From the meetings that we have enjoyed at the new meeting rooms it appears that the members who have attended feel that this is an acceptable venue. We have now arranged that at most meetings we will have a 'late bar' and this should enable folk to sit and talk, show a new move and generally try to encourage a friendly atmosphere.

It has been arranged that meetings will be on the last Thursday in each month commencing January 2007 which will be the AGM. Would you all please endeavour to attend and if you have not already paid your subs (due 1st October last) pay before 8.00 pm at the AGM. Otherwise, should they be increased you will be liable for the new amount. It is about 8 years since the last increase and with the fees required by lecturers an increase seems to be inevitable.

The AGM is of course your opportunity to suggest - complain - or compliment as you feel inclined. More importantly it is your chance to propose new officers and committee. Proposals, seconded by another member, to Rick before the start of the meeting please.

The present committee feel that after all the high class events at, and since, the 90th we should arrange rather more 'in-house' events and regroup. What do you think? Have you ideas for meetings? Who would you like to see as a lecturer or dealer?
Rick will include in this issue details of the Christmas get-together. I hope that all will attend and bring a friend. Could a few volunteer to perform on that night?

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Tim Bush for his finding and arranging for us to meet in the Masonic Hall. We save a large amount in room hire costs and we can have meals when required. We can also hire the larger concert room when more space is needed.

I hope to see you all at the Close-up competition - bring a friend to give the performers an audience and enter the competition - prior to the night in order that timings etc, can be decided.

Enjoy your magic - support your Circle!
Regards
John.

 

Quentin Reynolds Double-Bill

Editor: This month’s second Quentin Reynolds article will be of great interest to all those entering the Close-up Competition on 23rd November!

The Greatest Performance I Ever Saw
Quentin Reynolds
Performing under difficult circumstances can be off putting to say the least. You turn up, the venue is cold or maybe the audience is less than you expected. The venue is devoid of atmosphere. Yet you have to go on and be brilliant. It certainly doesn't sound like a fun show, does it?

I've always been a fan of one-man shows. Probably because that's what I do myself. And while it's always good to watch other magicians performs, I find I learn more and get better ideas from watching performers in other fields.
Let me tell you about one of them.

Back in the 1980s I read that Julian Chagrin, a one-man mime show was coming to Dublin to appear in The Oscar Theatre. I immediately booked a ticket. What I didn't know at the time was that the management of the theatre were having problems. They had forgotten they had booked the show and only started advertising at the last minute. There must have been financial problems also as there was no heat in the venue - and it was a cold and stormy November night. The audience consisted of twelve individuals, spread out all over the auditorium, the person nearest the stage being six seats from the front.
We all sat huddled in our coats and scarves. Hardly a promising start.

The show starts and enter Julian Chagrin. He immediately brightened up the stage and performed as though it were a full house of raving fans. His enthusiasm spread out into the audience and soon we were caught up in the show and laughing heartily. He put his heart into the performance and never held back. Yet it must have been a very difficult show for him - an audience of twelve in a cold venue that should seat 300.

And still after twenty years it stands way out in my mind as the greatest example of professionalism I have experienced.

Afterwards I wondered why I never came across his name again. Surely someone with such a good show would keep cropping up? Around 1997 I received an email which had the CC section filled in with dozens of names.

Amongst them was Julian Chagrin. Could this be the same person? I emailed him and indeed it was. He is now living in Israel and working in television. Should he ever tour again be sure and catch him.

How To Win A Magic Competition
Quentin Reynolds
If you've ever thought of going in for a magic competition I have a few suggestions for you worth considering. While I haven't a foolproof formula, I estimate my plan is 90% failsafe in getting you placed and a 70% of getting first place.

My plan is formulated from years of watching magic competitions and figuring out who I would place and then comparing it with the judges’ results. Incidentally it is a good exercise to pretend you're a judge and place the acts in a competition. It helps you take into account things like showmanship, originality, skill and entertainment value.

But first a warning. There is a great danger that if you enter and win a magic competition that you end up believing you're a good magician for laymen. I have seen many magicians let winning a competition go to their head. And this can be anything from your annual club competition to a national convention. Now you may be a good magician but winning a competition does not mean you are.

The first thing to notice in entering a magic competition is who are the judges. In most cases the judges are entirely made up of other magicians with the occasional lay judge, usually someone from the entertainment world.

95% of the time all the judges will be magicians. So the big question is -" What impresses them?"

Before I tell you what I believe impresses magicians at a convention, please take a moment to ponder that question. If you are judging a magic competition, what would impress you? What would make you give a performer first prize?

My observations are that there are three things that impress magicians at conventions.
1. You fool them. Preferably fool them badly.
2. You do something they know but you do it really well.
3. You have material they can steal.

Assuming you have basic performing skills a combination of those three points will get you placed 90% of the time and with better performing skills get you first place 70% of the time.

And don't forget my earlier point. Winning a magic competition does not necessarily mean that you are good at entertaining laymen. It does mean you are good at winning magic competitions.


© 2006 Quentin Reynolds. Quentin Reynolds works as both magician and speaker.

You can read about one of his programs at
http://www.speakinschools.com
and for the mentalist visit
http://www.theshielseffect.com

CHATTER DOUBLE-BILL
Mark Leveridge

Children’s Routines

If you are working on a new children’s routine, either one you are revising yourself or one that you have bought or are reading about, do you ever consider whether the presentation is correct in terms of controlling the audience?

For instance, some routines require you to get the children shouting out repeatedly in an attempt to point out to you, the stupid magician, that something has happened which you haven’t ‘noticed’. You look this way, that way, under the object, over the object, behind it, round it, past it, but you just can’t see what they are shouting about. As a result they get into an increasing frenzy of yelling, pointing and fairly quickly standing up and probably starting to run out in order to get your attention and to show you what you are missing.

This type of business is the staple diet of the children’s entertainer, and has been since time began. However, my feeling has always been that you can have far too much of a good thing and that milking this type of business excessively leads to a total loss of control of your audience. It seems to me that you can only entertain well if you have control of your audience. You hear people talk about the truly top entertainers and they say things like “he had the audience in the palm of his hand”, clearly indicating that those artistes who have control of their audiences are the most successful. Not those who let their spectators get into a frenzy! With children I feel this is more important than almost anything.

When we are booked to do a children’s show I have always felt that part of the deal with the booker is that we will assume control of the youngsters. It’s never actually stated or made as part of any contract with the booker, but often we are engaged in the first place because the parents are scared that they will not be able to handle a room full of 8 year olds! So in order to fulfil their expectations, the way we exercise control over our little charges will partly determine how successful the booker will feel we have been.

Of course, control does not mean having them sitting in total silence, terrified to move! It means that the performer should be in charge of when they are quiet and when they are participating, and how long and what form that participation takes. In other words, the magician must dictate the ebb and flow of the emotions expended during the show, rather than the children simply taking over in an anarchic manner.

Control can be exerted in a whole range of ways, some of which are subtle, others not so subtle. “In my box I have a whole bag of prizes and I will be giving some of these out to those people I think really deserve it as we go through the party” - not subtle, but very effective. Similarly, “Now I need someone to help….but I only choose those people who have got their arms crossed and their legs crossed”.

More subtle ways of gaining and keeping control are

• being organised so that there are no unnecessary gaps during the show when the children can get restless.
• varying the pitch and volume of your own voice when speaking (talking quietly at times is an excellent way to get their attention).
• if giving instructions make them clear to avoid confusion.
• not tolerating rudeness or bad language or obviously very stupid or dangerous behaviour.

It’s all things to think about when constructing your next kids routine.

Mentalism

Of all the magic related entertainment forms, I would say that the most difficult to present well is mentalism. I’m not really referring to a magic act which slips the odd lightweight mental item in to the repertoire to create a little variety. I’m thinking more of the act which relies entirely on mentalism.

When I think back over the really bad acts that I have suffered at magic conventions, quite a high proportion of them have been mental acts, and when they ARE bad, boy are they awful! They can bring a new meaning to the word ‘tedium’, and make normal sane audiences seriously regret the efforts they have made to leave home and come out for the evening!

The trouble with mentalism is that you are dealing with a subject matter which it is difficult to demonstrate in a visually pleasing or even interesting way. By its very nature it is dealing with the ‘mind’, and while the mentalist will always use some props, the ‘effects’ that are created are not normally anything visually pleasing. And yet, if it is done well, good mental routines can leave an audience in awe and affected in a deeper way than regular magic may achieve, because mentalists can make people feel that their inner selves, their personal thoughts, are not as private as they imagined, and the inexplicable nature of what they experience, many can find quite unnerving.

So, how do good mentalists capture our imagination? Some use comedy. Graham P. Jolley is a clear example of someone who uses mentalism as a way of totally fooling people while at the same time having them rolling in the aisles with laughter. He works quickly too - not for him the long, drawn out and totally boring presentations favoured by some. In fact speed of delivery is probably a key factor in making mentalism entertaining.

Andy Nyman is another performer who manages to present his miracles with such attack, drive and verve that you find yourself being pulled along with him, of being excited by the very energy of his performance. You actually enjoy him, and his mentalism fools you into the bargain.

Those practitioners who favour a slower, more studied approach to mentalism have to woo their audiences in a different way. They may wish to convince their audience that they really do have extraordinary powers, and comedy is not the best way to go about this. So instead they try to build a reputation for themselves with the spectators to the extent that they hope the audience will leave thinking that the only way the things they have seen could work is if the mentalist really does have some extraordinary gift.

The danger with this approach, of course, is that the performer can come across as pretentious, and unless the person can carry off this act of authenticity, the result can simply be that the spectators feel they are being patronised by someone who has ideas above his station!

Trying to decide how best to present a mental act, therefore, is clearly a very difficult art, and so it is little wonder that many amateurs fail to grasp an effective way of achieving their aims and end up instead with simply boring everyone to death with long, complicated and ultimately not very interesting experiments. Derren Brown grabs his audiences because he is so confident and convincing as a character, but unfortunately, there aren’t many Derren Brown’s around.

www.markleveridge.co.uk

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Set-up: Make the following Birth Sign Chart on a piece of paper.

Aries: March 21st – April 20th
Taurus: April 21st – May 20th
Gemini: May 21st – June 20th
Cancer: June 21st – July 20th
Leo: July 21st – August 21st
Virgo: August 22nd – September 22nd
Libra: September 23rd – October 22nd
Scorpio: October 23rd – November 22nd
Sagittarius: November 23rd – December 20th
Capricorn: December 21st – January 19th
Aquarius: January 20th – February 18th
Pisces: February 19th – March 20th


Fold the chart in four and keep it aside. Next, get a pack of ESP cards. Remove 5 cards, one of each symbol, and set these aside. Take the remaining 20 cards and stack the cards in standard ESP order eg Circle, Cross, Wavy Lines, Square, Star.

Place the stacked pack, packet of 5 cards and the Birth Sign Chart into separate compartments of your wallet. Place your wallet in your pocket.

Presentation:
At the place you are going to perform the trick choose a person whose name spells with a minimum of 11 letters. (You can use a person whose name falls short of 11 letters by a few letters by adding Mr/Mrs/Miss to their name.)

Let’s say you select your friend KEITH PICKLES whose name spells with 12 letters.
Remember the next higher number 13 as a key number. (If your spectator’s name spelt with 11 letters you would remember 12 and so on.)

As you begin to perform, take out your wallet and place it on the table. Take out the Birth Sign Chart and open it out on the table. Next remove the packet of 5 cards and hold it as a face up fan in your hand. Tell the close-up viewers that you have a packet of ancient symbolic cards that Gypsies can use along the Birth Sign Chart to tell fortunes. Say that you are going to use them both to check a person’s prime characteristic and find out his psychic symbol. You further comment that Gypsies use a larger pack containing these symbols repeated several times and that you are also going to use in this experiment.

Square up the packet and place it face down on the table.
Next take out the pack of 20 cards and, holding it face up, pass the cards in bunches from one hand to the other without disturbing their order. The spectators get the chance to see and note the five different symbols repeated several times but should not get the chance to note their cyclical order.

Square up the pack and turn it face down. Cut the pack several times apparently mixing it whilst casually inviting your friend KEITH PICKLES to participate in the experiment. Make sure your friend is sitting opposite you at the table.

Placing the pack face down on the table invite your friend to cut the cards and complete the cut. Square the pack and turn it face up. Ask him to cut the cards again and complete the cut. Square the pack and place it aside face up on the table.

Next take hold of your friend’s right hand (if the helper is female take their left hand) and smile and tell him that first you must study your friend’s palm to reveal his characteristics. A little bit of palmistry or cold reading will go a long way here.

Ask your friend’s date and month of birth. Let’s say he answers 27th February. You consult your chart and find that this places him under the sign of PISCES. Mentally count the 6 letters in the word PISCES and remember that number. Tell your friend that as his Birth Sign is PISCES he should possess a strong, determined type of mind. However, you have to study his palm in a little more detail! Take hold of his palm again and study it intently.

Actually you are mentally subtracting 6 from 13 to get 7. As there are 5 symbols, divide 7 by 5 to get 1 remainder 2. You are only interested in the remainder.
Glance at the card on the face of the pack left aside. Let’s say there is a SQUARE on the face. Remembering remainder 2 think of the second card ahead of the SQUARE, which is a CIRCLE. This is the symbol you are going to force. (No remainder would mean you force the same symbol as the face card.)

Looking thoughtful, pick up the packet of five cards and hold in a vertical fan face towards yourself. Confirm to your friend that his Birth Sign and palm indicate a strong, determined type of mind. This in turn indicates a particular psychic symbol that you will remove from the packet for future verification.

Thus commenting remove the CIRCLE and place it face down on the table. Close up the packet and place it aside face down.

Pick up the pack of cards and casually mix a few cards at the face of the fan. Meanwhile tell your friend that he will aid you in the psychic selection of a card. For this you will spell his name and birth sign. Hand him the pack and lead him through the process of dealing a card in a face down pile for each letter as you loudly spell the name: K-E-I-T-H-P-I-C-K-L-E-S. Ask him to place aside the rest of the deck. Ask him to pick up the dealt pile and lead him through the process of dealing a card in a face down pile for each letter as you loudly spell his birth sign: P-I-S-C-E-S. Ask him to place aside the rest.

Pick up the last card dealt and place it face down on the table. Turning the first card face up reveal it to be a CIRCLE. Tell him this truly stands for a person with a strong, determined type of mind but you have to check it against his psychic selection! Turn over the selection to reveal another CIRCLE thus confirming his prime characteristic. Congratulate your friend for having the CIRCLE as his psychic symbol and say that with a little effort on his part he will be really successful in life!

Note: If the subtraction is less than 5 you do not have to divide by 5. The rest of the procedure is the same.

Arun Bonerjee

 

Editorial...
Rick Tynan


Many, many thanks to Michael Diamond for giving us such an excellent evening last month. It was good to see the meeting well supported by members and guests. If you missed it you missed a great treat. Starting with Fire Eating for beginners Michael then moved on to his highly polished and unique brand of magic. Highlights for me were Michael’s Highgate Cemetery Vampire routine, Voodoo Doll Routine, Arm Chopper that really chopped arms, his new Book Test and his Book of Magic Secrets. However, all the effects were impeccably performed with careful and full explanations to follow. Michael gave us the full benefit of his inventive mind as well as parting with professional trade secrets. He really is a good teacher and lecturer.

Apologies for the change in meeting dates for the last two meetings of the year. We hope to settle into a routine with our new venue in the new year. The new dates are:

Thursday 23rd November for the Close-up Competition and Wednesday 20th December for our Magical Hot Pot. Both meetings are open so please bring guests.

There are several advantages to changing the Close-up Competition to the 23rd of November. Firstly and most importantly, on that night we can have the larger room with a performance area and microphone. However, it also gives entrants more time to polish their routines and everyone more time to gather an audience.

The Christmas Hot Pot on the 20th December is outstanding value for money at £10. Members will be providing both magical and non-magical entertainments for our guests so please support this event.

All the Best in Magic.
Rick