The lecture was subtitled “The Highly Visual, Low Process Lecture”. Ed likes to work with visual card tricks, and ones that can play to a parlour situation, no doubt born out of working The Magic Castle alot. Ed started with an Ace production using his Fast Ed production technique and then used the aces in various four of a kind productions, each one becoming more visual than the last.

Ed then showed us his Materialise Colour Change a very visual change that looks like trick photography.
He then went through his handlings and thoughts on the Classic Force. Some nice touches on Arthur Setterington’s Get Away move (or Crazy Man’s Handcuffs as we now know it) utilising a borrowed ring and rubberband. A ring and rubber band were looped over the deck and vanished into it, only to be shown trapped around a previously signed selection. Finally Ed showed us a simple Ambitious Card sequence that he hoped we could go away and use.

In marked contrast to the Stage Competition the Close-up had lots of stand-out acts, it will be a close-call for the prizes.

First in our room was Stephen Gore from Bradford. As in last years competition technology was once again prevalent in lots of the acts. Stephen started with a few gags using his iPhone, he then had a card named, and seemingly pulled his phone apart to reveal the named card in the back. He had the card signed and took a photograph using a borrowed iPhone of the card on the spectators hand, and then pulled the card out of the photo leaving an empty hand on the phone. Next a nice touch on Shawn Farquhar’s Torn 2 Pieces, where a picture of his daughter was torn up and restored in a mismade fashion, and subsequently restored with a costume change, in the photo, thrown in for good measure. A chosen birthday card for his little girl and a video call on his laptop saw the freely selected card being fed into the screen of the laptop and caught by his daughter. Finally a snowglobe revealed the freely named card from the start of the act.

James Milner had one trick, a coins through table using six silver coins and one copper coin. Some nice handling in a very laid back style.

Third in our room was Stephen Ablett, who for some reason chose to work on the stage in our room, with thimble manips, a fork bend which could have been Morgan Streblers Liquid Metal and a Ring routine incorporating the Garrett Thomas Ring Thing move, Jay Sankey’s Stirring Silver and finishing with a mobile phone and giant bell production.

Rob James had a new opening and finish for the act he used in last years IBM competition, which helps hang the act together, with a call-back at the end to the opening trick, used to good effect. A sequence of a vanishing and reappearing box, and cards to case, was used to segue into his Gag Counter routine, using a laptop computer to count as many of those old-corny magician jokes as Rob could fit into the routine, then using that number of gags to count down in the deck to find a selected card. Finally his Thoughts routine is a Four-Ace production to music, interrupted by Rob’s internal monologue where we hear what he is really thinking. After producing the four Aces and changing them into Kings, and with a jumbo coin kicker, Rob then reproduced the Aces and showed the previously shuffled deck to now be sorted into suit order.

Steve Dela started with some Contact Juggling, and then changed some Iranian money into £20 notes. A short card sequence followed incorporating Paul Gordon’s Diminishing Returns, and a Twisting the Aces sequence, when the Aces finally changed to the Ace to Four of one suit, Steve deftly reproduced the Aces. Steve closed with a Cups and Balls sequence set to music, with impeccable timing and the usual final fruity loads.

Will Gray opened with a ring vanish and reproduced it in a flash of fire in the middle of a Piece of Rope. He followed this with a mental game of Monopoly predicting the outcome of the amount of money, the chosen game piece and the property. Will finished with a card trick where a signed card from a blue deck ended up sealed in place in a contrasting red deck of cards.

Hung-Chih Kuo had an act themed around Finding Nemo, a deck of different pictures of fish all turned into Nemo. He turned soap bubbles into pearls, and produced a gold-fish bowl complete with Nemo fish. Finally he magically transformed his working surface to look like an under-the-sea setting along with a costume change and he left wearing a snorkel and mask. Certainly a different act with a novel theme.

Craig Petty’s act revolved around coins and lighters. He used a lighter to produce a Silver Dollar and then repeatedly and visually changed the Dollar into Two Halves and back into the Silver Dollar. The coin then changed places several times with the lighter, back and forth to his pocket. Finally Craig produced multiple lighters and a small lighter and coin and a huge Jumbo Coin to finish his act.

Michael Jordan burst into song and utilised his guitar playing in an ESP matching trick. A spectator dealt down some ESP cards and where they stopped matched Michael’s prediction. A poem Michael had written accompanied a very clean coins to glass routine and finally Michael finished by painting a giant copy of a selection piece by piece onto his close-up mat, using the deck as a brush, and cards as his paint.

Lastly in our room Kevin Gallagher opened with a four coin production and vanish sequence, that led into a novel Oil and Water with coins, using Dollars and Iranian currency, to show how they wouldn’t mix. Finally he borrowed a deck to show some very visual Oil and Water sequences with the pasteboards.

Henry is a French Magician residing in Paris where he owns a magic shop. The lecture was full of very novel original ideas, maybe a little bit too much towards a dealer-dem, in as much as you would struggle to make some of the items, which he just happened to have for sale, but Henry didn’t push his products at all, and he explained everything so you could make some of the items if you wished.

A simple idea with a spoon allowed Henry to seemingly take two borrowed spoons and fuse them together, he took this a stage further with an idea for a bending spoon. A spinning top seemingly floated over Henry’s hands supposedly powered by a hand held fan. An idea for a simple coins through table or coins-across looked good, but for me seemed a little too impractical considering other easy to use gaffs would get a similar look.

A sponge ball two-in-the-hand, one-in-the-pocket routine ended with the black sponges changing to different colours. Next Henry showed a card idea using two simple gaffs, which allowed you to mix a deck in a plastic bag and dive in to find a selection. He also showed how to use the idea for a force and a deck switch. A neat version of the Ashes on Arm allowed Henry to divine a selection using Ash, Glitter or Coffee, and have it appear on his palm, or on a saucer. Henry then showed us a card idea using a pendulum where the spectator was able to locate their own card, as it stuck to the pendulum. I am informed by reliable sources that this was put out by Robert Harbin in the 1940s!

Lastly Henry showed us some more of the items he had for sale, a version of Hypno Heat contained in a pen, and a Rose that would allow you to produce a Goldfish.

Some very novel and original thinking made this a great lecture.

This competition suffered and never really got going. The terrible theatre lighting, and huge stage, the subdued audience and flat magic added up to a lack lustre competition. Some acts showed grains of potential, with a few gems and one stand-out performer.

James Milner had some nice ideas but it was an odd mixture of material. He came on riding a skateboard, but dressed in a suit, and vanished the skateboard. A good handling of the Jumbo Chase-the-Ace or Sidewalk Shuffle, followed, and then a long Linking Ring routine (the first and probably not the last of the week) and a climax of a Silk Fountain.

Tim Shoesmith looked like he was a late replacement for Oliver Tabor, he managed one trick, a cod animal cracker prediction which ended with a version of Martin Lewis’s Cardiographic using a drawing of a giraffe who’s neck magically grew on the page and weirdly finished by showing us his lazy tongs but not using them in any way, before wandering off.

Malcolm Bromwich showed a colour prediction, a spectator chose a box of coloured blocks and this was predicted on a giant card, he then showed a blank Rubik Cube and placed it into a bag with lots of coloured tiles, and it came out solved.

Safire and Steel performed as robot characters, I imagine this act plays really well for a lay-audience but their choice of material didn’t help them get a response from a very subdued audience. The old hoary Vanishing Bandana trick, Drink in the News, the Hypno Disk and a D’Lite routine were very well presented utilising the robot characters, but just failed to make an impression on the magical audience.

Dave Andrews was on next, a classical manipulation act with immaculate card manipulations, umbrella productions and billiard ball manipulation. One of the white balls transformed into a steady stream of salt which covered the stage and a final double umbrella production brought the act to a great climax.

Fly by Nite had a nice premise of a magician passing through customs, a germ of potential which wasn’t really fully utilised. A cut and restored rope routine, a mismade flag blendo and a cube-zag finale, with a costume change finish.

Tai-Hsiang Chou from Taiwan is my pick to win, a very clean and polished manipulation act featuring lots of fan productions, with a double snowstorm to finish. Technically excellent, a great act but he didn’t really have much in the way of competition.

The Amazing Stephen came on in the guise of Sherlock Holmes, again an act that could have worked, but on this occasion failed to get any reaction. A Torn and Restored Newspaper, Multiplying Pipes, a Ring and Rope, and a Wrist Chopper all seemed to be shoe-horned into a long script about looking for the masked magician in the audience, a very strange mixture of ideas that didn’t quite go anywhere, and neither did his volunteer who he left on stage at the climax of the wrist-chopper as he wandered off to weak applause.

Marianne had a manipulation act, which again had sparks of potential, some clean billiard ball manipulation, a nice Zombie routine which started out with some good mime with the ball ala Raymond Crowe followed by Card Manipulation and the production of a drink which was somewhat lost on the huge stage, and the obligatory throw streamer to finish.

The final act was the Amazing Norvil and Josephine. Probably my second favourite act of the evening. The Amazing Norvil was a typical old time musical hall magician, with his scatty assistant who played her part brilliantly, although for me I would have liked to see it go even further. The second Linking Ring routine of the convention, and continous Rose-bud productions led into Losander’s Floating Table, and they finished with a well executed Sub-trunk with a final costume change.

Steve ‘Chris’ Evans compered with his usual dry-wit incorporating a Joke Competition but even this failed to save the show, I’m not expecting any suprises come the awards, but watch this space for the winners and losers.

Sean has worked on various magical disciplines, currently he is focusing on mentalism, and so this was the theme of his lecture.

The opening trick Pineapple Surprise was a variation of the Fred trick, used to predict the contents of an unlabeled can of food. Next Sean showed us his version of Andi Gladwin’s People Power trick. Survivor is a variation using eight people and Sean’s clever double-envelope, coupled with Andi’s ingenious idea for the Equivoque, to leave one person on stage that had previously been predicted by Sean.

Time for Business was a way for Sean to tell someone the exact time without him looking at a watch or clock, whenever a spectator called out he was able to write the correct time on his business card.

The Symbology Deck is Sean’s version of the ESP deck useful for close-up mentalism. He demonstrated a very easy two card divination and then went over the various properties of the deck. This is a fantastic extension of the normal ESP deck that any close-up card worker could use to add a mental flavour to their act.

Bookmaster is an any-book no prop booktest, you give someone the book ask for a page number, have them look at the first word on the page and you can then tell them that word, without any extraneous props, and it can be made for any book.

Finally Sean performed Anchors Ahoy his version of the Tossed out Deck that involved a great deck-switch, and several subtleties that allowed a definite finish and the cards to be examined and shuffled at the start.

I had Sean’s Mindstorms book already and can recommend it, it is a limited edition, and well worth the investment, it was great to see Sean lecture the material, as he obviously thinks deeply about his routines, and makes sure every detail is covered, and this came through in the lecture.

This lecture was based around a few key points of theory. Looking at having a basic dramatic structure for your act, a justification to your magic and the reasons behind it and looking at character development. They also talked about building a story, using conflict and building to a climax that resolves this conflict.

Brando and Sylvana showed several routines to illustrate these points including sponges from mouth, a card prediction, colour changing handkerchief, a roulette routine using several rubber eggs and a real one and finally a sequence using juggling rings that also linked together.

A great lecture with some good thinking and encouragement to look at the justification and reasons behind why we do our magic.