The 2008 Gala Show of Magic and Variety took place at the Shaw Theatre, and feature the cream of the talent appearing at the 37th International Magic Convention.

MC’ed by Noel Britten, the first to the stage was the manipulation skills of Soma from Hungary. Performing flawless manipulations with mobile phones he was a joy to watch, there were also a number of lovely switches from coins and phones to full newspapers, and lovely coin productions and manipulations. A fantastic start to the show.

Next up was David Kaplan, his previous show from the Friday night had left me a bit cold, but he made up for that in this performance, comedy, juggling and magic featuring the infamous bowling ball, some clever play on it and faultless comedy timing. He was a real hit with the mostly non magic audience, and really brought the vaudeville feel back!

Noel then introduced Peter Salelson from the USA, he did some wonderful magic, and a gypsy thread, a story based presentation of the mismade umbrella using two audience members, and again caused a number of ‘oohs’ from the non magic audience members sat around me.

To close the first half, Rafael did the first of this three appearances in the show. This time featuring his world premier of his Quick Change act that he mentioned in our podcast. The set was very good, with a number fo nice changes as his lovely assistant changed from a long flowing dress into a leather little number, followed by another dress, Rafael changed through many waistcoats, into a full dinner jacket, before his assistance changed to a full bridal gown as the happy couple walked off stage to huge applause.

The second half opened with Robert & Emiel, a ’second sight’ act that I forst saw at FISM in stockholm, presented well with ‘Robert’ being a ‘boy trapped in a mans body, having a special gift to see..’. Which works extremely well, as objects in the audience are pointed at and Robert quickly names or describes them. The pace picked up as Emiel ran round the audience pointing to objects quickly, as Robert named them successfully. Ending with a driving licence description and correctly naming the serial number on a audience members £20 note, they also brought huge applause.

Rob Lavar was next up from the UK, a comedy Ping Pong ball mouth juggler, creating a lot of laughter as he shot up to five ping pong balls from his mouth against gin bottles to play tunes, and the floor and targets on the stage.

Andrew Goldenhersh really wowed the audience with the production of a live butterfly from a tattoo on his arm, a wonderful misers dream with a small boy from the audience, Andrew also pulled jumbo coins from behind the boys ear and inside his jacket. He finished on a straight jacket escape, producing a live chicken from the jacket as he escaped!

Rafael appeared twice more, once with a wonderful premier of a ‘animated woman’.  producing himself from a large box carried on by a ‘dwarf’, he animated a body-less head, which then floated over to a headless womans body as a zombie ball type effect, before the headless body was complete again, and walking round the stage.

The second of his slots which closed the show was a clear sub trunk effect, swords where pushed through a clear glass box, visually trapping his assistant, a fast switch under a curtain showed Rafael had swapped places with his assistant and was again trapped in her place. On his release from the clear sword box, it was clear this wasnt’ Rafael, but MC Noel Britten, Rafael running from the back of the theatre to huge applause.

Red Hat was also a late addition to the show, performing his excellent mask manipulation act, which also wowed the audience members.

A truly excellent show with a great line up of fresh acts that haven’t had huge exposure over here, or were like Rafael, presenting something completely new and unseen before in the UK, or even the world.

A fantastic show as always from the International Magic Convention.