TOM KING meets stage hypnotist Julian Clark, who's so good he's been thrown off the stage by a hynotised security guard

A man who pays the rent by hypnotising people on stage is hardly likely to be a dull stick, but Julian Clark has an especially curious tale to tell.

Julian, 45, lives in Southchurch and has been a full-time hypnotist for 10 years. He tours hotels, clubs, functions and the like with his act. In the summer season, he repairs to Ibiza or Tenerife to entertain tanned ranks of holidaymakers.

He says that he makes "a comfortable living much of the time" from the work, but hypnotism is a lot more than just a job for him. It is both a cause for good and a maiden in distress - for hypnotism itself is threatened.

Julian feels strongly enough about his craft to act as unpaid press officer for the British Council of Professional Stage Hypnotists.

Some people remember him for as much for his role as a stout advocate for hypnotism - he played a vigorous part on TV's Kilroy debate - as they do for his stage show.

"One or two incidents have helped to give our work a bad name," he laments. "Unfortunately, we've all been tarred with the same brush. But nobody comes to any harm."

He maintains that even as pure entertainment hypnotism can be a force for good. "In these stressed-out times people actually need to be taught to relax," he declares.

"They work flat- out all week, then spend their Saturday afternoon, say, watching a football match. They may think they are relaxing, but they are actually sitting rigid and as stressed as ever."

He doesn't just practise his fascinating subject, he explores and researches it. "I have a great curiosity about the human mind and how it works," he says, "and hypnotism provides a short-cut to exploring it."

Julian is modest in the claims he makes for his trade. "Its' not a talent - it's a learned ability," he says. "Anybody can do it. It all works the same way as advertising - by suggestion."

Maybe, but not everybody can build hypnotism into an act that can hold audiences as varied as the directors of the Old Trafford, Cambridge students at a May ball, and the denizens of a gay nightclub.

He has an imposing physique and a powerful, resonant voice, which must be useful attributes for any hypnotist. At first, I had put him down as an ex-police officer, which, as we shall see, was not that far off the mark.

He doesn't just rely on these assets, but is always working to improve and develop his act. "I try to create scenes that are visually funny and fast moving," he says.

"One very popular one is the chicken impression - volunteers hop around and make clucking noises. To me it's a bit old hat but I'm always being asked for it."

Julian ekes out this sort of thing with original ideas such as the Negative Show. "I tell them I am the worst hypnotist they have ever seen in their life," he explains. "I've convinced them so well that I've even been thrown out by a hypnotised security officer.

And yet all the time they are hearing this, they have actually been hypnotised and are doing daft things."

Julian Clark wasn't born to the stage. He says he learned by trial and error. Like most new performers he died endless deaths with unresponsive audiences, but gradually got it right. He now says "I never lose control of an audience" - no mean boast.

The son of a Norfolk headmaster, he spent his early working life in the prison service. "I worked in Pentonville for 15 years, and I ended up doing more time than a lot of convicted men," he says. "At least the prisoners sooner or later got out."

Still, Julian says that he took a pride in the work and got a lot of satisfaction from it. Even at this stage he was learning about stress management.

"The skills required were a sense of humour and compassion," he says. "I had a simple philosophy: treat people as you would wish to be treated.

"You'd get somebody coming in for the first time who thinks of himself as a hard guy. Then, later, you would find him in his cell crying his eyes out. If you could take two minutes to reassure him, tell him that it wasn't the end of the world, you'd make it easier for him and easier for yourself and other the staff."

Slowly, however, Julian began to realise that the job was taking its toll: "A lot of colleagues died from heart attacks and two suicides."

He puts it down to the experience of being locked up and to the apocalyptic build-up of tension "every time you heard an alarm bell ringing."

He started to get incredible headaches and his back locked up. It was at this stage he discovered the power of hypnosis to heal himself.

In one traumatic year he left the prison service and split up with his wife (they have a grown-up daughter). "It was a matter of coming to terms with my own sexuality," he says.

"I'd known I was gay since my teens but I thought that marriage would perhaps sort that out." He now lives with his partner and manager Bill.

However traumatic the experience, he had at least discovered the power of hypnotism. One evening he turned up for a talent contest in Stepney and the Ultra-Fast Hypnotist was born.

It would be nice to think that, like most jobs, hypnotism offers a few perks in everyday life. "I'd like to say that I have this uncanny power over my bank manager, but unfortunately he can still say no," says Julian.

As for that other legendary power of hypnotists over their subject: "I always," says Julian, "tell people that the only way they are going to rip their clothes off and run down the street naked is if they do that sort of thing anyway."

Entrancing - prison warden turned stage hypnotist Julian Clark

Picture: STEVE O'CONNELL

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