A NURSE who works with some of Scotland’s most troubled psychiatric patients has unveiled his part-time job – as a successful comedy hypnotist.
Richard Nelson’s “9-5” work involves tending to hospital patients but at weekends, he de-stresses as “Tricky Ricky”, performing his £300-a-night hypnotist act to rapturous audiences across the UK.
Richard from Carluke, South Lanarkshire has also racked up millions of views on YouTube with his routine, which includes persuading volunteers he’s killed a fairy called Tinkerbell.
The 36-year-old also does magic tricks, a clown routine and DJing and has set up an entertainment firm with an NHS support worker Sandy Kemp, whose works weekends as a DJ and face painter.
Richard, a dad of two, said: “I have quite a stressful job and at the weekend it’s nice to have a laugh.
“I like my NHS job and it’s challenging working but I also love doing the shows. It’s one of the things I enjoy most in my life.”
He added: “It’s taken me a long time to get to this stage – I used to stay up until 4am reading through books. I’ve always been interested in magic since I was a young boy.
“I’m always up for a laugh, it’s nothing too serious.”
A video of his most popular Tinkerbell routine, which has over a million YouTube hits, shows grown men reduced to blubbering idiots by making them believe a drinks can is actually a miniature woman.
After ‘accidentally’ squashing the can, participating audience members despair and begin to hurl abuse at Richard.
He then invites them to try to save “her”, resulting in a rush to give the metal can mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Richard said he had to adapt some routines to prevent being attacked by audience volunteers.
“Once when I was doing the Tinkerbell show a woman threw her shoe at me because she was so outraged that I had ‘killed’ this imaginary person,” he said.
“I tell people, once they are in that subconscious state, that they are stuck to the chair. At one point people began shuffling their chairs towards me to come and attack me, so I now have to tell them their chair is also stuck to the floor.”
“It is genuine rage that these people feel,” Richard added. “They really think that I have killed this little fairy.
“Once they are back in the conscious world they should remember what they have done, but can’t explain why they did it.
“Hypnotism is one of those things that you can’t describe – it’s sort of a relaxed state that people get into.”
He said: “If the shows keep doing well I might consider going part-time with my NHS job, but I would never give it up altogether. I enjoy it too much.”
