I admit, whenever I see a magician whip out a Rubik’s cube, my first response is invariably a weary sigh. Solving a Rubik’s cube is not impressive. Solving one fast is only impressive to nerds. Using one in a routine just screams “hey, check out my gimmicked cube!” Fortunately, Britain’s Got Talent contestant, Maddox Dixon, had a couple of interesting cube tricks that forced me to retract my world-weary sigh and replace it with a begrudging nod of approval. 

The 31-year-old magician actually has the music industry to thank for his booming magic career. An instrumentalist for a number of major bands, Dixon picked up magic as a way to entertain the pop stars he found himself sharing changing rooms with. One of those pop stars turned out to be Chris Martin of Coldplay fame, who liked Dixon’s work enough that he had the part-time magician become a full-time magician and open for the band on their Head Full of Dreams US tour. If Dixon wasn’t on a path to magic stardom before he met Martin, opening for the third largest grossing music tour in human history probably helped.  

At this point, you’re probably expecting me to say something mean about Coldplay, as is the fashion of the day. I will not. A Rush of Blood to the Head is a good album and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. They also have pretty good taste in magicians it seems.