"He grew up during the Depression in Australia, he had one little book on card tricks, and that's what he learnt from, and he believed you had to earn your knowledge. So he would only tell me a little bit at a time, and then he'd say, 'Well you have to work at it yourself after that, because if you get given all the answers, you won't respect it'. He was a great mentor."
Crowe's early magic influences continued into adulthood, and while he was working as a fax and photocopier repair technician by day, he took several courses, and went to conventions to work on skills, including singing and dancing, physical comedy, and mime.
"I remember I'd been to a convention in Melbourne where I saw a New Zealand-born magician named Ross Skiffington, who used to do these big illusions, and also do things with this white face character, and I thought, that must be mime, I should get into that."
He decided to join a course at the Australian Mime Theatre run by an amazing character called Madame Zora Semberova.
"This little 65-year-old Czechoslovakian woman, she'd been an incredible international dancer - she was the first in the world to dance Juliet in Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet - and she was a wonderful teacher and mentor."
She also played a crucial role in Crowe's future performance philosophy by introducing him to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.
"I loved Chaplin and Keaton, and the idea that you could communicate so much without speaking, and it could be warm, it didn't have to be a heartless performance."
You can imagine with such a classical performance background that Crowe's show is quite different to those of many magicians made famous by TV shows or crazy stunts - no elaborate staging for grand-scale dangerous illusions, no locking himself in a tank of water or snakes. For Crowe it's all about bringing the audience joy with a simpler palette of tricks and props, and it seems to have wide appeal - he's performed for the Queen, on David Letterman, was a grand finalist in Australia's Got Talent, and his signature shadow puppet piece has over 200 million views on Youtube.
"My philosophy in the end, I suppose, is that I'm interested in finding the wonder in things. The shadows have wonder in them, and something as simple as a ventriloquist trick with a funny voice can have wonder in it. I like to find things that are universal in age and gender and geography..
"I've found most people want to play if they're given a chance, and so as long as it's not malicious or vindictive, people will do extraordinary things for you and with you."
Of course there are still plenty of "how does he do that?" moments, but for Crowe, pulling the wool over the eyes of an audience is not the main objective.
"I guess it's kind of like learning an instrument, you learn all the notes, so playing them individually is no longer important, it's the response you get from the finished piece, and the emotions you generate that are important - I've learned all the tools or mechanisms of magic tricks I suppose, and so how the trick is accomplished is less important than what you communicate with the trick."
Who: Raymond Crowe, aka The Unusualist
What: Illusionist, Magician, Hand Shadow Artist, Ventriloquist, Mime Artist, Comedian
Where and when: Performing at the Auckland Town Hall Concert Chamber on Saturday February 14, plus 12 other dates across the country. See raymondcrowe.com for details
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