dynamo - The Magic Circle

Transcription

the magic
DYNAMO
Magician Impossible
THE MAGAZINE OF THE MAGIC CIRCLE
Features
196
The 43rd Magic Collectors’ Weekend –
Will Houstoun
204
216
Dynamo: Magician Impossible – Will Houstoun
FFFF Close-up Magic Convention – Will Houstoun
Regulars
194
194
198
200
202
208
President’s View
Circular News
Clever Devil Corner – Harold Cataquet
Conjurers Collect – Tim Reed
Circular Mentalism – Ian Rowland
A Rich Cabinet of Magical Curiosities –
Edwin A. Dawes
212
Club Night Events –
Mandy Davis Convenor of Reports
214
218
221
222
224
Cartoon Magic – Fist
In Review
Magic Circle Cares – David Hatch
Council Minutes
Forthcoming Club Events –
Noel Britten, James Freedman and Mandy Davis
Cover
Dynamo
Published by The Magic Circle
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EDITOR Will Houstoun
Editor@TheMagicCircle.co.uk
40 Derby Road, London, SW14 7DP
ASSISTANT EDITOR Tim Reed
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Anthony Brahams, Dr Edwin Dawes,
Scott Penrose, Ian Rowland,
David Tomkins
CONVENOR OF REPORTS
Mandy Davis
Mandy@TheMagicCircle.co.uk
PROOFREADERS
Paul Bromley, Julie Carpenter,
Barry Cooper, Tim Reed, Lionel Russell,
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Copyright © 2012 by The Magic Circle. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the Editor of The Magic Circular.
Views expressed in The Magic Circular are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the views
of The Magic Circle unless specifically stated. Whilst every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of all
information published in The Magic Circular, the Editor, Art Director, Staff and The Magic Circle cannot accept
responsibility for any errors or omissions.
Contributions must reach the Editor six weeks in advance of publication if it is essential that they should
appear in the second month following’s issue and should be sent via email, on computer disk or on CD
whenever possible.
Issue 1152 Volume 106 July 2012
There is a Way
ell it has
certainly been
a busy few
weeks! Amongst other
things, I attended
Fechter’s Finger Flicking
Frolic and The Magic
Collector’s Weekend in America. Both
these conventions had some fantastic
moments, as well as a prominent
connection to our Members, so
I thought that I would report on
them in this issue.
By way of a reminder, one of the
things that I am always trying to find
for the magazine are good, novel tricks
and routines. As an added bonus there
is also a annual prize, The Cecil Lyle
Award, that is presented annually to
the Member who has contributed the
best trick in the past year. So if you
have been thinking about publishing
that great idea you had a year or two
ago, I would love to hear from you. My
Contact details can be found to the left
of this column.
Just a few weeks after you read this
the World Championships of Magic, or
FISM, will take place in Blackpool.
I will be there and, if you see me
around, I would love to try and meet
any Members who will be there,
especially those who I don’t get the
chance to see at our regular Monday
Night meetings. One of the biggest
parts of this convention is the
competition which I know, from
personal experience in Stockholm
2006, is a nerve racking event for all
the competitors. I am sure that all our
Members will join me in wishing the
very best of luck to any Circle Members
who are competing.
W
Circular news
he Magic Circle is like a shuffled pack of
cards; a random selection of totally
different characters. Instead of
performing like a barrack room lawyer, for a
change, I’m going to become a clubroom
psychiatrist.
I suppose it is not really surprising that,
being in the entertainment game, the majority
of the cards are in the suit marked ‘egos’. In a
perfect world I guess there is no room for too
much egotism. Even The Magic Circle,
although brilliant, would not be so egotistical
as to claim to be perfect.
But there are so many different types that
fall into this suit. There are those who have
superiority complexes, and those with
inferiority complexes. These can be divided up
even further. Some are truly superior, while
others only think they are superior. Some
suffer the delusion that they are inferior, and
some actually are inferior.
The biggest question that faces each one of
us is ‘where do I fit in?’ It is complicated still
further by how others see us. There can be
cases where the individual concerned has got
an inferiority complex but tries so hard to
cover it up that to everybody else they appear
to act with great superiority.
Oh dear! In the middle of all this you get
some fellow magician writing a book on how
we should perform our magic. Are they
writing from knowledge achieved from many
years of working at the top of the game –
a veritable king of magic – or are they a
pipsqueak with very few pips to boast about?
Worse still, are they just a bit of a knave who
is only doing it for the money?
In addition to studying magic in all its forms,
I have been known to look into the realm of
marketing. I well remember a series of lectures
I attended on salesmanship. The tutor was
T
involved in the world of fashion advertising,
and listed all the many reasons put forward by
companies for refusing to buy space in one’s
magazine. He then listed all the answers that
you should have in your locker in order to
prove their objections had no foundation.
It took several hours of concentrated work
to go through all the possible objections and
how they could be overcome. On the very last
day we were told that a really good salesman
would be so involved in the fashion business
that not only would they know what questions
were likely to be raised and how to answer
them, they could avoid all the confrontation
by pre-empting every single objection before
they are uttered. If only we were told that on
the first day we could have saved ourselves
hours in the classroom and our company
would have saved loads of cash.
Ken Brooke said to me there are talkers and
there are doers. When I was first thinking of
becoming a pro I asked an experienced variety
artiste if she thought I was good enough to
survive in that world. She said I have no idea,
nobody has until they do it.
It is essential that you go on that stage, or
up to that table, fully confident that you have
put together the best collection of effects that
you can. That they suit your personality, and
that you can perform subconsciously, totally
without fear. Once you have achieved that you
can start learning how to entertain. All the
hard work has to be done prior to the
performance so that you can enjoy your act
just as much as those watching. The more you
do it the more experience you will gain. The
more experience you gain the more successful
you will be.
Undoubtedly I am not the best but boy, do I
enjoy doing my shows! I wonder where that
puts me in the ego stakes?
Jack Delvin MIMC
President@TheMagicCircle.co.uk
194 THE MAGIC CIRCULAR JULY 2012
Summer Season
of Sorcery
The Magic Circle’s Season of
Summer Sorcery was kick
started last week with the ever
popular Steve Allen’s Magic
Circle Mysteries. If you missed
it though don’t worry as there
are still several events left in the
programme. Michael Vincent
and Julian James are teaming
up to perform their Evening of
Mysteries, Dave Andrews is
Steve Allen
targeting a completely different
audience with a kids’ show and
there will also be a special extra
show in the popular Close-up at
The Magic Circle series of shows.
The Magic Circle
Christmas Show
Tickets for The Magic Circle’s
2012 Christmas Show have
just been made available as
advertised elsewhere in this
issue. The show will run from
27 – 30 December and is
always a sell out so, if you are
thinking of attending, now is
the time to make your plans
and book your tickets.
Henry Lewis at
The Cabot Theatre
Member Henry Lewis recently
performed at The Cabot
Theatre in honour of his friend
and Magic Circle Member
Cesareo Pelaz. Days before the
show Henry and the Mayor of
Beverly sealed a prediction in a
capsule surrounded with ink to
www.TheMagicCircle.co.uk
Photo: Chris Christodoulou
President’s view
prevent tampering. The Mayor
brought the prediction with
him to the show and when it
was opened it was seen to
correctly predict the score of
a recent baseball game!
U.S. Magicians Visit North Korea
Ian Adair Honoured
Since 1991, the Jim Craig
Quaich has been awarded to
magicians who have given
outstanding service to Scottish
Magic. Past winners include
Eddie Dawes, Pat Page, Roy
Walton, Peter Duffie, Johnny
Geddes and Tom Owen, to
name but a few. This year’s
award was presented to Magic
Circle Member Ian Adair, who
first performed at early Scottish
Association of Magical Societies
conventions in the 1950s and
developed, over the years, as
a well known magical dealer,
author and lecturer.
Ian said: “It was a great
honour to receive this special
award and also to feature at
Ian Adair
this convention which was
held in my home town of
KIlmarnock. It has been fifty
years since I have visited my
home base where my magical
interest was first aroused.”
organisation is the fictional
‘Illusionists’ Guild’ in
Illusionology based on?” And
the answer is our very own
Magic Circle! The competition
winners are Sarah Campbell
and Darren Tossell and their
copies of the book will be on
the way to them now.
Punch Turns 350!
Several of our Members,
who are also Punch & Judy
Professors, attended the
recent Big Grin Party in
London’s Covent Garden.
The get-together, on Saturday
12 May, celebrated Mr. Punch’s
three-hundred and fiftieth
birthday. It was three-hundred
and fifty years since a
performance of the old rascal
was seen by Samuel Pepys and
noted in his diary.
Our Members and their
puppets joined over a hundred
Punch and Judy workers in the
giant booth built in Covent
Garden. After the group photo
was taken everyone followed
the brass band in a walk
around the piazza. Members
taking part included John
Alexander, Alan and Barbara
Astra, Mel Harvey, Terry
Herbert, Dennis Patten and
John Styles.
Illusionology
In the April issue of The
Magic Circular there was a
competition to win copies of
Illusionology, the new magic
book aimed at the general
public. Amongst the entrants
only a few managed to answer
the question correctly. The
question was: “What
In April a delegation of prominent American magicians visited
North Korea, the first group of U.S. performers invited to that
country since the New York Philharmonic performed in
Pyongyang, the capital, in January, 2008
Led by Dale Salwak MIMC of Southern California, the
delegation included Member Rich Bloch of Washington DC,
Danny Cole of Southern California, and their assistants Ryan
Salwak and Stacey Cole. The group departed from Beijing on
10 April and arrived in Pyongyang the same day for
performances in North Korea’s capital over the following week.
The groundwork for this visit was laid by Salwak during
two previous visits to North Korea: In 2009 when he was the
only American magician to perform at the national birthday
celebration for the country’s revered founder, Kim il-Sung,
and in 2011 when he was invited to view and meet North
Korea’s leading magicians for their spectacular Grand Magic
show in the 150,000 seat Rungrado May Day Stadium.
Rich Bloch, Danny Cole, Stacey Cole, Jae Hwe Ku,
Ryan Salwak, Dale Salwak
The Essential Magic
Conference 2012
such as Bill Malone, Chris
Kenner David Williamson, Danis
Behr, Graham Jolley, Guy
Now is your last chance to
register for The Essential Magic Hollingworth, Paul Harris, Tom
Stone and Yann Frisch. This is
2012 conference that will run
the last planned Essential Magic
from 27– 29 July. The last two
have been fantastic and the line Conference so now is the time
to join in if you have been
up for this one is no different,
putting it off.
already featuring performers
The Magic Circular Online
The popularity of The Magic
Circular is as strong as ever,
indeed Members are
increasingly requesting a
digital copy. Back issues in
pdf format are already
available in the Members’
Area of The Magic Circle
website and to promote this
an email will be sent to all
Members informing them
when the latest copy is
available on-line together
with a link to access it. This
service will commence with
the August 2012 edition of
the magazine. The facility to
opt out of receiving a physical
copy of the magazine will
also be made available
should you wish to do so.
Dennis Patten and Mel Harvey
JULY 2012 THE MAGIC CIRCULAR 195
THE 43RD MAGIC
COLLECTORS’
WEEKEND
By Will Houstoun AIMC
ithin the magic world there are many different
sub-groups, each united by their common
interests in a niche aspect of conjuring. There are
card-guys, illusionists, children’s magicians and collectors.
Outsiders might think that the last group, collectors,
consists of elderly wealthy magicians, interested only in
buying and selling items and perhaps, occasionally
discussing the date on which some obscure magic event
happened. In fact, as a group, collectors represent a more
diverse, interesting cross section of magic than any other
group I have encountered – something that was clearly
evident at the Magic Collectors’ Weekend that took place
in Chicago on the second weekend of May.
Each weekend features a guest or guests of honour and
this year Members James Hagy and Richard Kaufman
were being honoured. The first major event of the
weekend was an on stage conversation between James
and Richard, as they simultaneously interviewed one
another. Despite running for over an hour, the
conversation seemed to fly by with so much more it
would have been interesting to hear about!
The official programming for the weekend featured a
number of themed groups of talks – prominent amongst
which were several presentations on previously little
known Houdini items. The first of these was a talk by
John Cox, who had obtained a copy of the guestbook
from Houdini’s home which continued to be filled in after
his death. For a collector of magicians’ autographs this
book is a dream item, featuring the signatures of many of
magic’s greats. It also raises a number of intriguing
questions and areas for further research as it becomes
apparent exactly who did and who did not visit Houdini
or Bess at various points in Houdini’s career and after his
death. The second major Houdini revelation was
presented by Arthur Moses in a keenly anticipated talk
titled ‘Have You Heard it All?’ Circle Members who have
visited The Magic Circle Headquarters will have heard the
recording of Houdini’s voice that can be played in The
Devant Room and another recording is easily accessible
on YouTube. This well known recording is about one
W
minute and twenty seconds long but it turns out that it is
not actually the complete picture. Arthur played the full
recording of Houdini’s introduction for the Water Torture
Cell, that was nearly four minutes long, and then showed
that the well known recording appears to be a shortened
edit of this full recording!
Another highlight of the weekend was an afternoon of
events titled ‘Modern Masters’. This started with a talk by
David Charvet about Emil Jarrow, the inventor of the
enormously popular bill in lemon. Following the publication
of The Bill in Lemon Book, David discovered a further file of
information that reveals much previously unknown
information about Jarrow and his magic. The second talk in
the session provided a general overview of Max Malini and
his career and was given by David Ben. With an iconic name
like Malini it is amazing to think that much of what we
know is based more on second-hand information than fact
but this turns out to be the case. David explained the
progress of Malini’s private life and and his career as well as
the way in which the two impacted on one another. Along
the way he talked about Malini’s inspirations, his
motivation as a performer and also dispelled common
myths about Malini, such as the idea that he did not
like socialising with other magicians. The final
event of the session was a video recording of an
event from the super exclusive convention 31
Faces North. This was a panel discussion on
Charlie Miller between Johnny Thompson, Jay
Marshall, Herb Zarrow and Harry Riser – all
magicians with whom Charlie had lived for some time.
Other highlights of the convention included a question
and answer session with Mark Wilson and Nani Darnell, the
stars of the television show The Magic Land of Allakazam
first broadcast in the 1960s. Max Maven gave a fascinating
talk titled ‘Magical Jews – by One of Them.’ In this he
explored a number of famous Jewish magicians, their
success and offered some potential explanations for the
higher than expected proportion of successful Jewish
magicians. Diego Domingo gave a whirlwind of a talk, as
only he can, that connected a range of disparate people
and items. If you ever wondered what the connection
between Malcolm X, Jim Jones, a South Carolina
David Ben in the
Evening Show
Left: David Ben with Guests of Honour
James Hagy and Richard Kaufman
Photos: Wayne Wissner courtesy of Magicana
Mark Wilson and Nani Darnell
doomsday cult, and a plastic Lota Vase produced by the Top
Hat Magic Company is, the Diego had the answer!
The weekend ended with variety style show. David
Charvet compered the show and performed a selection of
Jarrow material uncovered in the course of his research.
Second on, David Ben performed routines inspired by pieces
from Bertram, Miller and Malini’s repertoires. Following
David, Mark Wilson and Nani Darnell gave a special
performance as surprise guests. To close the show, Max
Maven performed a selection of very deceptive mentalism.
So, what sort of magic was represented over the
weekend? Of course there were books, posters and props
for collectors to see and trade – but there was also material
for comedy performers, new insights into the publicity and
career of a successful, high-end society magician, a chance
to listen to some of the best magicians in the world talk
candidly about one of the twentieth century’s greatest
magicians, the opportunity to listen to Houdini talk for
nearly five minutes and, last but not least, the chance to see
some fantastic magic. Anyone who dismisses the world of
the magic collector is really missing out, probably on much
more than they could even imagine!
Harold Cataquet AIMC
Lost in Translation
year ago today, I was exactly
where I am now – in sunny
Greece having just finished
writing a translation of a book from
Spanish to English. Last year, it was
Woody Aragon’s A Book in English.
This year, it’s Ezra Moreno’s and Willy
Monroe’s Mister Balloon: The Shaping of
Air. Unlike Woody’s book, this wasn’t a
new book (it was originally written in
1997). It’s aimed at beginner balloon
modellers, but it does have a really good
mix of models, techniques and theory
that would appeal to modellers at any
level. I’m not making a sales pitch for
the book, but I really enjoyed working
on it, and it is a good book.
Needless to say, the section that I
found most interesting was entitled
Magic With Balloons. I’m not going to
go through all the contents, but this
section did contain two of my favorites
effects – Balloon Penetration: where a
balloon is put in a tube and three or
four needles are inserted into the tube
penetrating the balloon (and everything
could be examined), and Balloon
Swallowing: in which the performer
swallows a balloon. Like any good book,
it made me ask myself questions.
Specifically, it made me think “How
could I better incorporate balloons into
my act?”
Balloons are the ultimate pack small,
plays big prop. When I need them,
which admittedly is only about once a
year, I use them as a heckler stoppers.
I ask the heckler if he can help me with
my next effect, and I ask him to blow
up a balloon. While he is trying to
blow up the balloon, I will take the
opportunity to quickly blow one up
and make a balloon dog for someone.
I don’t usually perform for kids, but I do
perform for their parents, so once I start
making balloon animals, I am often
asked to make another balloon model
for their son/daughter. Even after I have
inflated and made four or five balloon
animals, the heckler is still struggling
with his balloon. At some point along
A
the way, he may suspect that I’ve given
him a trick balloon that is impossible to
inflate. So, I’ll just take it off him, give
him a different one, and immediately
blow it up and make something. This is an
incredibly effective heckler stopper,
and I highly recommend it. But, in order
to use it, you have to be able to blow up
a modeling balloon. Incidentally, I learned
from this book that orange balloons are
the most difficult to inflate.
So, how else could I use balloons? Here
are some of the ideas that I have thought
of (none of them are in the book, but
please remember that the book was
aimed at modellers, not magicians):
l You could do a “Six Balloon Repeat”
with them. It’s very easy to put one
balloon inside the other, so you would
not have to make any additional
gimmicks, and at the end, everything
could be examined.
l Balloons are made of latex, so rubber
cement (the white liquid version popular
in the US rather than the clear liquid
version) could be used to create various
gimmicks. For example, you could make a
cut and restored balloon, by gluing a strip
of balloon onto an identically coloured
balloon. You would then bend the balloon
in half, and pull up on the gimmicked
piece and cut it in half. Then, just pull
the two pieces off, essentially ripping the
extra pieces off the balloon, and cast
them aside. Now inflate the balloon, and
you’re done. I must confess that I don’t
have any balloons or rubber cement with
me in Greece, so I can’t tell whether there
would be any tell tale signs on the final
balloon, but if there were, I’m sure they
could be hidden by making a balloon
figure.
l Additionally, you could mix some iron
filings with rubber cement and pour
the mixture inside a balloon. You don’t
need very much of either item, but
what you’ll have effectively created is a
magnetic balloon. This opens up lots of
possibilities. For example, you could begin
with five balloons – a pale blue one, a red
one, a yellow one, an orange one, a pink
one and a black one. The black one has
been gimmicked with the iron filings
and rubber cement mix. All six balloons
are tossed in a bag, and one by one
they are removed from the bag. By
covertly using a magnet, you could tell
who took the black balloon. Obviously,
instead of the iron filings, you could use
a very small magnet stuck inside the
balloon, but I would be worried
(perhaps unnecessarily) that the
spectator might feel something in the
balloon.
l An extension of the above is to put
the iron filings and cement mix in
different locations along the length of
the balloon. So, the red could have
some at the top, the yellow could have
some in the middle, and the green could
have some at the bottom. Given that
setup and a concealed magnet, you
could identify the colour of the balloons
behind your back.
l The application that most appeals to
me is incorporating balloons into a cups
and balls sequence. The idea is that you
would blow a bubble into a balloon,
and then magically take the bubble off
the balloon (a slightly more advanced
version of this specific effect is in the
book, if you are not already familiar
with the method). You could then use
the bubble as the ball in a cups and balls
sequence. Remembering the previous
application, it’s very easy to create a
magnetic bubble, so you could easily
create a chop cup routine, if that
appealed to you. Also, a la Tommy
Wonder, the balloon could be used as a
final load (or as a set up for a final
cupful of balloons). The benefit is that
balloons won’t roll of the table
(although I suspect that the bubbles
would be a bit more hyperactive), and
they are cheaper to replace than the
hand stitched baseballs I normally use.
Anyway, it’s time that I get back to
the tavernas and do my bit to support
the Greek economy. If you have any
ideas for magic with balloons then
please get in touch!
Tim Reed
Throw-out Cards
hrow-out cards are, as the name suggests, promotional
publicity pieces that are traditionally thrown out by the
performer to the far reaches of the theatre. Usually the
size and shape of a playing card, and ephemeral too, vintage
examples are rare and keenly sought after by collectors. They
are very appealing to me because they often include images of
the performer and it is exciting to think that they were handled
by the magician. Frequently they contain ‘Good Luck’
messages.
It is not certain who the first magician was to utilise this
unusual publicity device but one of the most desirable
examples comes from Alexander Herrmann, the legendary
nineteenth century American magician. The card showed
Herrmann, with trade-mark goatee beard, and his signature
underneath, with a playing card back design.
The undisputed king of the throw-out card is Howard
Thurston who, since early in his career as the World Premier
Card Manipulator, would cascade the cards across the theatre.
Often, on ebay and other websites, the standard Howard
Thurston & Jane card is offered for sale. Even though it is the
genuine article from eighty years ago, these particular cards are
plentiful, after a large stash was found, and can be bought for
a few pounds. However, Thurston issued about fifty different
cards, including variants, so there are many to collect. For a full
pictorial reference guide I would recommend Rory Feldman’s
www.ThurstonMasterMagician.com The extent of Mr
Feldman’s Thurston collection is overwhelming. There are many
desirable Thurston cards and those with advertising backs for
Miller Tyres and Wrigley’s Gum, and other product
endorsements, command high sums. I am pleased to have a
few Thurston throw-out cards in my collection, and one is
signed by his daughter Jane Thurston. Thurston’s brother,
Harry, who toured with the Thurston show after Howard’s
death, had a card too.
Dozens of magicians had their own cards printed, often with
a Bicycle back design as the joint advertisement benefited both
T
The Hoffmann
Memorial Lecture Topic for 2012:
What is the relationship
between a trick and its
presentation and how can
the presentation be used
to affect the overall
performance of a trick?
Win a Year’s Subscription for Membership
of The Magic Circle and a Limited Edition
Hoffmann Print.
The closing date for entries is the
31 August, 2012.
For more information please check the
library area of the Members only section
of www.themagiccircle.co.uk or check
the February 2012 issue of
The Magic Circular.
AIMC
about what exactly is a throw-out card ... in other words, when
does a business card become a throw-out card?Normally
anything with a playing card back design would be considered
a throw-out, as it is frequently given out during a show. Also
throw-outs tend to rely on the image of the magician and have
less words and a simple message such as ‘Good Luck’. I have
business cards that are shaped like a playing card, which tend
to be given out to generate future business, rather than used in
performance. These I have filed elsewhere. Either way, I enjoy
collecting the smaller ephemeral pieces and I hope you do too.
Happy Collecting.
parties. Performers such as T. Nelson Downs, Frederick Eugene
Powell, Dante, Edwin Brush, Eugene Laurant, Will Rock, Gerald
Heaney, Maurice Raymond, Nicola, Buatier De Kolta, and others,
all had their own cards issued. I would recommend the museum
section of another website, www.martinka.com, to see another
sampling of rare cards.
Currently, with the trend for magicians having their own packs
of playing cards printed, the throw-out card is seeing a revival. I
have been at performances of Jeff McBride and caught one of his
cards. Ricky Jay is known for throwing cards as his book Cards As
Weapons testifies. Often the stage manipulators leave examples
of their cards discarded on the stage. One good way of building a
collection cheaply is to buy the souvenir packs and trade the
individual cards with other like-minded collectors. Other modern
examples, that have a traditional appearance, include Paul
Potassy, Alexandra Duvivier, William Rauscher and Wittus Witt.
There has been some discussion in the magical collecting press
Ian Rowland MIMC
MIMC
Lady In Red
L
performers: Jasper Blakeley and Romany, Diva
of Magic.
Jasper hosted the show in the guise of
Kockov, his deranged east European alter-ego
with the worst hairstyle in history. Jasper
hosted the show perfectly, was
laugh-out-loud funny and also performed
several excellent routines from his own
cabaret repertoire.
Romany looked one million percent
stunning as always and delivered a wonderful
set of first-class magical entertainment. There
is a section of Romany’s act where she gets a
couple of men from the audience to help her
with two routines: Coins Across followed by
the Gypsy Rope Tie. In my opinion, this
segment of Romany’s act is simply as good as
magic gets. It’s all there: the economical
scripting (not a single word is wasted), the
larger-than-life
persona, the
incredible spectator
management, the
fun, the mystery
and the tireless
energy. It’s a
curious fact that
despite winning
every award in
sight, including
the World Magic
Kockov
Seminar Golden
Lion Award in Las Vegas last year, Romany is seldom invited to
lecture at conventions here in the UK, and has never been invited
to either lecture or perform at any convention in the States.
These are both serious oversights that enterprising souls would
do well to correct.
Ideas Bunny
As soon as I returned from the Bristol convention I began
working as a writer and all-purpose ideas bunny for a new TV
magic show. Working on this project required me to actually get
up each morning and travel to a London production office during
crush hour. This felt horribly reminiscent of the bad old days
when I had a proper job and used to commute every day, fool
that I was. The bad memories made me feel nauseous, and I
could only get through the journey using deep meditation, whale
song and horse tranquillisers.
I can’t say much about the TV show because I signed a
Non-Disclosure Agreement and sundry other legal bits of paper
Photos: Mandy Davis
ast week was rather good fun. It involved a
lady in red, a Top Secret project and the
distinct possibility that I’ll be in prison by the
time you read this. Sound interesting? Grab a
coffee, pull up a chair and I’ll tell you about it.
The week got off to a good start with the
Bristol Day of Magic, still the largest one-day
convention in the country and still not held in
Bristol (it actually takes place in nearby
Weston-super-Mare). I won’t say this Convention
is the most fun you can have in one day, but it’s
pretty close. They got about 400 people this year,
which I think is a great turnout, although
apparently it’s slightly down on previous years.
More of you should think about giving it a whirl
next year.
I’d like to mention just three highlights of the
Convention, the first of which was an item of
clothing. Amanda Farrell is one of the principal
Romany
organisers of the event as well as being one of
the nicest people in the whole wide world. Amanda introduced
several of the shows and lectures while wearing a glorious red
dress of the kind that – to quote Raymond Chandler – “could
make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.” To be
honest, I expect I’ll remember the dress longer than I’ll
remember the acts that Amanda introduced, excellent though
they were.
My second highlight of the day was the lecture presented by
Pat Fallon. Pat began by saying he wouldn’t feature any
finger-flinging or supposedly ‘cutting edge’ theoretical stuff.
Instead, he said he’d teach several simple, practical routines
that you can use in the real world. True to his word, Pat
proceeded to deliver what I have to say was one of the most
pleasant, intelligent and useful lectures I’ve ever seen.
My favourite item in the lecture was a fairly straightforward
Just Chance routine that Pat calls The Raffle. It involves four
party bags containing prizes, one of which is a substantial
bundle of money. A spectator is given a free choice, doesn’t
end up with the money but does end up with some other prizes.
The basic elements of this routine are as old as the hills, as
Pat would be the first to admit. The brilliant part is the specific
way he has put these elements together, and how the routine
is structured and scripted. The routine successfully gets around
some of the thorny issues that can plague this kind of material,
such as how to put a happy, positive spin on a spectator not
winning the money. It’s easy to do, as practical as they come
and highly entertaining. If you’re interested in The Raffle, drop
Pat an email at patfallonmagic@gmail.com
My third highlight of the Bristol convention was the evening
gala show. It was an impressive line-up by any standards, but I
was particularly pleased because it included two of my favourite
that I couldn’t be bothered to read. I’m pretty sure there was a
clause in there to the effect that if I so much as whisper the name
of the show or its star, I get locked away in a Guatemalan prison
for eternity and a day with nothing to eat but cat food and
whatever I can scrounge off the rat traps.
What I can say, having been involved in a few telly projects over
the years, is that it’s always fascinating to witness the very
delicate process by which a new show is patiently brought to life.
Imagine a hundred people all with one hand on a large net. In
the middle of the net is a very fragile egg, and everyone is trying
to carry the egg ten miles over a mountain range and hoping the
egg will still be in good shape at the end. Sometimes, lots of
talented and well-intentioned people put in a lot of hard work
but the egg gets dropped anyway. When this happens, you end
up with a mess like the first series of The Magicians.
I just hope the particular show I’m working on, despite the
significant drawback of my involvement, turns into the great
piece of television that I know it could be. The script as it stands
contains at least two audacious ideas that have never before
been tried on a TV magic show. I would dearly love to see these
ideas realised, so I hope we don’t drop the egg. More on this
later, as and when I can share details without waking up to find
myself languishing in a distant jail.
Experiment
From November until the end of March I ran an interesting
experiment: I offered a new set of lecture notes to the magic
world free of charge in return for a donation to any charity or
good cause (as mentioned back in the January issue). I didn’t
make any money doing this. The intention was just to encourage
people to perform acts of kindness.
I burned a lot of time and energy publicising this offer as
widely as I could, via the Magic Circle, personal contacts and
several of the most popular magic forums. I also asked everyone
who took me up on the offer to spread the word and encourage
others to do the same.
I concluded the experiment at the end of March. All in all, 562
magicians from around the world supported the idea. Whether
the lecture notes were worth having is obviously a matter of
opinion, although the comments I received suggest they had
some merit. Whether 562 magicians is a good total is also a
matter of opinion. I had hoped for 1000. To all those who took
part, thank you for joining in.
QUICK TRICK
This is a half-stooge effect, by which I mean that even if people
suspect some prior collusion they will still be puzzled by what’s
going on.
First, let me teach you two mathematical shortcuts.
Consider 43 x 47. Here’s how to multiply these numbers
together in your head. Think of the first digit (4) and multiply it
by itself plus 1. You get 4 x 5, which of course equals 20. This
is the first part of your answer. Then just multiply the 3 and the
7 together (21) and stick this on the end. You get 2021, which
is the right answer.
This works with any pair of two-digit numbers if the first
digits are the same (in this example 4) and the second digits
add up to 10 (in this example 3 and 7). Try it with other
numbers that fit the same pattern, such as 24 x 26 or 61 x 69.
Now consider 49 x 69. Here’s the shortcut. Multiply the first
digits together (in this case 4 x 6 which equals 24). Add the
digit common to both numbers, which in this case is 9. You get
24 + 9 = 33. Now multiply the second digits together (9 x 9 =
81) and stick this on the end: 3381. This is the right answer.
This works with any pair of two-digit numbers if the first
digits add up to 10 (in this example 4 and 6) and the second
digits are the same (in this example 9). Try it with other
numbers that fit the same pattern, such as 28 x 88 or 17 x 97.
Teach these two shortcuts to a friend, and make sure he or
she practises them thoroughly. Next time you are both hanging
out with friends, offer to demonstrate some more of your
phenomenal mind skills.
Ask anyone present for a two digit number. Let’s say they
suggest 47. Say this is to be multiplied by another number.
Supply the second number using either of the two patterns
given above i.e. either the first digits are the same and the
second digits add up to 10 or vice-versa. In this case the second
number would be either 43 or 67. You can scribble this sum on
a bit of paper or tap it into a calculator. Ask everyone if they
can figure out the answer using mental arithmetic. Most
people will consider this impossible.
Turn to your stooge and pretend to go through some brief
mind-enhancing hypnotic ritual granting temporary powers of
phenomenal calculation. Your stooge can now solve the
calculation problem immediately, using the formulae they have
secretly rehearsed. Repeat this several times, each time
allowing anyone to name the first number while you then add
the second part of the multiplication sum. You have two
different patterns to play with.
Even if the others guess you have taught your friend how to do
this, they will still find it hard to figure out how he or she is
getting the sums right every time. It’s not the mystery of the
century, but it’s a nice little puzzler for odd occasions.
Invitation
If you have items, stories, jokes or vicious rumours of
interest to mentalists, please drop me a line
(ian@ianrowland.com). If you can’t afford Derren and want
to hire a fairly good also-ran mentalist, or you just have
time to kill, please visit www.ianrowland.com.
Dynamo has been known to magicians
for a number of years but has recently
exploded into the public eye with his
popular TV series Magician Impossible.
Two more series of the show are in
development but Dynamo still found the
time to sit down and discuss his career
and magic.
Will: The popularity of Magician
Impossible is a huge accomplishment!
Can you tell me a bit about how you
managed to get to this position?
Dynamo: In the last year, through
Magician Impossible and the social
media networks, everything has come
together. Now I have over a million
people following what I am doing on
Facebook and on Twitter and the TV
show hit nearly two million viewers on
the first night. We have had about
eighteen million viewers now,
including the repeats, and that is the
kind of number you would hope for
on a terrestrial channel!
W Wow. So how did that happen?
D I think, first and foremost, I had a
vision for a show. I had an idea for the
way I wanted to approach the magic
that hadn’t really been done on
television in this country. It then took a
long time to convince people of my
vision and to get them to trust that
the idea would work. Watch gave me
the platform, they weren’t the biggest
channel, but they got behind me and
believed in what I could do.
We were also allowed to do the
magic the way we thought it had to be
done. A lot of shows are restricted to a
stereotype of how a magic show
should be made – they choose
everything from the material you
perform to the cameras you can use.
When I started putting videos out it
was on YouTube and it was just me
and my friends going out and filming
magic without any of the red tape. It is
hard enough just performing the
magic well, let alone trying to
overcome the hurdles that TV puts up.
A lot of performers don’t really
understand it. They watch a show and
think: “I can do that trick, why aren’t I
on TV?” The reality is that there is so
much more that goes into a TV show
DYNAMO
Magician Impossible
that people just don’t know about.
Unless they experience it themselves,
or hear it from the horse’s mouth, they
never know. It is like a really great
performance on stage that looks
effortless. What you don’t see are the
weeks leading up to the show, where
the performer stays up till six in the
morning rehearsing to make sure
everything goes right!
W You mentioned that your current
TV show was picked up by Watch.
Presumably they saw you somewhere
because of the profile you have built
over the last few years?
D That is what I was talking about
when I mentioned the social media. I
jumped onto the YouTube craze right
at the beginning and went from
getting hundreds of views on my
videos to getting millions. It wasn’t
always that way though! I remember it
used to take me months to get a
hundred views and that it was super
exciting when it happened! The last
video I put out had 250,000 views in
the first day! Things have changed a
little bit and, over the years I have
spent a lot of time developing
strategies to drive traffic to my videos
and engage the audience. The main
thing you need to do as a performer is
to communicate and I have just tried
to work out how to do that using
YouTube and other similar sites.
W With older forms of media, like
television and print, there is a very one
way process – you send out
information and the user receives it.
With the internet that is changing,
have you tried to exploit that?
D You sort of touched on it there.
The thing about Facebook and Twitter
is whatever you put out, you will get
direct feedback on. They will slag you
off if they don’t like it or send it to
their friends if they do. Because of that
I am more of a perfectionist over what
I release. I know that if I fall below a
certain level I will hear about it ... and
if I hear about it through Facebook or
Twitter millions of other people will
too!
For me it has been a learning
experience as well. I used to go to
magic conventions and, if you do that
too much, you get stuck in the magic
way of thinking. You start to judge
magic as a magician rather than as a
layperson. Getting direct feedback
from laypeople via social media really
made me streamline my magic,
especially on sites like YouTube where
you want your videos to go viral.
Routines can’t be long and convoluted
so you pick things that are incredibly
direct – things people can describe to
their friends the next day in one
sentence: “Dynamo took an iPhone and
put it inside a bottle.” Longer routines
are amazing to watch live, when it is
happening to you and you have the
in
nterview by Will Houstoun AIMC
the cigarette that went through the
coin, or the chosen card the wrong
way round in the deck. We remember
the simple visual of the magic itself.
successful and it all makes sense. It is
not about the tricks you are doing, it is
all about injecting yourself into the
performance.
W Television is notorious for using
huge quantities of material.
D Tell me about it!
W So you have really seen both sides
of the coin?
D I always look at other things. I try
to watch a new film every night before
I go to bed and I see the special effects
and think about how I can recreate
them live. I get a lot of ideas from
superhero films. When someone is
writing a story about a superhero they
automatically give their hero powers
that a normal human would want to
have. So I watch a lot of those films
and read a lot of superhero comic
books. You know what it is like being
into magic. You look at anything and
you automatically start to think about
it in terms of magic!
I also collaborate a lot with my
friends and consultants, people like
Daniel Garcia, Doug McKenzie and
Luke Jermay. As a group we are
s
investment to sit through it, but it
doesn’t really translate on TV. People
just start swiching over.
When I was a kid and I watched
other magicians, like David Blaine or
David Copperfield, I would sit there
thinking: “I can do this, I do better
flourishes than him!” Over the years I
have studied Blaine’s approach to
magic and why he has become
D Yes. People can say: “Dynamo
doesn’t have any personality in his
performances.” I would say that I do, it
is just not a traditional performance
personality. I don’t start telling a story
about a watch that my grandfather
gave me ten years ago ... I don’t create
a story to go with my magic. I prefer to
tell stories that naturally occur in my
magic, or just to present the magic as
it is. I think magicians, sometimes, are
scared and don’t believe that magic
itself can be entertaining ... they feel
that you have to add a story or
comedy or something else. But the
reason we all got into magic is
probably just a moment when we saw
something that was amazing. We
don’t remember the story that went
with it, or the jokes, we just remember
W How do you choose and generate
material for your shows?
Dynamo walks on the River Thames
always looking for great pieces of magic,
ideas that could come from anywhere.
For example, about six years ago I made a
note that I wanted to walk across the
Thames – I wanted to walk on water and
if I was going to do that effect I should
do it on the most Iconic river in the
country. I came back to the idea now
and then and recently got the platform
to do it. Obviously without a platform...
just walking on water!
W So you have a consultancy team, and I
think that ever since I first met you you
have been with your manager, Dan. How
long have you worked together?
D We have been working together for
about ten years. I was performing, doing
events and filming videos for YouTube and
a DVD thanks to a Princess Trust business
start-up loan. I had managed to arrange
to film at an event because I knew the
security guards and Dan turned out to be
the event’s main organiser! He was so
impressed with what I was doing that he
invited me to join them for the rest of the
events in the tour and he started to get
me a few bookings. He also became
interested in magic, not to perform but
from a creativity point of view. Now he is
the first person I speak to whenever
I have a new idea. He probably knows
more about magic than most magicians I
know yet he can’t shuffle a deck of cards!
He has the understanding of a layperson
and at the same time knows about how
magic works and how to use it to make
good television. He helps me to make
everything I do better and helps me to
share it with other people in the best
possible way.
W Most magicians seem to be one-man
operations, trying to do everything
themselves. What advantage do you get
from working with others?
D When I first started, I didn’t trust
anyone to do anything for me. I thought
I could just do it all myself but that was
just taking my focus away – I was trying to
be a jack of all trades so I was spreading
myself too thin. Now there are people
who are better designers than me who
can do design, there are people who are
better at marketing who can do that, and
I can focus on my magic and my
presentations because that is what I am,
a magician. Every single success story
involves a collaborative process, and it is
how you can use that collaborative
process that determines how successful
you can be. If you want to succeed at
anything it is all about getting the best
group of people around you and then
working out how to make them work
together. You have to stop thinking that
using other people takes anything away
for you, it empowers you when you do
that.
methods, just the effects. Then the team
goes away and works on the ideas before
coming back together to create the best
method, script it, workshop it and then
eventually film it. At some point it will all
fall into place and we get the finished
result. Every time we do it the process
changes but the end goal is to create
something brand new – so that anyone
who watches will be amazed and it will
ignite their imagination.
W And do you ever use stock methods?
D Obviously we start from a stock
method sometimes but we always try to
develop it and improve it from there. We
try to give it that Dynamo feel. Like when I
do your trick, FREAK, which is one of my
most used tricks and my go-to effect if
someone stops me and asks to see
something. The way I do it is a million
miles away from the way you do it, apart
from the method. I don’t do all the phases
and I probably do it a lot quicker. Finding
myself in the magic is what has given me
that edge.
W So when you have a new idea how
does the process work?
W You mentioned the Dynamo feel.
Something you have done very well is to
brand yourself as a contemporary
magician, tying yourself into popular
culture. Did you do that for your career or
was it a personal choice that happened to
work commercially?
D Lots of different ways really. Ideally I
come to a project with a list of things I
want to be able to do, not necessarily
D It was never a conscious decision to try
to be cool. I was just trying to combine all
the things I like with one another ... my
W So you never sat down and planned it?
D I’m not that clever to be honest! I love
hip-hop, I love rock music and I like all
sorts of other stuff as well. Growing up I
would watch MTV and wanted to be part
of that world. So instinctively my magic
and performance have developed to fit
into that style.
When I started to perform I was going
to hip-hop clubs with my friends and that
was where I really started to show people
magic. Hip-hop has a very macho feel so if
the audience spot something they
shouldn’t they want to be the one to
boast about it! That really helped me
make sure that my routines and sleights
were tight.
W Because your image and magic are
hooked into popular culture they will go
out of fashion at some point as tastes
move on. Do you have a plan for how you
will develop your persona and character to
deal with that?
Photo: Mandy Davis
D In my eyes the hip-hop influence
Dynamo performs during an interview
changed about ten years ago and, if you
look at my style today, it is a million miles
away from what it used to be. It is not
about it being hip-hop or being popular
culture, it is just about it being good. To
begin with I was using all that stuff to try
to become popular. Now I have enough
belief in myself – that I know what my
audiences like – so I don’t need it so
much. Now it is really about just doing the
best magic possible. I haven’t worn a
baseball cap for years but some magician’s
still see me as the kid with a baseball cap
at the magic convention!
W So how would you like the magic
community to view you?
D I would like them to be proud that I
am one of the performers that the public
see as a magic leader. I am not putting
myself up with the greats, but in the
public’s eye at the moment I am the hot
new magic kid.
W Right. If someone today tells me they
saw a magician on TV the odds are pretty
high it was you!
D Yeah – and I want to make sure I am
doing right by magic and right by the
people who I respect. But I think to do
that, sometimes, you have to try to do
things a bit differently.
W A lot of the time magic has a rather
old fashioned image; what do you think
the biggest benefit from doing things
differently is?
D I think that, first and foremost, there
needs to be a re-think on the idea of what
a magician is. Recently I have become a
Member of The Magic Circle and I am very
glad to be one but, back in the day, there
was a thing where you could only visit if
you fit in to the dress code. That would
stop someone like me from ever going
because I only really own one suit and the
last thing I want to do is put it on to visit
the magic club ... It just doesn’t feel
comfortable!
I don’t think that young magicians are
nurtured in the right way. They are being
taught about magic by legends but the
legends are not in tune with popular
culture. There is a danger that the young
magicians perform magic that doesn’t
really suit them. I know a few kids who
get bullied at school because the other
kids think they are geeks for doing magic.
They have so much potential but the
Dynamo on stage at The Magic Circle
direction they are given for their magic
does not really help them out and so they
don’t do stuff for their friends and it
becomes very hard to work out how to
put more of themselves into the magic. If
we could fix that I think magic would
become a lot more creative because kids
have the most amazing minds. They view
the world differently to anyone else so if
you can encourage them, without creating
too many boundaries, then they could
develop some great stuff and everyone
would learn something.
W And how do you think young people
can be encouraged in the right way?
D They should have the classic books and
learn about all the magic legends but I
think it is also important for them to have
younger role models. If their role models
are all older people then the kids are just
going to emulate them which is good but
it doesn’t help them work out how to
make the magic fit themselves. They need
to see that young people can be
themselves in their magic and I think there
is some stuffiness in magic that stops that.
Sometimes, because we try to protect
magic, we don’t let it grow.
W So it has been quite a journey. Are you
are pleased with where you are now?
D With Magician Impossible, for the first
time in 29 years, I felt accepted just for
being me. When I was in school, I got into
magic because I didn’t have any acceptance
– now I feel that I finally do.
Andrew Parsons
passion for music, television, film and
magic. I am an Eighties kid so I am in tune
with popular culture at the moment and I
like to keep on top of that sort of thing.
Going to school I was always pressured to
conform but when I left I found the
freedom to approach things the way I
wanted. I stuck with my personal taste
and it turns out that some of it was right.
Now when I look at a new routine I can
instantly envision how it should be for me.
Edwin A. Dawes
404. PAUL CLIVE AND WITCHCRAFT MAGIC
Paul Clive
aul Clive is perhaps best remembered
today by virtue of the splendid
introduction to card magic that he
published in 1946, Card Tricks Without
Skill. This book, together with the Faber &
Faber edition of Hugard and Braué’s The
Royal Road to Card Magic (1949),
represented the primer of choice for many
young aspiring British conjurers in the late
1940s and also brought pleasure to many
of their elders. But those aspirants and
veterans would have also recognised Paul
Clive as the founder of a flourishing magic
dealing business operating under the title
of Witchcraft Magic.
Paul Clive was born Philip Craggs on
P
Paul Clive’s First Leaflet
4 October 1906 in London, the youngest son of John and
Imogene Frances Craggs. He had been exposed to magic
from infancy as his eldest brother, Douglas, nine years his
senior, was already in thrall of the wonders of conjuring
and ventriloquism, as related in the previous articles in this
series (Dawes, 2012). Little is known of his earliest
excursions into magic nor precisely when he first used the
name Paul Clive. The reason for forsaking Craggs might
have been that by 1928 his brother had already appeared
before royalty and he did want to appear to be trading on
his brother’s fame. Having said that, in later life and after
Paul Clive & Company, the magic dealer, was well
established, he commented that it was his business name.
Following in his brother’s footsteps, on 3 February 1931
at the age of 24 and under the name of Paul Clive, he
was elected to membership of The Magic Circle, at which
time he was living at 204 Byron Avenue, Manor Park.
Doubtless the creativity and superb lip control which were
winning such acclaim for Douglas Craggs’s ventriloquial
skills would be a deterrent to Philip taking up that art in a
serious way and so he concentrated on the related art of
mimicry to augment his conjuring. Consequently, when he
made his first appearance on a Circle stage at the April
Social of the following year, it was with some clever
mimicry, including a crying baby, a train, repairing a shoe,
birds, a lion, a monkey, a cat and kitten, sawing wood and
an aeroplane. He repeated this act for Let’s Be Foolish, a
Circle Social held appropriately on 1 April 1937.
There was a change of address to Accra
House, Fernbrook Drive, North Harrow in
1935 and the first hints of the type of
business activity he was involved with are
found in May 1936. At the Ideal Homes
Exhibition in Bristol Patrick Coleman,
representing Paul Clive & Co., was
demonstrating a pocket trick called The
Mystery of the Fourth Dimension (the soft
felt puzzle purse). Later, he also offered to
supply packets of toys at trade price for
The Magic Circle’s Children’s Christmas
Entertainment in 1936.
The decision to move into serious magic
dealing was taken in 1937 when Paul
founded Witchcraft Magic and took a full
-page advertisement on the rear cover of
the June-September issue of The Magic
Wand. It asked “Do you know the name?
Paul Clive & Co. A name to remember.
We have not previously advertised our
goods to conjurers as we have mainly
dealt only in small effects. However, we
MIMC
are now completing a good selection of
the type appealing both to the
professional and amateur performer. If
you will drop us a line we shall be
happy to send you our catalogue of
Conjuring Effects – gratis when
completed, also the circulars of new
lines, as and when introduced.” This
first advertisement featured Wilfrid
Jonson’s Paddle Trick, A Story of Two
Twin Beds, Silver Spots to produce
miniature explosions, and
Copper-Oxydised [sic] Ghost Tubes. In
November of that year Paul Clive & Co.
was one of four dealers participating in
a Magic Circle evening devoted to
Magic for Children. They were
represented by Wilfrid Jonson who
demonstrated a Ghost Tube, a
Chocolate Box changing box, John
s
Brearley’s Miraculous
Assembly, and Jonson’s
own Jack in the Box.
It was in 1937 too that
Will Goldston proposed
Paul Clive for
membership of The
Magicians’ Club, which
brought him into contact
with those Club
members who were not
also Members of The
Magic Circle.
About this time Clive’s
first magic catalogue was
issued containing almost
200 lines, and an
advertisement for Paul
Clive & Co. appeared in December’s The World’s Fair announcing
“Jokes!! Conjuring Tricks!! Write for our free Joke Catalogue
and Wholesale List. Separate Conjuring Catalogue. 150
Aldersgate Street, London, EC1.” At these premises, termed
‘The Home of Sir Pryzes’, two large floors were devoted to
magic, jokes and tricks.
During the next twelve months the firm issued Witchcraft
Magic pamphlets detailing latest additions to the range, but
then, in November, they launched in style with an attractive 91page catalogue listing well over 400 items, and advertised it in
America in The Sphinx and Genii. It is a publication dear to the
heart of the present writer as it was his first dedicated magic
catalogue and yielded up his Christmas present for 1938, one of
the aforementioned Ghost Tubes (Dawes,
2004)!
In the midst of these busy times, on 12 June
1937, the marriage of Philip Craggs to Muriel
Nicholls took place. The couple went on to have
two daughters, the first being Gloria Craggs
born on 30 December 1938 in Hendon.
Interestingly, the second daughter’s birth,
registered in the third quarter of 1941 at
Blackpool, where the family had moved, was
under the name of Frances P. Clive. Years later
Paul told Goodliffe Neale, who was mystified by
Douglas Craggs being his sibling, that he had
changed the name by deed poll after the
outbreak of war in 1939. At that time suspicion
of the activity of spies was rife, so to avoid
possible problems of being known as Paul Clive
through his business, yet carrying an Identity
Card for Philip Craggs, he decided to change his
name legally in 1940.
Following the outbreak of war the Company opened a
warehouse at Andover in Hampshire, advertising the new
address at the end of 1939. It proved a timely precaution.
In the blitz on London, which commenced at the end of
September 1940 after the German Luftwaffe was repulsed
in the Battle of Britain during the late summer months, one of
the many buildings destroyed was Paul Clive’s Aldersgate
premises. The move to Andover was short-lived as the building
was requisitioned by the Government.
He then made his next move, this
time north, and an advertisement in
The World’s Fair on 30 November
1940 advised customers that his
new address was Back 68 Cocker
Street, Blackpool.
Clive’s arrival in Lancashire led to
the foundation, in 1941, of a new
magic club, the North-West
Magicians’ Club, a forerunner of
today’s Blackpool Magicians’
Club. They were soon in action
entertaining at a Forces
Convalescent Camp in the area
in February 1942, with Paul
Clive giving his well-known
Impressions. In March, Paul
was a guest of the longestablished Modern Mystic
League (MML) of Blackburn when he
demonstrated a number of new effects. The North-West
Club reciprocated in May at Blackpool and Paul contributed to
the programme by demming tricks and jokes.
Meanwhile, in 1941 Paul had advanced to AIMC with Silver Star.
The war gradually, but quite seriously, affected all British magic
dealers as shortage of materials and rationing limited their
supplies. For cloth items such as egg bags and sack escapes
customers had to surrender precious clothing coupons. However,
Paul Clive & Co.
weathered the war
years and in 1946 was
in good shape and
about to hit a jackpot
with the publication
Card Tricks Without
Skill. The big news in
British magic
publishing for 1946
had been the launch
in February of
Abracadabra, “The
World’s Only Magical
Weekly” by Goodliffe
Neale. Paul took
advantage of this
outlet for
advertisements,
announcing his new
book, which he
dedicated “To my wife, mother of my children”. A montage of
their portraits comprised the frontispiece.
After an excellent 32-page opening chapter devoted to
Conjurers’ Terms and Artifices, 95 tricks were described and then
details of Paul Clive’s Identity Pack followed, a stacked deck he
had first published about a year previously, admitting that it was
not of the high standard of the Nikola System but that it required
less memory work. For the final chapter Paul had called upon
contributions from a group of nine of his good friends, including
George Braund, Col Ling Soo, his brother Douglas Craggs, Lionel
King, Jack Kinson, Victor Peacock, Stanley Stephenson, Edward
Victor and Peter Warlock. As expected from such a distinguished
group, they provided some excellent tricks, bringing the total in
the book to 117, and together with a detailed index it was
remarkably good value for five shillings and sixpence. It was also
to provide an item for Jack Potter’s Did You Know That? column
in Abra in 1977, namely that “The Recurring or Homing Card first
appeared in Paul Clive’s Card Tricks Without Skill (1946), page
113, under the title of ‘The Stained Glass Window’ ”.
The book was an instant success, receiving excellent reviews in
both Britain and America, and the print run of 5000 copies was
exhausted by the following year, necessitating a second, slightly
revised edition of 3000 copies published in 1947. Nor did the
story end there for, as with Douglas Craggs’s ABC of
Ventriloquism, the title was picked up by Faber & Faber and in
1959 they published a completely revised (with some new
material) third edition in hardback selling for fifteen shillings.
Nine years later a fourth, paperback, edition was published by
Faber for nine shillings, and from its publication on 18 September
to the year end it sold over 2500 copies. No doubt the
acclamation greeting the appearance of this book played no little
part in Paul Clive’s elevation to MIMC on 4 March 1947.
He placed adverts in Abra in 1947 for demonstrators and
asking “Coming to Blackpool? Look us up at our shop on North
Pier.” In January of this same year he launched a monthly Bulletin
for his newly-founded Witchcraft Conjurers’ League for boys
aged between 12 and 20, with a planned junior section for those
aged between 8 and 12. The first 12 issues were mimeographed
but from No.13 (January 1948) it was printed. Robert Harbin
became a Deputy Organiser of the League, joined by Lionel King
and then Voltaire. In issue 14 it was reported that Harbin had
held a meeting in London for League members with the hope of
founding a Branch in the capital but this idea came to naught.
After four years and 48 issues the Bulletin ended in December
1950 (Alfredson & Daily, 1986), coinciding, as we shall see, with
Clive’s departure for America.
In January 1948 when the North-West Magicians’ Club held a
Night of Magic at the Jubilee Theatre in Blackpool, Paul displayed
his versatility with an act of Hand Shadows, and Paul Clive & Co.
advertised a new line with a Liquid Just Chance effect.
Later in 1948 he must have taken a trip to America for a note
in the Linking Ring relates that Paul Clive from Blackpool spent
“quite some time” in the Golden Gate Magic Studio, San
Francisco, and the hope was expressed that he would spend days
in the Studio on his next visit. That hope was probably realised
within a couple of years as, in 1950, Clive took a momentous
decision to relocate with his family in America, heralded by the
news that he was about to make a series of appearances on
Television in San Francisco.
There followed a period of eight years when little was heard of
him in the magical press. His address in Magic Circle Membership
Lists for 1953 and
1955 was 2235
Carleton Street,
Berkeley,
California, and it
seems likely that
most of his
activities during
the American
sojourn were on
the West Coast.
The only mention
traced in the
literature relates to
a note in Tops by
Palhina in 1956 in
a column titled
Magic in
California: Paul
Clive from England
“pitching his bird
calls and vent
whistles” at
Alameda County Fair. So perhaps much of his time was spent in
similar activities around the State. We know from his
demonstrations at exhibitions in Britain and in his own shops that
he was a first-rate pitcher. However, John Pellatt (see later)
indicated that he also had a magic shop in America.
During this period in the United States his marriage to Muriel
broke down and they divorced. Paul married Dorothy, who
returned with him to Blackpool in 1958 whilst Muriel and his two
daughters remained in their adopted country. His sister-in-law by
this second marriage had apparently worked as Demos, The
Masked Magnetic Wizard, in the 1920s.
In October 1958 Goodliffe reported in Abra that Paul Clive had
returned after ten [sic] years in the US and intended to restart his
Blackpool business. In the meantime he was in Birmingham at the
Ideal Homes Exhibition and then proceeded to London for
Selfridge’s Christmas season. He was back at the same exhibition
in 1959 selling Punch swazzles, independently joined by Joe
Stuthard with the mouse novelty, and again in 1960 with
additional attendance at the Homes & Gardens Exhibition, selling
tricks and novelties. “He’s a nice chap, always good company,
and welcome back any time” wrote Goodliffe. And Paul was
back many times for the exhibition circuit was now an important
outreach for his firm. He was hailed by Goodliffe as “one of the
most long-lasting demmers”, recalling that Edwin Hooper as a
schoolboy bought a lot of standard tricks from him.
It appears that in 1961 Paul sold the title of his Witchcraft
Magic, as this advert in Abra appeared: “Special Notice. As from
this announcement the magical business known as ‘Witchcraft
Magic’ will be known as The Premier Magic Company. We wish
to state that we have no connection with Mr Paul Clive or any of
his associates … Brandon Place, Cambridge.”
Paul Clive & Co. Ltd advertised their magic shop on North Pier,
and for a period another shop on Waterloo Road, Blackpool, and
some of their wares fairly regularly in Abra during the 1960s and
1970s, occasionally with new exclusives such as the Silk-Blowing
Colour Change at 30 shillings (without silks).
In February 1971 Bayard Grimshaw visited the Clives at their
sea-front apartment and found them preparing for a month’s
holiday in the Austrian Alps and the Canary Islands. He came
away with Paul’s latest lists and noted that some of the items
were familiar ones from the pre-war days. Later that year Paul
was stricken by a bout of shingles and his wife was also unwell,
necessitating hospital treatment.
There is an interesting (undated) article by John Pellatt titled
Around Britain Magically in the Sid Lorraine Files
(Correspondence H, Doug Henning, accessible through the Ask
Alexander site of the Conjuring Arts Research Center) recording a
visit to the UK. In Blackpool he found the Paul Clive Magic Shop
on North Pier “a small, crowded and well-stocked shop …
catering mainly to the joke-buying tourists … he had a
surprisingly adequate selection of traditional magic fare. Paul
Clive, a very nice, interesting and apparently modest person with
a sense of humour. When I met him (and talked to him
subsequently for a few hours) he had a knife through his head …
Apart from being a knowledgeable person on magic, a darn
good showman and interesting talker, he is a very good business
man. He is managing director of his own importing and
distributing firm (the third largest in the country) dealing, I
assume, strictly with jokes and magical effects. He had just been
over to the West Coast of the USA earlier in the year where he
has relatives. He used to have a second magical shop there years
back, which he closed up before returning to England. He visited
the Magic Castle (Bill Larsen’s creation) while in the USA. The
magic business, on the whole, was doing quite well in Britain, he
told me ... Humorous or close-up magic seemed to be prevailing,
and Geller was in the news quite often.” This last statement
enables us to date the piece as no earlier than 1973 when Geller
first arrived in Britain.
In the pages of Abra in 1981 the topic of ‘magic writing for the
public’ was debated and Editor Donald Bevan allowed Paul Clive
the final words, writing thus: “After selling small tricks and jokes
from a kiosk on Blackpool Pier throughout World War 2, it
became clear there was a need for a book of easy non-skilled or
long practice required card tricks. Thus he wrote Card Tricks
Without Skill, which remains a classic among card books and
which many of today’s card enthusiasts must have cut their
magical teeth. The book sold quite cheaply, as there was no
question of making a fortune”. Indeed, he divulged in 1948 that
he made two-pence per copy.
In 1982 Paul started to thin out his library and advertised
“Collectors Books on Magic – Notable works by Great Authors.
SAE for list. No Callers please until you have seen the list”.
Paul Clive suffered a stroke soon after and was confined to a
wheel chair for the rest of his life. In the autumn of 1987 he
suffered another stroke and died a few weeks later on 1
December in Victoria Hospital, Blackpool. He was survived by his
second wife Dorothy, and by his elder brother Douglas Craggs,
who outlived him by thirteen months.
REFERENCES
Abracadabra (1946-1988).
Dawes, E.A. (2004). The Yankee Collector No.14, pp.119-129.
Magic Circular (1930-1988)..
Magic Wand (1936-1957).
World’s Fair (1936-1972).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am very grateful to Peter Lane for providing images of the
Witchcraft Conjurers’ League Bulletins, Michael Dawes for
genealogy and to Bill Kalush for the Ask Alexander resources of
The Conjuring Arts Research Center.
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Mandy Davis MIMC Convenor of Reports. Photographed by John
Roy Marsh
Monday 16 April 2012
Room 101 hosted by
Roy Marsh
Reported by Jacob Banfield
There was a great sense in the clubroom
that Room 101 was going to exceed
everyone’s expectations and, I’m pleased
to report, it did! For those of you
unfamiliar with the Room 101 concept,
adapted from George Orwell’s novel
1984, guests are invited to banish their
pet peeves of magic to Room 101.
Roy Marsh hosted the evening and
began by greeting Alan Shaxon to the
stage. Each of the guest’s offerings was
accompanied by a video projection
which, hopefully, illustrated the
annoyance. Alan’s first submission was
the Knife through Arm illusion – which
was not banished to Room 101 as the
audience felt that it does have its place,
in certain macabre performances, as
demonstrated by Amazing Jonathan.
Smash & Stab, however, did not fare so
well as it runs the risk of scaring the
spectator involved and potentially
injuring them. Alan’s final entry was
‘finger licking’ during performances; he
admitted to being one of the biggest
culprits and put forward a number of
Alan Shaxon
hilarious solutions to stop this habit. It
went straight in to Room 101.
Richard Pinner was the next guest and
suggested that jumbo coin manipulation
wasn’t fooling anyone and was simply eye
candy, like juggling. Everyone agreed and
it went in. The Head Dagger Chest was
Richard’s next entry, in his opinion an
utterly pointless trick, on the grounds that
Paul Zenon
Richard Pinner
if you could make someone’s head
disappear why would you need to stick
knives through it in the first place? It was
no surprise when that went in. Richard’s
final offering was The Web – the trick
where a spectator is startled to find a fake
spider on the back of their hand at the
climax. It again went to Room 101
following the theme of unnecessarily
scaring the spectator.
Our final guest was none other than
Paul Zenon. His expose of Psychic Sally had
the audience in stitches and started a
great discussion on ways of debunking
such fraudsters. Sally went straight into
Room 101. Next on Paul’s list was tacky
illusion choreography. It went in based on
the fact that most illusionists do a lot of
pointless dancing around just to present a
visual puzzle. Finally, following a similar
theme to Richard’s head dagger chest,
Paul suggested that illogical magic
production props were useless – citing
Appearing Umbrellas as an example. These
however did not make it in as
Roy defended the dove pan.
All in all, Room 101 was a fantastic
evening and everyone will be looking
forward to it next year!
[The Hands On Pre-Show in The
Devant Room featured Tony Hanscombe.]
Ward MMC
The Ali Bongo Memorial
Lecture 2012 by Paul Daniels
Reported by John Fells
There have been a few live-streamed
transmissions from our Headquarters, with
various degrees of success. On this night,
once again, a team of dedicated
volunteers brought Paul Daniels, and his
memories of Ali Bongo, into our homes
via the internet. The transmission was
flawless and without the buffering
experienced during previous streaming.
So first a word of thanks to all those that
made this a reality. How gracious of Paul
Daniels to lecture on his good friend and
companion in magic, and share his
memories with both the live audience
and those of us at home who were
unable to attend!
I grew up in magic first with David Nixon
and then later Paul Daniels. Paul told us
about the magicians around him who
helped him develop
his props and
presentations
for his
television
shows.
Specifically,
he talked
about Ali
Paul Daniels
Rafael Benatar
Rafael Benatar
Reported by Jacob Banfield
Rafael, originally from Venezuela but
now residing in Spain, presented a
captivating lecture to the Monday night
crowd. His magic is charming and it was
evident that his smooth performance
has been honed through a lifetime of
experience in magic. He captured
everyone’s attention at the beginning of
the lecture by producing a giant contact
lens and mentioned that this trick
always brings a smile to even the most
callous spectator’s face.
Rafael then performed and explained
a series of highly baffling, and
entertaining, card tricks. He began with
a Do as I Do effect based on an old
Patrick Page trick, followed by a strong
mental sandwich effect, a prediction
effect and his version of Gemini Twins,
utilising Larry Jennings’s rhythm count.
Rafael then stated that the main goal of
his lecture was to explain the structure
of good, solid magic effects and how to
go about creating them. This idea was
demonstrated in Rafael’s exquisite
handling of the Cups and Balls which
was beautifully scripted with an
s
Bongo who “knew about as much about
magic as anybody on the planet”. Ali was
a developer and inventor who loved and
was proud of the props he designed and
made for Paul. “If Ali didn’t suggest it, it
wasn’t a very good idea.” Among the
items Paul discussed was the production
of two small white mice from a matchbox
with a one camera close-up shot – a trick
which led Lance Burton to exclaim “Who
needs Tigers!”.
Ali was nationally known by the people
as a performer. He created characters
such as The Shriek of Araby and Alistair.
As well as being a performer he was
called upon by others for advice and
craftsmanship. “He was the master of
glue, paper and rubber bands” with which
he could create workable props which
would often stand the test of time. Ali’s
home was “a world of wonder, totally
awash with magic.” Paul showed us some
props made by Ali and also commented
on how beautifully wrapped the presents
Ali took to Paul’s home when he spent
Christmas with the Daniels family were.
Ali Bongo was an elegant, shy,
kind, caring, energetic, talented
man. He was elected President of
The Magic Circle in 2008 and
passed away in March 2009.
Paul’s lecture provided a
fitting tribute to him.
s
‘email’ theme and ended with five final
loads. During his explanation Rafael
explored Ascanio’s theory of transit and
stressed the importance of having a
motivation to achieve a sleight beyond the
sleight itself.
Rafael then performed a perplexing card
trick called The Mystery of Kabbala, which
involved a strange cutting and dealing
process to reveal a merely thought of card.
Rafael was generous with his all of his
explanations and ended the lecture by
performing a collection of his favourite
card tricks, his take on the Coin under
Watch effect and a final torn and restored
effect using a ribbon and a tape measure.
Overall this was a fantastic lecture and
Rafael’s charisma, wit and skill were a
pleasure to watch.
A number of Steve’s routines made use
of figurines from kids’ films and cartoons.
These not only look innocuous, but also
tap-into the inherent interest kids will have
in familiar toys and TV characters. For
instance, we saw a transposition between
two characters from Thomas the Tank
Engine and Spongebob Squarepants
magically appeared on a
previously-examined white handkerchief.
Mickey Mouse also showed up, drawn on
an Etch-A-Sketch which had been shown
empty moments before. Steve mentioned
that his trick where Lego bricks assemble
into a stack, after having been dropped
individually into an empty bag, often gets
singled out for praise after the show.
Steve discussed how it was easy for any
kids’ entertainer to get the children to
shout and scream but harder to command
Tuesday 8 May 2012
Steve Dimmer
Reported by Chris McGeever
After the early May Bank Holiday a
smaller-than-usual number of Members
came to Steve’s presentation on children’s
magic. Describing himself as a jobbing
magician, Steve stressed the importance of
involving every child present at the party in
the act at some point. His approach is to
see the kids as creating the magic
themselves as stars of the show – rather
than merely being helpers. He was keen to
emphasise the potential of the lecture
material to play for family audiences – and
perhaps fool the parents too. This point
was perhaps best illustrated by the final
item, a James Bond-themed routine for
older kids/teenagers.
rapt attention through a measured,
storytelling trick. He demonstrated this
latter skill with a magical tale about
growing and shrinking diamonds, adding
a different shade and a change of pace to
his performance. Continuing the evening’s
theme of deviating from the generic, he
also showed how he had adapted the
Mutilated Parasol into a refilling candy
cane tube instead.
Steve commended the Lazy Susan to his
peers as a utility item for displaying props
such as empty boxes to larger audiences;
and incorporated one in his final piece,
which he uses to end the party as parents
arrive. This was a Russian Roulette style
routine with water pistols and included
every child, as well as making a special
fuss over the birthday boy/girl who
brought the trick to a funny conclusion. It
was a pleasure to listen to Steve explaining
his original and practical ideas.
[The Hands On Pre-Show in The Devant
Room featured Roy MacKenzie.]
Monday 14 May 2012
Pat Fallon
Steve Dimmer
Reported by Tim Barnes
Pat greeted us by asking whether we were
enjoying ourselves. The normally timid
Monday night gathering responded with a
hearty yes! “But I’ve not done anything
yet” quipped Pat!
This set the tone for the evening –
some great magic, a plethora of
magicians’ lines and an engaging
personality that was going to make it hard
for us not to enjoy ourselves, whether he
demonstrated much, or not!
Pat’s first offering was a lottery-style
prediction to win money hidden in one of
four bags. This was clever magic. Cleverer
CARTOON MAGIC by Fist www.dogslipstick.co.uk
still was the fact that this was a routine
that engaged the audience, played for
some big laughs and meant that no one
really cared, or probably even
remembered, that the magician ended up
keeping the money.
A simple but effective drawing
revelation followed, with Pat visualising
the identity of a card secretly drawn on a
clipboard. The fact that the card was
cleverly forced added impact to the
presentation – with the focus, at least for
magicians, being on the sketchpad.
A card prediction followed with a free
choice of a card from those dealt into two
separate piles. The chosen card then
matched a single jumbo prediction card on
view in an envelope. This involved a
diabolical force and an equally clever gaff
on the jumbo card. In my view this was
Pat’s strongest item of the evening. So
simple, yet direct and very baffling.
Next was a prediction effect, based on a
Roy Johnson idea, and centred around a
horse racing card from Goodwood. In
some ways this was perhaps a little too
clever, with many steps and choices
offered along the way. If presented closeup, rather than on stage as it was, I could
imagine this creating a really big impact.
Pat finished with his favourite routine,
and one he’s used within a number of his
almost one hundred TV appearances.
Presented through the story of the first
Halloween following Houdini’s death, a
lock became unlocked, a block freed itself
despite being secured in a tube; and a
picture, removed from a frame, magically
returned.
Pat Fallon is a prolific magician with some
great ideas which are adaptable to almost
every type of show. A fun and, I suspect,
very useful evening was had by all.
Pat Fallon and Jack Delvin
David Stone
Photos: Dale Farris
Will Houstoun
John Van Der Put
Bébel performs
for David Stone
and Paul Gertner
FFFF
CLOSE-UP MAGIC
CONVENTION
by Will Houstoun AIMC
very year, in addition to the prestige of their title and cash
prize, The Magic Circle’s Close-up Magician of The Year wins
an invitation to the exclusive convention Fechter’s Finger
Flinging Frolic (FFFF). Having performed at three of these get
togethers, as well as lecturing at the most recent one, I thought
that our Members might be interested in an insight into the event.
Near the end of April around two hundred magicians, each
individually chosen and invited by convention head Obie O’Brien,
descendeded on a small hotel in upstate New York for a weekend
of shows, lectures and sessions. Over the course of the
convention a number of performers gave lectures on a variety of
different topics in a selection of different styles. Germany’s Denis
Behr gave a fantastic lecture introducing attendees to his free
online database of magic books at www.archive.denisbehr.de As
if knowledge of this useful resource was not enough he then
continued by fooling everyone with a selection of his original card
effects before thoroughly explaining them. A totally different
lecture was given by our very own Piff the Magic Dragon aka
John Van Der Put. Divided into two parts John first talked about
the development of his alter ego Piff before concluding by
explaining a selection of routines for the table hopping magician.
Space does not permit a full review of every lecture but other
names who talked include Steve Beam, Soma, Mike Powers and
Mathieu Bich – along with your intrepid Editor!
As well as the lectures there are also no less than seven shows
dedicated to close-up magic through the course of the weekend!
FFFF has a unique criteria for attendance – if you go and you are
asked to take part in one of the shows then you must perform or
you will not be asked back. This gives FFFF an almost uniquely
strong booking power. The last show, for example, featured
performers from seven different countries and included no less
than seven FISM award winners! It was a particular pleasure to
see the silky smooth French card handler Bébel, the super creative
Francis Menotti, the technically exceptional Akira Fuji and the
baffling Vincent Heden but that list barely begins to scratch the
surface with over seventy performances during the convention!
Every year FFFF also features a Guest of Honor. This year
David Stone was being honoured and, as a direct result, became
one of the hardest working people at the convention! David
presented a special version of his lecture, a masterclass in how to
simultaneously entertain and educate a room full of magicians.
David also performed as part of one of the shows and became
the butt for every joke and jibe of the convention – especially in
E
Rick Merrill and Steve Bargatze’s hilarious roast of the convention
that closes the final show.
Perhaps my favourite aspect of FFFF is the social side. Regular
attendees and first time guests mix without any of the cliques
found at normal magic conventions. Everywhere you look, right
into the early hours of the morning, groups of magicians are
sitting at the table or on the floor discussing their latest ideas.
Conversation is further encouraged by the inclusion of several
group meals included in the registration for the convention. You
are even provided with free doughnuts and soft drinks in a special
suite after each evening’s formal events have finished. Running
on into the early hours of the morning, even after the doughnut
room has closed, small groups of regular attendees book extra
rooms in the hotel so that registrants can eat, drink and talk
magic till dawn! Simply put, FFFF makes you feel that you are
staying with one large group of friends for a long weekend. One
day, perhaps every convention will attain that feeling. Right now,
FFFF has it more than any other convention I have had the chance
to attend.
Of course there is much more that could be said about this
year’s FFFF convention – a book could be, and recently has been,
written about all forty two get togethers. Now, at least, you have
some idea what goes on at the convention and perhaps, if you
want to attend one year, you have plenty of time to work on your
close-up act for the next Magic Circle Close-up Magician of The
Year Competition!
Our Headquarters
Conventions
Dress Code
Smart attire is required at
all events in the Headquarters.
Mobile Phones
Please ensure that you switch off your
mobile phone before entering the
Headquarters. If you must make a phone
call, please do so outside the building.
Photography and Sound Recording
The use of any form of recording equipment,
audio or visual, including cameras and
mobile phones, is not permitted in any part
of the Headquarters except by special
arrangement.
Gum
Please refrain from chewing gum of any sort
in the Headquarters.
Smoking
Smoking is not allowed anywhere in the
Headquarters.
We all benefit from these conventions, so
please respect and abide by them to avoid
being turned away. Thank you for your
understanding.
Audio Transposition
by Daryl
Props and gimmicks with printed
instructions. $39.95 (£25) from your
favourite dealer. Dealers contact
Murphy’s Magic supplies,
www.MurphysMagic.com.
Reviewed by Will Houstoun
I recently had the opportunity to give a
lecture as part of a one day convention
in Montreal that also happened to
feature Daryl. I saw a collection of tried
and tested
Daryl
classics
and then
he pulled
out a kids
rattle and
squeaky
ball.
Thinking
of myself
as a rather
serious card and coin magician, I sat
back to wait for the next item ...
imagine my surprise then when, at the
end of the trick, I was not only
captivated but also rather badly fooled!
In performance you remove a child’s
rattle and a squeaky ball toy from a
small cloth bag and talk about your first
magic trick as a kid. You explain that
the rattle and squeaker were your
favourite toys but that one day you
Mum said you couldn’t play with them
because they were noisy and your Dad
was trying to sleep. To solve the
problem you make the rattling sound
vanish from the rattle and the squeak
disappear from the ball. You explain that
when your Dad woke up you were
allowed to make noise again so you
made the sounds come back, but that
you made a mistake and got them the
wrong way round. Sure enough the
squeaky ball now rattles and the rattle
squeaks!
When you buy Audio Transposition
you receive the rattle, the ball, a child
like cloth bag and the necessary gimmicks
to perform the routine. Instructions are
provided in printed form and, whilst they
are clear and the routine is easy to learn,
it might have been nice to have a DVD,
not least so you could see Daryl
performing the routine himself.
Clearly this trick will not be for
everyone. The props, as they should, look
childish and might well not fit your style.
Having said that, if you can find the right
situation to perform it, Audio
Transposition is an interesting, fooling
routine that is unique and likely to be
remembered.
Origami Magic
by Steve and Megumi Biddle
80 page hardcover book, 6.5 x 6.5 ins.,
illustrated. Includes origami papers.
Published by Eddison Sadd Editions, Ltd,
London. £9.00 ($14.50) plus p&p from
most booksellers, amazon.co.uk and
amazon.com.
Reviewed by Matthew Field
Member Steve Biddle is an expert in both
magic and origami, so it is fitting that his
latest book with his origami and
silhouette-cutting wife Megumi should be
devoted to this marriage of the allied art
of origami and the art of magic. It
contains seventeen relatively easy to
construct items, ranging from a paper
version of the Organ Pipe production
tubes (you produce an origami rabbit, the
folding of which is also taught), to a
cube-shaped flexagon, which perplexingly
turns inside out.
The book begins with an explanation of
how to interpret origami folding designs
(it’s simple) and concludes with an
excellent list of resources – further books
on origami and magic as well as addresses
of the origami societies in the UK and US.
There are items that extend orthodox
origami with the use of scissors and sticky
tape, a simple Himber-type switching
wallet you can construct, an introduction
to Tangrams, how to make an Ali
Bongo-type paper tree, and lots more,
including my
favourite,
‘Monkey
Climbing Mt.
Fuji’, in which
a bit of folded
paper seems
to crawl up a
folded square
of paper.
This is an ideal present for a child aged
ten and up (my estimate), but why should
it be of interest to Magic Circle Members?
I was once at a garden party with twenty
adults and one six-year-old child who was
going nuts with boredom. I asked for
some paper and folded the flapping-wing
bird taught in these pages which kept the
little devil occupied, at least for a bit.
Robert Harbin was a magician who
realised the magic inherent in origami, and
this small-sized book is big on entertainment
value. The inclusion of the paper needed to
begin folding is a very nice touch. The entire
production is nothing less than gorgeous.
Fooling Houdini
by Alex Stone
301 pgs, 8.5 x 5.5 ins., soft bound.
£12.99 from all good book stores.
A magic book written for the general
public is always going to be a slightly risky
proposition amongst the magic world. On
the one hand you may, as for example
Professor Hoffmann did, attain legendary
status as the author of a classic,
responsible for a huge boost in interest for
the magic world. On the other, you may
alienate the magic community as they cry
exposure! Perhaps even more difficult,
however, is a book that, instead of
teaching magic secrets tries to introduce
its reader into the sub-culture of
magicians. This is exactly what Alex Stone
has tried to write with Fooling Houdini,
and how successful he is will probably
depend on how involved in magic you
already are.
I first came across Alex Stone at around
who, unfortunately for Stone was not
involved with early trick-photography,
which started before his birth, and was
most definitely not an amateur magician.
He was a professional who bought and
performed in Robert-Houdin’s theatre after
Robert- Houdin’s retirement! In another
place Stone mentions: “David Devant was
exiled from London’s Magic Circle ... after
he published Our Magic.” Once again this
is incorrect for a number of reasons. First,
on the technicalities that Devant resigned
rather than being expelled from The Circle
and that he was a co-author of Our Magic
and not a publisher. More significantly his
resignation had nothing to do with Our
Magic or any of his material published in
book form. It was caused by the extraction
of parts of a different book, Secrets of My
Magic, that were published in the Windsor
Magazine. Coming right up to date Stone
again slips when he describes FFFF as a
club when it is in fact a convention. There
are several other errors or examples of a
lack of understanding both historically and
technically throughout the book.
Despite Stone’s questionable
qualifications and obvious gaps in his
knowledge, there are places in which
Fooling Houdini is an enjoyable read. I
would imagine that the less you know
about magic, the more enjoyable it would
become – something that suits a book
aimed at the general public. In a general
sense, a book that offers an insight into the
world of the magician could be fascinating
read, it just needs to be written by
someone with a real insight into the world
it describes. That person is not Alex Stone.
First Hand AKA Freedom
Change
by Justin Miller & Paul Harris
100 min instructional DVD with gimmicks.
$35 (£22) from your favourite dealer.
Dealers contact Murphy’s Magic supplies,
Since the end of the eighteenth century, if
not earlier, magicians have realised that if
the magic happens in a spectator’s
hands then it will be more effective than
when it takes place in the magician’s
hands. First Hand is an attempt to apply
this fundamental idea to a bank note
changing routine. In effect you show
a stack of one dollar bills which are
folded in half and then wrapped with
a rubber band. The stack is placed on a
spectator’s outstretched hand and, when
you tap the stack with your wallet, the
outer bank note is seen to have changed
into one hundred dollars. When the
spectator takes the elastic off the stack
and checks the remainder of the
bills they have all changed
into hundreds.
The idea of moving this
kind of routine into a
spectator’s hands is certainly
an interesting one, and not
something anyone would
question. The thing that you
would do well to question, however, is
whether the compromises that need to
be made to move the trick into the
spectator’s hands are outweighed by the
strength of that position – in the case of
First Hand I would suggest that the
compromises are too great. So what are
the compromises? To my mind there are
two major ones.
The first, and by far the biggest, is the
way in which the change itself happens.
In the granddaddy of this plot, Patrick
Page’s Easy Money, the notes change as
they are folded in your hands. Later
developments, such as Richard Sander’s
Extreme Burn, take Pat’s basic idea and
make the change more flashy and visual.
In all of these versions, however the
notes change in your otherwise empty
hands. First Hand, on the other hand,
requires you to tap the stack of notes
with your wallet at the very moment the
change happens, adding an extra prop
into the routine that serves no purpose
other than allowing the method to
work.
The second is that the stack of notes
have to change with a rubber band
s
the same time the book starts, with his
entry into the Stockholm FISM in 2006.
Unfortunately this was not, as Stone
admits in his book, the glorious
experience it should have been. He was,
by some distance, the worst act in the
close-up competition and was, I believe,
the only act in the close-up to be
disqualified before he had finished his act.
The second time I came across Stone was
in an article published in Harper’s Magazine
soon after FISM In which he combined
gratuitous exposure of magic classics such
as Matrix with a rather tenuous justification
of his FISM failure. You can imagine then
that I was rather apprehensive to read a
full length book written by Stone – he
didn’t fail to justify my concern.
The book is based on Stone’s journey
from his shocking performance at FISM
to a later entry into the IBM close-up
competition some years later. In the mean
time Stone describes taking part in a
variety of psychology experiments, his time
learning from magic legends and the way
in which magic became more and more
significant in his day to day life. The blurb
on the back of the book describes the
overall plot as “a personal quest to reach
the pinnacle of this bizarre world” –
and there lies the first problem. Stone
positions himself as an expert from the
world of magic, a position he simply has
not, and could not, attain in the six year
period in which he could have developed
since FISM 2006.
Throughout the book this inexperience
shows as Stone makes numerous peculiar
statements or mistakes. For example,
when talking about Robert-Houdin he
mentions “an
amateur
magician and
friend ... invented
trick photography
and created the
first special
effects films.”
Presumably this is
a reference to
Georges Méliès
s
wrapped around them, something that
presents a few issues. First, you will need
to justify wrapping the notes with the
band before the change happens – and
the suggested presentation of the band as
being a ‘magic rubber band’ seems rather
weak. The second is that wrapping the
notes in a band slows the revelation down
and turns a trick where multiple objects
(four or five separate notes) change into
one where effectively a single object (the
wrapped stack) changes.
As well as the main, gaffed handlings, a
few bonus impromptu handlings are also
taught. Two of these do get rid of the
rubber band and no longer use the wallet
to effect the change – in fact they are by
far my favourite items on the DVD! With
these changes however, even more so
than with the gimmicked version, it is
essential that the different bills are all the
same size. This presents no problem for
some currencies such as US Dollars but
would make it impossible, for example to
change a stack of five pound notes into
twenties.
First Hand may well be, as the
advertising claims, “the first bill change
that happens completely in your
spectator’s hand.” To my mind, however,
the compromises that are made to
facilitate that mean that the classic Easy
Money, and many of its derivatives, still
represent better routines.
iLoGo
by Craig Squires
$44.50 (£30) from your favourite dealer.
The iPhone is one of the most popular
gadgets of the last few years and, despite
the fact that a number of different magic
apps have been released for the iPhone,
not many magicians have created effects
that physically utilise the phone itself.
iLoGo, by Craig Squires, changes that
allowing you to perform impossible magic
with a spectator’s borrowed iPhone.
In the basic routine you would ask to
borrow a spectator’s iPhone
and then, pushing your
fingers against the apple
logo on the back, slide the
logo from its usual
position down to the bottom corner of the
phone. At this point the spectator can
clearly see the blank space where the logo
used to be and even feel the smooth
plastic where the logo used to be. After
the spectator has taken in the effect you
can move the logo back into its proper
position before returning the phone.
As well as the basic routine a selection
of bonus ideas are explained including a
card routine and guest contributions from
magicians such as Dave Loosley and Greg
Wilson. In addition it would be very
possible, with just a few hours thought, to
come up with your
own routines based
on the gimmicks
that are supplied. If
you have noticed
that more and more
people you perform
for seem to have
iPhones, then iLoGo might be just the trick
you have been waiting for.
Naked
by Salvador Sufrate
$35 (£22.50) from your favourite dealer.
Naked is a variation on a classic card plot
with an interesting methodological twist.
In performance you have a spectator
choose a card which they sign and return
to the pack. You try to cut to their card
but accidentally find a joker. Apologising
for your mistake you clip the joker
between your lips and, with your hands in
view the entire time, turn your back on
the audience for a moment. When you
turn round, despite the fact that your
hands have been nowhere near the card in
your mouth, it has now changed into the
signed selection.
There are two things that you need to
know about Naked to try and decide
whether or not it is a good trick for you.
First – what the trick is like
methodologically and what, if any,
restrictions the method places on your
performance? Second – even if the
method is clever, is the trick itself good?
First, the method. When you buy Naked
you receive two specially gimmicked cards
that are essential to the performance.
These gimmicks allow you to show one
card clipped between your lips and then,
with just a moments cover, have the card
change into a different one. The gimmick
makes the change easy to perform but
you should be aware that there will be
some angle restrictions in performance –
this is something you would want to use
in a formal situation rather than a walk
around one for example. In addition, the
gimmicks are made in bicycle card so if
you prefer a different brand you will ned
to spend some time carefully inserting the
gimmick into your card of choice.
Second, and more importantly, what is
the effect like? I would suggest that the
routine in which Sufrate has used his
gimmick is probably not the best use. A
greater impact could be had with a regular
pack of cards and a top change or double
lift to transform a wrong card into the
selection.
That is not to say that Naked is
necessarily a bad idea – just that you will
probably not want to use it with the
routine provided out of the box. If you
have a need to change a card, or card type
object, whilst it is clipped in your mouth
then Naked is a great idea that you might
wind up using. Without that fairly specific
requirement it is likely to end up in the
bottom of a draw.
Haunted
by Peter Eggink
$35 (£22) from your favourite dealer.
Peter Eggink is well known in the magic
community as the creator of a number of
very clever and fooling effects. Haunted,
unsurprisingly, is Peter’s take on the
haunted deck. In effect, a spectator
chooses a card which they look at and
remember before it is lost, back in the
deck. The cards are then put down on the
floor or on a table and, after a suitable
pause, eerily cut themselves around the
centre. The spectator is then invited to lift
the top portion of the deck at the point
the deck has cut itself and, when they do,
one card shoots out of the deck – of
course it is their selection.
The method for Haunted is clever and
features a number of strong elements. For
example, the deck can be freely handled
and even examined before and after the
effect, there are no bad angles from which
to view the deck at any point during the
routine, and you need to have no
connection to the deck as it spookily cuts
itself. An additional strength of Haunted is
that the cutting action of the deck is very
today has to be compared to
Nicholas Einhorn’s modern
classic, Spooked. Haunted is
one of the few haunted deck
routines that compares
reasonably well. Haunted has a few
advantages over Spooked in that it is self
contained and you need to have no
particular connection with the deck when
the effect is taking place. Spooked on the
other hand has the massive advantage
that the entire cutting process and
production of the selection is entirely
under your control at all times – with
Haunted there is no option to pause the
action once the deck has been put down
on the table. If you are a professional
looking for a haunted deck this factor
probably means that Spooked still has the
edge. If you just want to try a Haunted
deck routine out for fun then the
convenience and price of Haunted make it
the perfect trick for you.
The Spiral Principle and Beyond
by Stephen Leathwaite
90 min instructional DVD. $30 (£20) from
your favourite dealer. Dealers contact
Murphy’s Magic supplies,
Rather than having the longest title in the
history of magic DVDs The Spiral Principle
and Beyond is actually a combination of
two one-trick DVDs. As they are clearly
separate products, they are even split from
one another on the DVD menu, I will
David Hatch MMC
I am sorry to have to report that
John Forrest MIMC, also known as
John Klox, died at his London home
in April. He was best known as an
actor, appearing in many British films
in the 1950’s. As a magician he
toured extensively in the United States,
and was invited to appear at
The Magic Castle.
I am also very sorry to report the
unexpected death of the late Terry
Seabrooke’s son, Keith, at the age of 45.
Although not a Member, he assisted
Terry on many occasions, and TMC was
represented at his funeral. Our thoughts
go out to Hilda and the family at this
sad time.
It was good to see such a large number
of Members mingling with the Pearly
Kings and Queens at the memorial
service for Larry Barnes MIMC at
St. Paul’s church, Covent Garden
(the actors’ church) on 16 May.
Everyone, including the rector, entered
into the spirit of this extraordinary
event, with moving eulogies by Roy
Hudd and John Fisher interspersed with
Larry’s favourite music hall songs. The
Broken Wand ceremony carried out by
our President, Jack Delvin, provided a
fitting climax to a most appropriate send
off for this well-loved man.
Members will have read John Fisher’s
obituary to Cesareo Pelaez MIMC in last
month’s edition of The Magic Circular.
Henry Lewis MIMC, who flew the Atlantic
to attend the funeral service, tells me that
the flags were at half mast in Beverly and
the town virtually came to a halt for the
occasion.
David Ball MIMC is due to finish his
chemotherapy in mid June, and thankfully
has not been troubled with serious
side-effects. He tells me he has even been
able to keep his hair! Mel Moore MMC’S
wife has been suffering from a nasty
attack of shingles, and we wish her a
speedy recovery. By the time this column is
printed John Ward MMC, our official
photographer, should have had a new
knee installed, and we wish him well.
We also bear in mind other members of
our Magic Circle family mentioned
previously, including Barry Miller MIMC,
Bobby Bernard MIMC
and Diane O’Brien MMC
Just a thought: “My mother used to say
that there are no strangers, only friends
you haven’t met yet. She’s now in a
maximum security twilight home in
Australia”. (Dale Carnegie)
Contact address:
(see website for Members’ details):
Hilda Seabrooke (Keith’s mother)
38 Beechcroft Road, Bushey, Watford,
Herts., WD23 2JU
If you hear of Members or their families
who are sick or facing hard times please
contact:
David Hatch MMC (Welfare Officer)
6 Darnley Road, Woodford Green, Essex
1G8 9HU
T. 020 8504 4134
E. WelfareOfficer@TheMagicCircle.co.uk
Chaplaincy:
Revd Peter Liddelow AIMC
23 Kings Road, Barnet, Herts, EN5 4EF
T. 020 8441 2968
E. Chaplain@ TheMagicCircle.co.uk)
Rabbi Geoffrey Shisler MMC
10 St Petersburgh Place, Bayswater,
London W2 4LB
T. 020 7229 6215
E. GeoffreyShisler@TheMagicCircle.co.uk
s
very smooth indeed. It does not
cut itself in a sharp, mechanical
way, instead the two halves
smoothly and organically slide
over one another.
The instructional DVD for
Haunted is well shot and the teaching is
both thorough and clear. The only slight
niggle is that some of it has been filmed
outside and you can occasionally hear the
sound of the wind blowing against the
microphone, not a big issue but
something that is occasionally irritating. In
addition to the handling described above,
Eggink also describes a number of
handling variations that allow the
spectator to handle the cards in other
ways or get rid of additional props.
In my opinion, any haunted deck routine
s
Council minutes
review them separately.
First, The Spiral Principle, something that is
introduced as an entirely new principle in card
magic. Essentially this is a procedure that allows
you to locate a selected card in impossible
conditions – The cards are cut into four piles, the
piles are shuffled into one another by the spectator
and then they look at the top card of the deck. This
card is then buried into the pack and, after a
further shuffle, the magician is able to locate the
card. The basis for The Spiral Principle is an old idea
that restricts a spectator’s choice and it is the
second part, that allows the identification of a
particular card from this limited choice, that is
described as original. This addition certainly works,
but seems a rather procedure heavy way to attain a
position which can be duplicated, as far as the lay
spectator is concerned, much more simply.
Having said that, if your goal is to
fool your magician friends, The
Spiral Principle may do the job,
depending purely on whether
they know the basic idea on
which it is based.
Second we have Beyond, a revised
handling of Paul Curry’s classic Out of This
World. This routine is absolutely fantastic and
suffers only one small flaw, something I will come
to later. In effect you show a deck of cards to be
well mixed and then one spectator is assigned the
red cards and another the black cards. They take it
it turns to pick up a card and, if they think it is their
colour to keep it, or if they think it is not their
colour to discard it. Of course, when the spectators
turn over their cards they are each seen to have
located all the cards of their own colour. The effect
is easy to perform, very strong in terms of effect
and also very fooling. We now come to the flaw –
On the DVD Craig Petty enthusiastically comments
“For those of you who don’t know, Paul Curry
created the original Out of This World and it is a
classic for a reason...” Unfortunately nobody
associated with the DVD seems to have know that
a routine almost identical to Beyond, John
Kennedy’s Red and Black, was published in Genii in
1989. Leathwaite does have one display in his
routine that differs to Kennedy’s, but in my opinion
Kennedy’s handling is better.
So what do you get if you buy The Spiral
Principle and Beyond? You get a rather convoluted
variation on an old principle, which might be good
to fool your magic friends but which can easily be
bettered for a lay audience, and a great version of
Out of This World which essentially was published
over twenty years ago.
MINUTES OF THE MAGIC
CIRCLE COUNCIL MEETING
HELD AT THE HEADQUARTERS
2 May 2012 6.35 pm
PRESENT
Jack DELVIN (6.56pm)
Brian SIBLEY (Chairman)
Scott PENROSE
Alexander CRAWFORD
(Treasurer) (dep 10.22pm)
Noel BRITTEN
Mandy DAVIS
Kevin DOIG
Andrew EBORN
Roberto FORZONI
James FREEDMAN
Alan MASKELL (dep. 10.20pm)
Fay PRESTO
Katherine RHODES (6.36pm)
Rob PAGE (Deputy Secretary)
David WEEKS (Minute
Secretary)
1. APOLOGIES
Matthew GARRETT
Will HOUSTOUN
Richard PINNER
Steve PRICE
James FORTUNE
In the absence of the Secretary,
the Chair welcomed Rob Page
as the co-opted (non-voting)
Deputy Secretary.
2. DEATHS
John Forrest (aka Jon Klox) MIMC
Shan Mason the widow of
Eric Mason –
‘The Great Masoni’
Members of Council stood in
silence as a mark of respect.
3. MINUTES
After one amendment and
on a proposal by James
Freedman, seconded by Noel
Britten, the minutes of the
meeting held on 5 April 2012
were approved with one
abstention,SP. and those who
did not attend the April
meeting also abstained.
4. MATTERS ARISING
A discussion about moving
forward with Live-Streaming
took place.
ACTION: The Streaming
Committee to report, via the
Council Mail List, before the
next planned event.
ACTION: Scott Penrose will
supply names of those
magicians employed at
corporate events.
5. SECRETARY’S REPORT
i New Members (See attached
schedule)
ii Reinstatements. None
iii Resignations. None
iv Promotions (See attached
schedule)
6. CORRESPONDENCE
Ruth Dean, the sister of the late
Pete McCahon, having missed
the tribute evening, would like
to bring her children to TMC to
see the items that had been
donated.
ACTION Scott Penrose to
arrange a display and James
Freedman to liaise with Richard
Pinner concerning a date.
AE request the Awards
an email to a password
protected download link when
the hard copy is mailed out.
Membership cards that are
made annually are expensive
and a move to a barcode on
the card could eventually save
expense.
ACTION: JF to investigate
membership card expenditure.
Web hosting may also be
able to save money.
ACTION Alexander Crawford
to discuss with IT committee
Web costs. At the same time
who might be the Council
Committee to revisit the matter representative for this
committee.
of a posthumous award to Ali
Andrew Eborn was of the
Bongo of the Gold Medal.
opinion that licensing TMC
Graham Reed is still pursuing
brand should add £4K per year,
this.
going forward.
Whilst these discussions were
7. ‘DRAWN BY THE FUTURE
about saving money, Alexander
– OUR VISION FOR TMC’
The Chair outlined the need for reiterated that TMC is not in
a long term vision for TMC and, any fiscal trouble, saying that
the budget was prudent and
as most meetings have to deal
should guide us.
with immediate matters
suggested that Council meet
9. PRO:
outside of these monthly
AE presented a report showing
meetings in order to
good results had been achieved.
brainstorm, plan, specifically
The media uses TMC as a source
and strategically, for a longer
term vision for TMC – both in the for stories so we need to
way the organisation is run and maximise the things that we
want there. The publicity
what it provides for members.
committee will discuss what
our ‘message’ should be. AE
8. TREASURER’S REPORT:
has been consulting with Angelo
TMC BUDGET
Carbone to find what effects
Whilst the Circular is the
work well on media. Publicity
biggest expense it is also what
committee is compiling a
is perceived by many to be the
‘Notes for Editors’ document.
main benefit. Whilst there are
AE presented a proposal from
physical versions required, an
electronic version does not save a company that was under way.
JF proposed certain restrictions
significant amounts. Postage
reduction would help especially to be considered for the
negotiations, KR suggested it
the difference between airmail
should be left to the PRO team
and surface costs for overseas
to do what they deem best. A
members. Each copy of the
motion to accept the proposal
Circular costs about £4.50 per
with the restrictions was made
member.
by JF, seconded by AC. Passed
The Circular Management
with one against: KR
Committee submitted a report
which concluded with a
10. YMoTY
recommendation to move to a
There was a discussion,
Digital version of the Magic
initiated by Alan Maskell, about
Circular by offering members
the Irving Schneider award. The
the option to opt out of the
hard copy in favour of receiving trustees, mindful that few apply
for this award, have suggested
it could go to the winner of the
YMoTY. The aims of both are to
encourage the development of
stage acts and for a young
person to improve their magic.
The award pays for flights and
accommodation to the Jeff
McBride’s summer school. Alan
was asked to pass this back to
the Trustees for further
discussion.
11. FILMING AT TMC:
Noel Britten presented a
detailed set of proposals
covering eleven topics
including: conditions of filming,
permissions, copyright, usage
by individuals and by TMC,
charges and payments. It was
agreed that subject to a few
amendments and refinements,
the proposals were very good
and should be progressed to a
formal policy. Council
unanimously thanked Noel for
what was evidently a carefully
thought through set of
proposals which had taken time
and care in its preparation.
12. YMC REPORT
This was warmly received.
The trip to USA had been very
successful and thanks were
expressed for the participants
being good ambassadors for
TMC. Letters of thanks had
been sent from YMC and TMC
to the many who had helped
by supplying access and
arranging special events.
Additionally thanks were
expressed for the appearance
of YMC members on
television’s ‘The One Show’.
13. ANY OTHER BUSINESS
Noel Britten announced he will
not be standing for Council
next year.
New members elected on
2 May 2012.
Derek Chow (aka DKC) MMC
by examination at TMC,
semi-professional magician,
Student, London
Daniel Farrant MMC
Semi-professional, Student and
Musician, London
ThomasWebb
(aka Tom London) MMC
Professional magician, Student
Alexander Robertson MMC
Amateur, Student,
Canterbury, Kent.
Michael Perovich MMC
Amateur, Retired Civil Engineer,
California, USA.
Recommendations for
membership at AIMC level
and/or promotion to AIMC
Matthew Pritchard AIMC
(with Silver Star)
Professional, Birmingham.
Luca Volpe AIMC
(with Silver Star)
By examination via Video,
on-line, Professional,
Napoli, Italy.
John McLaughlin AIMC
(with Silver Star)
By examination in USA,
Amateur, Professor, USA.
Dr. Peter Lamont AIMC
by Thesis: Magic in Theory, An
Introduction to the theoretical
and Psychological Elements of
Conjuring. The Rise of the
Indian Rope Trick, How a
spectacular hoax became
history. The First Psychic, the
peculiar mystery of a Victorian
wizard; Genii magazine; BBC
radio series Wizards of the
North
Meeting ended 10.25pm
Date of next meeting:
Thursday 7 June 2012
at 6.30pm TMC HQ
Forthcoming club events
The Headquarters are open on Club Nights from 3:00pm until
10:30pm. Unless otherwise stated, events start promptly at
7:30pm and are scheduled to finish between 8:45pm and 9pm.
Club Nights are principally for Members, so entry is by Membership
Card. A bona fide magician guest may attend any evening that is
not marked ‘Members Only’ on condition that he or she is able to
show membership of a magical society. A non-magician guest
may only attend evenings that are marked as ‘Show’. Guests may
only attend two evenings a year. No guest may attend unless the
CMA is told in advance, so if you wish to bring a guest please do
not contact me but phone (020) 7387 2222. There is a limit of
ten guests per night. All guests must pay a £15 entry fee at the
door and respect our Conventions. Indeed, it is your duty as their
sponsor to ensure that they do. The Magic Circle reserve the right
to refuse entry. See our website for all the latest event details and
to subscribe to a weekly email reminder of upcoming events.
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
l
Magic Circle Umbrella. Navy blue with silver
coloured handle and printed silver logo.
Automatic opening. £14.95
Magic Circle Playing Cards. Poker Size with black
backs and gold coloured logo. £3.95 each
or £6.95 for two
Magic Circle Key Ring. £1.95
Souvenir Pocket Mirror. £2.95
Postcards. Four styles depicting posters from
The Circle Collection, namely Soo,
Devant, Le Roy and Hertz. £0.50 each
The Magic Circle: Performing Magic Through
the Ages. Book by Michael Bailey.
Hardback. 288 pages. £18.95
Bob Read's Magical London Map. £2.95
Inside The Magic Circle. Souvenir booklet. £1.95
Fridge Magnets. Four styles depicting posters
from The Circle Collection, namely Soo, Devant,
Le Roy and Carter. £2.95 each or £9.95 for four
MEMBERS ONLY
*please state your Degree when ordering
l Button Badge* £3.95
l Jewel with or without Star* £13.50
l Cufflinks* £11.95
l Tie £14.95
l Membership Certificate frames £26.95
These items can be purchased from the Showcase at The
Magic Circle Headquarters on a Club Night or can be sent
by post to your address (P&P extra). Credit cards (Visa and
Mastercard) and cheques drawn on a UK bank accepted
(cheques payable to “CMA Ltd”).
For more information Email
ShowcaseSales@TheMagicCircle.co.uk
or telephone 0207 387 2222
July
MAGICIAN’S CHOICE
The popular Magician’s Choice summer events will be returning
to Club Nights at The Magic Circle this summer. As with previous
years, each night will feature at least four different, surprise,
events from expert speakers on a wide range of topics. Some of
the events will be hands-on giving you a chance to try something
new, some will look at allied arts giving you a chance to learn
something new, and some will be discussion based so that you
get a chance to be fully involved. We look forward to seeing you
at what we think will be the best Magician’s Choice yet.
Events planned for the season include:
Hands on Card Sessions
Variety and Vaudeville
Magic Psychology
Special Effects
Manipulation
Running a Magic Venue
Using The Media
Planned speakers include:
Mark Bennett
Mike Caveney
Maria Cork
Tina Lenert
Richard McDougall
Steve Price
Mat Ricardo
Stephen Rice
John Styles
Magician’s Choice events will be running on:
Monday 2, 9, 16, 23 and 30 July.
Please note that Magician's Choice events will run
throughout the evening but will start at 6:30pm.
Change of address? Contact Secretary Steve Price,
Secretary@TheMagicCircle.co.uk
Member in need? Contact Welfare Officer David Hatch,
WelfareOfficer@TheMagicCircle.co.uk

dynamo - The Magic Circle

Transcription

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