Illusionist Cosentino takes his death-defying tricks on tour

He was the boy with learning difficulties who became one of the world’s greatest illusionists. Aussie magician Cosentino, 36, has been touted a modern-day Houdini for his famed escapes — and he’s taking his death-defying tricks on tour across Australia.

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With his hands and ankles cuffed, illusionist Cosentino is lowered into a perspex tank filled with water. He drops 10m and his lung capacity reduces by 50 per cent. Just holding his breath becomes harder. The more he moves, the more oxygen he needs.

He’s done the underwater escape many times before but he quickly realises this time is different. He finds it hard to equalise and becomes disoriented and nauseous. Somehow he frees his hands and unpicks his ankle locks and is raised quickly to the surface.

There’s blood pouring from his ears — he’s burst his eardrum and he’s rushed to a hospital emergency department.

Magician and illusionist Cosentino is touring Australia. Picture: Richard Dobson

It’s not the only time something has gone wrong for the 36-year-old magician who has been touted a modern-day Houdini for his famed escapes and illusions. There was also the time he blacked out underwater and his crew had to pull him out.

You can understand why his mother, Rosemary, won’t watch him rehearse any more. And yet his mum is his greatest fan, and the woman who inspired him to pursue magic in the first place.

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Cosentino tells the story that he couldn’t read until he was 12, despite his mother being a school principal. Out of desperation, she took him to the last place a kid who can’t read would want to go — the library. And there he discovered a new world.

“I was very shy and introverted when I was a kid,” Cosentino tells BW Magazine.

“I was that kid at the back of the classroom avoiding the teacher. I had learning difficulties and had my eyes and ears tested but basically I fell through the cracks and fell behind at school.

Cosentino had difficulty reading as a child but improved once he discovered magi. Picture: David Caird

“I beat myself up and would tell myself I was dumb. Desperate, Mum would take me to the library and there I discovered The Encyclopaedia Of Magic. It had gorgeous Vaudevilian illustrations of illusionists like Houdini and all this engaged me.

“There was one poster with the line ‘Nothing on earth can hold Houdini a prisoner’ and it had him getting out of jail and jumping off bridges. I thought he was a superhero, but he was real. And at the back of the book there were tricks and, through the steps of connecting the images to the words, I began the process of slowly trying to read.

“You could say Houdini taught me to read or, more accurately, Mum taught me to read through Houdini.”

As a teen, the aspiring illusionist, who was born Paul Cosentino but uses just his surname on stage, cut his magician’s teeth on the basics — card tricks and making coins disappear.

He recalls being able to put one of his earliest tricks to good use when he was just 13. He and his mother were locked out of the house and Cosentino picked the lock. He says he can still remember hearing the click of the lock opening and feeling such power.

Cosentino loves performing.

In that moment, he says, his career was set. He went on to be the first Australian magician to appear on TV and he worked hard to break down preconceived ideas that magicians were all super-serious men pulling rabbits out of their hats.

He received his first straitjacket from a Las Vegas magician friend when he was 18 and started creating escape tricks, initially working on handcuffs with a bobby pin then turning to a locksmith for lessons.

His first underwater escape was in 2004, a trick that took him years to learn and perfect.

“At first I was in a drum or barrel with a grille over the opening and my hands cuffed to the grille,” he says.

“But the audience questioned it because they couldn’t see me, so I decided to perform the escape with clear perspex so they could view the whole process.

Cosentino with his partner Priscilla Stavrou. Picture: Instagram

“I was one of the first in the world to do this. My Mum doesn’t watch any rehearsals after she saw one where it went a little wrong.”

And what about his partner, dancer Priscilla Stavrou?

“Priscilla is a performer so she understands but does she like me doing it? Probably not but she supports it,” he says.

Cosentino met Stavrou, who is now touring the country with Aladdin, almost seven years ago.

His sister-in-law introduced them and she went on to become his onstage assistant on Australia’s Got Talent, on which he was the runner up.

“She’s so powerful on stage and I feel she makes me better when she’s on stage with me,” he gushes about the woman he refers to as the love of his life.

“It’s special that she knows all my secrets and shares my craft with me.”

Each of their Instagram feeds are speckled with little love messages to each other, particularly when their respective careers keep them apart — which happens often.

The pair share their life with Luna, a black french bulldog who goes by the name Luna The Wonder Dog on Instagram. She also performs on stage with Cosentino.

It’s a popular routine in which an audience member chooses a playing card and returns it to the pack. Cosentino shuffles then Luna picks the correct card.

Cosentino often uses his french bulldog Luna in his performances.

For a kid who couldn’t read until he was 12 and hid away in the back of the classroom, Cosentino is making up for his slow start.

He has a hand in all the graphic artwork for his posters, books and website and does all his own costuming. He even edited his own TV show over the years.

While his passion will always be magic and performance, in 2013 he turned his attention to writing a series of children’s books about a little boy who stumbles across a magic book which releases dust when used. Sounds familiar.

The colourful characters include Lachie, the walking, talking padlock, and Professor Camouflage who all live in a place called Magic Land.

“I started writing it for myself and a friend illustrated it, then Scholastic publishers approached me to do a book,” he says.

“So far there are four books in the series called The Mysterious World Of Cos. For me, it definitely shows the complete circle of the kid who couldn’t read.

“I love talking to kids about the series and my message to them is always very clear.

“I tell them that the path does not equal the future.

“I am the perfect example of that.”

* The Death-Defying Mystery Of Cosentino The Grand Illusionist will be on at Darling Harbour ICC on July 5