Good audience of Children, Parents and Magicians for this year’s Children’s Magic Showtime arranged by Compere Clive Moore assisted by Jeanie.

Magic Philip, Philip Partridge, opened. Philip had lots of audience participation and a few great gags for the magicians, in his audience appealing routine with penetration and vanish of liquid from a beaker on the boy’s head and a Magic Washing type escape using a Cowboy and Indian theme.

Jimbo aka Jimmy Carlo debuted a great trick involving a boy and a girl in a target shooting routine.

Stuart Brown performed his slick silent act, mostly as known, with a few new tricks including the introduction of a red dancing hank to add to his existing routine.

After the interval Sooty appeared with Sweep and Soo and Richard Cadell in an excerpt from Sooty’s touring show, some of the old favourites were there, Sooty’s Hosepipe, giving Sweep a bath, and putting Sooty to bed.

The final act, Danny and Annette Hunt, Amethyst, thrilled the audience with their illusions from their Fire Cage to Cube Zag.

Michael Jordan and the IBM clowns greeted everyone as they arrived, and balloon models galore where given away.

Cyril Harvey’s lecture was entitled The Visual Magic of Cyril Harvey. He had some brilliant concepts and original ideas, involving pulls, magnets, gimmicks and gizmos.

His first trick was the flash production of a banknote, which used an Instant Flash Gimmick that
allowed you to light flash paper with no external flame.

His Elevator Gimmick, allowed things to be exchanged up the sleeve, and was put to use in a colour changing lighter routine, a key bend and a bill change.

Next he showed us his idea of manipulation, with cards that lit up. He showed us his Catapult Silk, which was a gimmick that made a silk appear from mid-air.

Cyril’s idea for manipulation was a gimmick that allowed you to show your hands empty before producing a fan of cards, finally he showed us his light-up coin production, using a great hold-out concept.

A great lecture full of novel, creative and inspirational material.

09.30 - 17.30 - Dealers open
Exhibition Halls

10.00 - Lecture: Cyril Harvey
Congress Theatre

10.30 - Children’s Show
Devonshire Park Theatre

11.30 - International Close-up
Floral Hall

12.45 - Charity Auction
Congress Suite

14.30 - Lecture: Jimmy Carlo (Childrens)
Floral Hall

14.45 - Lecture: Ian Keable
Gold Room

15.30 - Junior Workshop
Congress Suite

16.00 - Lecture: Martin Eisle
Floral Hall

20.00 - International Gala of Magic
Congress Theatre

The Late Gala was compered by Danny Buckler, with some humourous stories and anecdotes to get us all warmed up, he introduced the first act, which was Ian Keable. Ian has a very dry sense of humour, and included some topical convention based gags. His first effect was a newspaper headline prediction, he then had a funny gag with a chosen card with a jumbo reveal. Finally he burnt two notes, and found one of them inside a Lemon.

Steve Hewlett is a young, funny, talented Ventriloquist, with just the right mixture of comedy and ventriloquism, and a set of great characters and puppets that allowed him to showcase these talents. His main puppet was an old man called Arthur Lager who interacted with a female audience member to very funny effect. Even after Steve got rid of the puppets the banter between them continued! Several quick vent gags including Lamb Shank, Sheryl and Russel Crow, and even a Bottle of Water and his Jacket were all game for diverse voices that kept up the humour. Lastly a small Elmo puppet and Steve’s routine, had the audience, like the puppet, in the palm of his hand, and left us wanting more!

Yogane performed a variety of magic including vanishing jewellrey, a Zombie, lots of Cane productions, a floating rose, and finally a snowstorm followed by a self-levitation. A beautiful act that had a variety of costume changes to match the very well routined ideas.

The last act was The Great Nardini, what can you say about this act that hasn’t already been said, it scooped the Shield a few years back and went on to win the FISM comedy award. They both play their parts very well, him the bumbling magician and her the long suffering assistant. Lots of supposedly dead dove productions, comedy card manipulations, a brilliant sequence in the middle where Paul pretends to flirt with someone in the audience, and they finish with a great sub trunk exchange, which I won’t spoil if by any chance you haven’t seen the act!

Micro Marathon - Bharat Patel

Dealers - Razmataz Magic

Zina Bennett Close-up:
1st - Alex Hansford
2nd - Will Gray
3rd - Mel Harvey
Rovi Trophy - Alex Hansford

The British Ring Shield Stage:
1st - Romany
2nd - Ed Hilsum
3rd - Oliver Tabor
Comedy - Dave & Carl
Manipulation - Not Awarded
Originality - Not Awarded

Eddie Dawes presented his More History of Mystery afternoon. With four speakers, this was a great mix and divergence of topics.

First Peter Lane spoke about The Royal Aquarium - Many Magicians but Few Fish. The Royal Aquarium was a Westminster place of amusement opened in 1876. Peter spoke about the many Magicians and variety acts that they had on show, and the distinct lack of fish in the giant tanks! He spoke about The Great Farini and how he fired girls out of canons. The swimming shows that took place in the big tanks, that were basically underwater strip shows. The sideshows and highwire acts. He said it was described as the Pro’s Graveyard where you could always get a booking to try out new material.

Peter explained that it eventually evolved to become a cinema, and even tried to be a music hall, but couldn’t compete with the west-end. Eventually it ended up as an indoor fairground, but magicians kept performing there right till the end. It was eventually sold in 1903 to the Wesleyan Methodists.

Chris Brinson talked on In Search of Owen Clark. Owen Clark was born in 1876, and as Chris explained went on to invent such tricks as Botania, the Velvet Coin Stand, the Coin Vase, the Sand Frame, the Colour Changing Silk, the Watch Winder and the Breakaway Fan.

In 1908 he toured Australia and New Zealand on the White Star Liner with Seven Tons of apparatus and 27 people in the company. He came back to the UK and was awarded a Gold Medal by Maskelyne and Devant. He eventually tried to crack America but got very bad reviews, partly because he was always put first on the bill when people were still coming into the theatre. Chris shared his theory that Mr Beck who gave Houdini his break was trying to protect Houdini’s interests by making Owen Clark look bad.

However he eventually came back to the UK and started touring with a Giant Magic act, including a Seven Foot clock and a Giant Condiment illusion that was Twelve Feet high. In 1928 he started selling his tricks and then he sadly passed away in 1929. A fascinating look at a forgotten name, brought back to life by Chris’s thorough research.

Paul Freeman talked on The Iconic Magicians’ Assistant, not human assistants, but Rabbits and particularly the Rabbit from Hat trick. He talked about early references to Rabbits and Magic, and how we could bring the trick back next year with it being the Chinese Year of the Rabbit. Also he talked about how to get over the lack of suprise of lay people expecting you to produce a rabbit when you bring out a top hat.

Paul proposed that the first two people that he knew of to produce a Rabbit from a Hat may have been a French Magician called Comte or John Henry Anderson the Wizard of the North. Lastly Paul discussed the fact that this was still an iconic association with Magicians today with current references in the media. An interesting talk on an unusual subject.

Lastly Will Houstoun talked about Hellis in Wonderland - The Magical Tricks and Conjuring Apparatus of Professor Robert Hellis. Will has published a book that is based on a notebook in Peter Lane’s collection.

The notebook written by Robert Hellis and an unknown student, is what Robert Hellis would have taught in his lessons and probably taught to Hoffmann.

Robert Hellis was born in 1835 and died in 1895. He married Gertrude Gosling and had six children. He held various jobs including Greengrocer, Schoolmaster and Photographer. He was also a magic dealer, who used to handwrite all his instructions. He was a performer, performing at places such as the Royal Polytechnic and Brighton Aquarium, but most importantly he was a Teacher.

Will went on to mention several aspects of his magic that he found fascinating, coin moves, impossible card locations, predictions and a Torn and Restored Handkerchief, all had really interesting methods that could equally be exploited in today’s magic. Will demonstrated this with a video of himself performing a Coin in Candle trick, where a coin vanishes into a flame, and is reproduced from the candle.

To finish his talk Will highlighted some strange coincidences he had found involving Robert Hellis and other magicians, in particular Professor Hoffmann. A great talk, and a very intriguing tale of a Magician and his methods.