Terry Seabrooke ran the interview session with James Randi. James Randi is now 80, and has as we all know a very varied and interesting past. I was looking forward to this session as the mentalism show last night extremely funny and interesting.

James was again humorous, and talked honestly about this relationship with Uri Gellar, and others, and why he’s pursued the mediums and those ‘..that talk to the dead’. James came out with a wonderful quip, “I can also talk to the dead, anyone can, but will they talk back? No.. why.. because they are dead!” He went into quite a lot of detail on how he analysised tapes, and recordings of mediums and gave proof and that they were not genuine.

Terry was a great interviewer, and really got some great material from Randi, especially the period of James life where he became involved with Steve Shaw (Banachek), and the Alpha project, where a number of people were placed into projects to prove that physic ability can be mimicked.

Also the exposure of a faith healer - poppov, who used a wireless ear piece to gain information from his assistants to aid his ‘act’ of being able to find out about audience members.

James Randi, also talked about how he used disguises to get into conferences, and talked about how he’d found healers had set up, and staged healings.

The book, ‘The Faith Healers’, was referenced a number of time in the interview as a great source of information about how James Randi has looked to disprove those that claim to have abilities.

At the end the session was opened up to the audience to ask questions, where ranged from his views on the recent award given to Uri Gellar, if anyone had every threatened

James Randi is not only a very friendly and approachable person, he’s also a wealth of knowledge and extremely funny. He’s been on hand all weekend so far chatting to anyone who has wanted to chat. An excellent event, and again very playful, and funny.

This was one of the highlights for me that I was looking forward to, an I dont think anyone was disappointed.

Starting by doing the ‘fan clapping’ to build up the crowd, Jeff stated that this lecture would not contain any tricks.

It was a great insight into what Jeff feels is important for all of us to do, to create true magic.

One thinkg he did talk about was how we was ‘always ready for magic’ and how being always ready made a difference between ‘having an act, and being a magician’

Jeff had purposely kept seats in the audience free, to demonstrate a method of being able to create ‘engery’ in the audience, standing on a chair, involving, and going into areas of the audience to keep them interested and ‘alive’. These sections of the lecture were for me extremely interesting, useful, and I believe everyone found it that.

Jeff also worked through his ‘Vortex/revolutions’ Dancing cane, showing how simplfying the methods allowed for him to work more on the entertainment than the method, in fact he mentioned at great length about how pauses could kill a performance, or in actual words ‘Thinking can kill your act’ in that when we perform ‘above our ability’, we risk performance by having pauses and thinking where we struggle to do the effect well (either without enough practise, or skill)

Jeff also went through the idea of ‘gifting magic’ performing very simple effects for anyone you meet, including taxi drivers, or porters, being able to create a simple effect for them to ‘gift’ either money, or an object in a magical way.

When Jeff speaks, its a very very good idea to listen, his experience is huge, and it is clear he’s learned well from every moment of his life in magic.

Jeff finished with his card shooting, spinning and flying cards the length and height of the Spanish Hall (which is a 600 seater room), and then explaining the best methods for spinning, shooting and bouncing cards.

A really special lecture, and as I’ve notice so far today, much more fun, tounge in cheek, and playful than yesterdays lectures. The tone of the lectures today have been much more ‘playful’, and I think really what a convention should be, magicians talking to other magicians, and having fun doing it.

9:15am for a saturday morning Blackpool crowd is early.. but you can’t wish to be woken up in a better way than an hour of the magic of FISM winner, Rick Merrill.

Rick opened with a great multiple card selection and revelation.. Rick is funny at thet best of times, but this morning he really rocked. This is spoof explanation of ‘Predator Sock’ multiple card index sock. You had to be there to really do it justice, it was was hilarious, and great to see an early morning lecture that was so funny.

Back on the serious side, Rick also talked about his visual change ‘The Double Agent’, a fantastic card that visually can chaneg from one card to another.

More humor when Rick showed a ‘Pendragons’ type metamorphosis effect with a selected card, where a card in his mouth changed to a selected card behind a cloth, and to quote Rick, “it’s much better as you dont have to carry Charlotte Pendragon around with you..’

An almost impossible sharpie from finger tips, wowed the audience.

This was definitely something worth getting out of bed for, and reminded me just how great Rick Merrill is, brilliant lecture by Rick!!

..and yes he did the sharpie and coins routine!!

Saturday is the first real full day (as lectures started in the afternoon yesterday), the schedule for today is:

9am - Dealers open

9:15-10:15 - Rick Merrill Lecture - Spanish Hall

10 - 11:45 - The Children’s Entertainer International Championships

10:45 - 11:45 - Jeff McBride Lecture - spanish Hall

12:30 - 1:30 An Audience with James Randi - Spanish Hall

1 - 2 - International Close up - first session - The Horseshoe Area

2-3 - Joshua Jay lecture - Spanish Hall

2:15 - 4:30 - Two “Kidz ‘R Uz” lectures in the ice room

3 - 4 - International Close up - Second Session - Horseshoe Area

3:30 - 4:30 - Daryl lecture - “Clean Aean Hea Zagic” - Spanish Hall

4:30 - 5:30 - International Close up - Third Session

5 - 6 - Daniel Garcia lecture - spanish hall

5:30 dealers close

7- 10:30 - the $10,000 Intercontinental Stage Magic Championships - Opera House

11 - 12 - David Penn Lecture - spanish Hall

11 -12:30 - Andrew JAmes and Magic Sam Present - Beat the Wand - Theatre Bar

1am - Bar Closes

The last lecture of the night for me was Dan and Dave Buck, even though their effect are completely out of my ability, it’s a pleasure to watch them just handling a deck of cards.

The room was again packed, a testament to just how well respected these two young guys are.

Dan and Dave took it in turns to run through a number of effects, Flourishes and moves to the delight of the audience.

I watched from the side with some of the Theory11 guys as the Buck Twins worked through their set quite quickly.

Again, like watching Richard Turner, or Lennart Green, it’s just wonderful to see them flick, move, turn, and play with cards as an artform.

At the end of the lecture they gave away a set of Jerrys Nuggets cards, and let everyone know that by registering at their booth, you can stand a chance to win one set per day throughout the weekend.

An absolutely packed (and I mean packed) Pavilion theatre was the venue for the much anticipated mentalism session. Wayne Dobson, Quentin Reynolds, Roy Zaltsman, Ian Rowland and James Randi were set for an an hour and fifteen minute session / show on mentalism. The event actually over ran but quite some time, but opened up with Wayne Dobson proving that he’s not lost anything of his sharp wit, comedy, and absolute talent to entertain. Starting with a tossed out deck, he ran through a number of effect, and had the crowd in fits of laughter through his set. It was fantastic to see him perform, and he got a very well deserved reaction from the audience . Next up, Quentin Reynolds, had a tough act to follow, and although he did strong mentalism, I was left still wanting more of Dobson, but he did a good set, and a nice thought of person named, and revelation of name on a teddy bear. Roy  Zaltsman, who also compered the event brought up a number of audience members to demonstrate a ‘floating/rising’ hoola hoop at finger tips (similar to a floating table effect). Ian rowland did a very strong set, starting with a spoon bending, and closing with a excellent card prediction, which fooled quite a few in the audience around me. 

James Randi was last up, and for a man of 80, proved it was funny, quick, and talented, he explained how ‘mystics’ abilities are just tricks, and proceed with a revelation of a word chosen prior to the set by a lady from the audience. and closing with a zenner card (esp symbols) prediction where cards placed into envelopes and mixed were successfully divined by him even though they clearly couldn’t be seen.

A very good session, and nicely mixed with humor.