Why entertainer Scott Radburn has made his iconic magic and acrobatic props disappear

Entertainer Scott Radburn is watching his iconic props from his time with The Four Kinsmen disappear. Photos: Supplied.

Wollongong entertainer and final member to join The Four Kinsmen Scott Radburn has parted with some of the props that made his routines unforgettable.

Despite still performing, Radburn has decided to sell some of his items, including his famous acrobatic stools that he used for physical comedy routines and his props to create his illusions.

The Four Kinsmen formed in 1962, achieving success with their music and comedy variety show, working with everyone from Engelbert Humperdinck to Benny Hill, and picking up 25 MO awards, which no act has ever surpassed.

As original members left, new members replaced them, with the final original member George Fay being replaced by Radburn in 1986. The group then performed together until 2009.

“Every time a new person came into The Four Kinsmen, the criteria was you had to be able to do everything that the other guys do, but you had to bring a new dimension into the group,” he said.

Discovering his love of magic when visiting a magic shop at the Figtree shopping centre at age eight, he decided to incorporate illusions into his acts.

“We never promote ourselves as magicians, because that comes with expectations,” he said.

“What I loved about our magic was that you never knew that the magic was going to happen.”

An example can be witnessed during his stellar performance of Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera, where the finale is a jaw-dropping illusion.

“I’m at the point now that I need to give back, so I’ve managed to get two magicians from Canberra and I’m going to give it [the illusions] to them,” he said.

“It’s amazing how I feel emotional – sad but happy – letting them go but I know they are going to great magicians who will make me proud putting them to good use and seeing and experiencing the brilliant reaction they will get from the audiences.”

Arthur Coghlan, renowned for fooling the world’s greatest magicians Penn Jillette and Teller six times on their television show Penn and Teller: Fool Us with his daughter Helen, was the brains behind his magic illusions.

“I’m very lucky, because they’ve been friends of [my wife] Cheryl and I for a long time and he’s the one that made all of my illusions and tricks and given me the technique and the know-how to do it all,” he said.

The other items he’s parted ways with are his acrobatic stools, which he would fall over, fall off or twist his body in and out of.

“When I got up on stage, I didn’t let the other three guys know I was going to do it,” he said.

“I picked up the stools, and behind their back, I started rolling around the stage, and they’re looking at me, going, ‘What is he doing?’”

He said when The Four Kinsmen stopped for a time and then later reformed, he realised he needed to practise and so opened the garage doors and laid out carpet.

Kids next door happened to be kicking a soccer ball nearby.

“One by one, they’re coming through the scrub and the trees, looking at this crazy old bloke Radburn rolling around in the garage on stools,” he said.

“A couple of them came over and said, ‘Mr Radburn, what are you doing?’ And I said, ‘I’m working.’”

Radburn has been renowned for his magic and acrobatic stools.

He said the acrobatic stools resulted in broken ribs, crushed fingers and even a major hip replacement, because “I used to really go over the top”.

However, the 64-year-old said the other reason he was giving the items away was due to finally decluttering after a challenging year spent in a wheelchair after an unrelated incident last year.

“I went to Wollongong Hospital, and they scratched their heads for a week because they couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again,” he said.

“Some of the world’s best doctors worked on me at St George and put me together.

“I’ve got so much metal in my pelvis now; whenever my wife wants me, she’s got a huge magnet.”

Always finding an entertaining spin on even the most challenging times, Radburn said he always had a burning ambition to be an entertainer, giving up a “legit job” working at Jack Albert Real Estate to follow his dream.

“Wollongong University had their inaugural course with the performing arts, so I did some inquiry into it, and I went and auditioned,” he said.

“I thought even if I don’t make money out of it, I’ll be satisfied in the fact I’ve done what Scott Radburn had to.”

He recalls getting goosebumps at age 13 when witnessing the St Mark’s Boys Choir performing in West Wollongong, before joining them.

“That’s where I learned all my harmony training, which was the preparation for The Four Kinsmen,” he said.

He knew about The Four Kinsmen due to its many TV appearances and knowing member and accomplished Wollongong musician, the late Graham Wilson through both being in the Illawarra music scene.

“One day I get a telephone call from Graham … ‘Would you be interested in auditioning for The Four Kinsmen, but you’ve got to keep it quiet?’” he said.

Initially thinking it was a joke, Radburn took up Graham’s invitation to audition.

“Having three mates on stage that you’re performing with and creating happiness and escapism for people that have had a hard day, I thought I just would love that,” he said.

The group took him from Vegas to Wollongong itself, when they featured on WIN TV’s Kids News hosted by Wollongong’s Steve Jacobs in the 80s.

“He said, ‘Do you have any funny things we could do on television nationwide?’” he said.

“The four of us sat down and thought about it, especially Graham and I because we were Wollongong locals.”

The result was a send-up of the Towradgi Hump, paying homage to the stomach-dropping sensation when driving over the bridge on Towradgi Road, known as the ‘Towradgi Hump’, with hump souvenirs and a ‘humpcam’ featured.

“We wrote a song called the Towradgi Hump and it goes – a-hump, a-hump, Towradgi Hump,” he said, singing to the tune of Elvis Presley’s Burning Love.

The episode is expected to feature in a documentary being made about the group, which looks at their success.

“There’s no formula – you can’t go and find that in a tent, because the four of us are extremely different, but the one thing we had in common was we loved to entertain and we loved being around each other,” he said.

“We were lucky, because the four of us were best mates.”