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Gala Show – South Tyneside International Magic Festival

March 15th, 2009 by Richard Morrell

Tim Vine Compered with his quick one-liner puns which had the audience in fits of laughter between the acts.

Stephen Williams is a young fourteen year old magician, who confidently mixed a silent style act, including cane and candle manipulation, dove productions and Losander Floating Table sequence, with a patter story about his grandfather, accompanied by Kevin James Snow Storm.

David Williamson was just hilarious and simply genius. Again like the close-up he had none of his own props due to his luggage being lost. He started off with a funny cane from mouth and card manipulation sequence. Following this was needle and thread swallowing where the needles came out of Davids mouth threaded onto the cotton he had also supposedly swallowed. A very funny card to mouth routine involved David sniffing a girls hand to help him locate the scent to be able to find the card, which was eventually found folded up in his mouth. Lastly he had borrowed some Linking Rings and a Rocky Racoon and he got two great children up from the audience, and performed a short linking rings routine, where he handed the linked set to the four year old with the line Even a four year old can do this and was proved right as he managed to unlink the rings! Lastly he performed a shortened version of his Rocky routine and ended by giving the Rocky to the four-year-old as a present.

Paul Romhany performed in the guise of Charlie Chaplin complete with costume and mannerisms. A silent act which included Linking Coat Hangers, Appearing Hat Stand, Inexhaustible Drink Trick, Large Silk Production and a beautiful floating broom illusion.

The second half consisted of just two acts, the first was Banachek who opened with a simple four card revelation using no visible deck of cards, just asking four people to stand and seemingly naming their thought of card. Next he performed a Telephone Directory test using his business card to arrive at a freely stopped at telephone number which he had predicted in advance. A question and answer test followed in which questions and personal information, in sealed envelopes, written by audience members in the interval, where successfully divined by the mentalist. To finish a great piece of theater which was a Russian roulette type routine using flick knives. Three knives where sealed in envelopes with their blades shut, and two knives had their blades open inside the envelope. Banachek managed to pick out the audience members who held the safe knives, which is just as well as they dramatically stabbed him with the closed knives, and he then revealed that the remaining knives did indeed have their blades extended inside the remaining envelopes.

Russ Stevens closed the gala with a number of illusions and smaller magic. He started with a cane and silk sequence, followed by Cube Zag, then the Pavel Walking Knot. Next a slicer illusion which saw the girl cut into six pieces, following this a card manipulation sequence set to the Shape of My Heart tune. Lastly he closed with a giant cabinet that revolved cutting the girl into numerous pieces, after restoring her he produced a second girl from the same box, to close the show in spectacular fashion.