate, and the audience will come away engaged and wanting to find out more.”

Even as global temperatures continue to rise, it’s hard not to raise a smile at Swann’s upbeat, sprightly energy. If a never-ending string of multicoloured hankies and some clever pop-up props spark an interest in climate science in a sceptical or world-weary person, then her act is doing its job. With that, we end our conversation and head into a clearing in the woods so she can explain nature restoration to me, via the medium of several pieces of green string.