John Palfreyman presented his talk, ‘Illusions of Grandeur’ which gave us a glimpse into just some of the 49 illusions he had built for TV, in particular the ones he had built for use on the David Nixon show. Complete with video clips John talked about some of stories behind the building and broadcasting of the illusions. John got involved after Ali Bongo asked him to help out with the last show of the series, John built the final illusion the Thai Toture Trial, which was a sword cabinet based on Val Walkers Radium Girl.

The Toffee Bag illusion saw an assistant being lowered into a big paper sack, and crushed with a giant hand, only to appear from the back of the audience. In the Assistants Revenge, a much younger Rolf Harris, was tied up to a brick wall, and then magically swapped places with David Nixon. Airline saw a very clean ring vanish and the re-appearence in a matchbox tied to a toy plane, that flew in over the heads of the audience. John told us the problems he had in setting this up with the workings having being disturbed minutes before going on air.

The Bachelors illusion was the magical production of the singing group of the same name from a very small cabinet. The Gorilla saw the crushing of a girl in a box, by a big gorilla being lowered on top of her, she then reappeared swinging above the audience. A clip of some of Johns own collection was next, David and Ali displayed them on air sometimes showing the trick behind the prop. Lastly a clip taken from the Magic Comedy Strip of The Pendragons where John had to repair the illusion that Jonathan and Charlotte were going to perform. This was a quick disappearance of Charlotte from an isolated box, who then reappeared some feet away. A fascinating talk illustrated by some great video clips.