Number
1131 - Saturday 26th February 2022
The
Amazing Johnathan [John Edward Szeles] 9th September 1958 - 22nd
February 2022. Brilliant, anarchic, playful, unique. British
audiences really 'got' The Amazing Johnathan via his television
appearances, and as magicians we just loved him. DT.
"The Amazing Johnathan, Celebrated Comic-Magician and Las Vegas Stalwart, Dead at 63" www.rollingstone.com.
"The Amazing Johnathan, the ‘Freddy Krueger of comedy,’ dead at 63" www.nypost.com.
"Farewell to the 'Freddy Krueger of
comedy': 'The Amazing Johnathan' who performed in Vegas longer than any
other comic magician dies aged 63 after long battle with heart disease"
www.dailymail.co.uk.
"Comedian and magician The Amazing Johnathan dies aged 63"
www.metro.co.uk.
"The Amazing Johnathan comedian John Edward dies aged 63 after heart
disease battle"
www.dailystar.co.uk.
"Gone too soon. Who was ‘The Amazing Johnathan’ John Edward Szeles and
what was his cause of death?"
www.thesun.co.uk.
"Groundbreaking Vegas magician The Amazing Johnathan dies at 63"
www.reviewjournal.com.
"Las Vegas headliner Amazing Johnathan dies at age 63"
(video)
Fox5 Las Vegas
"Remembering late Las Vegas iconic comedian and magician, The Amazing Johnathan" (includes audio interview) www.knpr.org. 26.2.22
The
Amazing Johnathan, 25 years ago on BBC2's late-night cult magic show 'Stuff
the White Rabbit' from 14th February 1997. See
The MagicWeek Video Archive. To catch up with more from The
MagicWeek Video Archive
Click Here.
26.2.22
Blackpool
Magic Convention - thank you! From the organisers: Blackpool Magicians Club would like to thank everyone who attended this
year's convention and helped make it such a great success.
Next year's dates are Thursday 16th February to Sunday 19th February 2023.
Registration opens at 10am on Monday 4th April.
www.blackpoolmagicconvention.com (I didn't go this year but heard
how much fun you all had! DT)
26.2.22
Wessex
Magical Association Convention 2022. Join us as we celebrate our
90th Anniversary with another great One Day Convention, culminating in a
Gala Show in the evening featuring Richard Jones, Jamie Raven, Megan
Swann, The Great Baldini and Matricks. In addition to lectures from
Richard and Megan, we’ll be announcing the other great names already
secured to lecture in due course. We’ll also be revealing which top
dealers will be in attendance. Adult Tickets are just £27 (Day) + £12
(Gala) and Junior Tickets are just £7 (Day) + £8 (Gala) and can be
purchased from our website:
www.wmagic.uk.
Sunday, 3rd April 2022. Venue: Bournemouth School for Girls,
Bournemouth, Dorset BH8 9UJ.
26.2.22
Darryl
Rose on Craig Petty's Magic TV: 'Talk Magic'. Every Tuesday, Wednesday
and Saturday at 9pm, Craig Petty sits down and chats with a well known magician;
a creator, a performer, or someone who has had a positive impact on the Magic
Community. "Darryl Rose - talking performing, close-up, stage, The Magic
Circle and more"
YouTube.
26.2.22
Midnights
Deck - update. What
a wonderful community we have. LA-based magician and card expert Jeremy
Griffith posted a video to his 57,000 Instagram followers last week
displaying the beautiful concept deck of Midnights currently being
crowdfunded to raise money for Breathe Magic. And following the
announcement of the cards imminent release at the Blackpool Magic
Convention, the founder of Butterfly playing cards, Ondrej Psenicka,
featured them on his own Instagram, which resulted in Carat Card Cases
getting in touch to donate their acrylic collector card cases to backers
of the limited edition signed decks of Midnights. Watch Jeremy’s video,
and support the Midnights campaign:
Click Here.
26.2.22
John
Lenahan lectures for The Surrey Society of Magicians on 3rd March.
John Lenahan has been a street performer, a table hopper, a top comedy
club magician, a successful corporate entertainer, a TV performer and a
cruise ship magician. His lecture is about all of this, with some great
tricks thrown in for good measure. Members are free and visiting
magicians are welcome, for a £10 entrance fee. The lecture takes place
in East Horsley, Surrey, at 8pm on Thursday March 3rd. Visiting
magicians are very welcome, but must contact Adam Mosley in advance
addmoses@hotmail.com to
register their interest.
26.2.22
Huddersfield
Circle of Magicians Star Lecture: Jasper Blakely, aka Kockov, in a brand
new lecture for 2022. On Wednesday 2nd March. Doors open 7.30pm,
lecture starts at 8pm. At Orlando’s Italian Restaurant, 5 Wakefield
Road, Grange Moor, Wakefield WF4 4DS. Members free, non-member magicians
welcome, £10 on the door.
Jasper Blakeley is a professional working comedy magician, probably best
known for his brilliant comedy character, Kockov. In recent years he has
spent less time in character and instead has been working as himself,
performing a twice weekly 90-minute show in his own magic theatre, The
Small Space, in his hometown of Barry in South Wales.
In this new lecture he will be revisiting some of his own classic effects
including his recently released download with Murphy's 'Signed Cards In
Glass' plus other new effects, never before revealed. Whilst close-up
magic will be touched upon, the main thrust of the lecture will be about
how he creates 2 new 90-minute comedy magic and mind-reading shows every
year and has done so for the past 4 years. Jasper will also help you
turn what close-up effects you already own and perform into cabaret
pieces. As usual Jasper will be brutally honest, funny and engaging, and
is keen to have a fully interactive lecture where anyone can ask
anything about what he knows. Be warned... there may be some bad
language but plenty of laughs and far too many stories as well!
26.2.22
Richard
Pinner Lecture - Bexley Magic Society. From the organisers: Bexley
Magic Society are delighted to welcome Richard Pinner back to the club
on Wednesday 2nd March. The ever popular performer will be sharing his
expertise with us in a free-form type lecture. It is a new lecture based
on 5 routines he has performed most of his professional career and an
item that has never been performed outside of his local club. He will
include one of his late father’s creations, plus one effect he says you
should never do but is really interesting! He will also include a
principal and "a couple of spares". Come and join us for what promises
to be a fascinating evening. Visiting magicians welcome. Entrance fee
£10.00. Doors open 7.30pm on Wednesday 2nd March at Bexleyheath Club for
the Disabled, Barton Close, Bexleyheath, Kent DA6 8JP.
26.2.22
Evening
of Wonders Magic Show, London. With special guests: Jamie Raven (4th
March) John Lenahan (18th March). From the producers: Prepare to
experience 2 hours of spell-binding magic from 5x Guinness World
Record-Breaking Magician Martin Rees and Associate of The Inner Magic
Circle, Sylar, along with a different special guest act every show. The
show begins with a demonstration of incredible sleight of hand - right
at your table, in front of your very own eyes - followed by three world
class stand-up magic routines from some of the top names in magic,
culminating with a world record attempt as Martin endeavours to break
one of his very own world records right in front of you. The venue
itself is beautifully intimate which means you can get up close and
personal with the performers, meet them face to face, get involved with
the tricks first-hand and enjoy fantastic front row views of the action.
For more info and to book visit
www.eveningofwonders.co.uk.
26.2.22
Magicseen
Subscription Perks. From the publishers: Did you know that signing up for a 1 or 2 year
subscription to the UK's longest running independent magic magazine gives you some
additional benefits, apart from receiving a great read? For instance, if
you take out a printed copy sub you automatically receive a 20% discount
on all book purchases by entering the special coupon code supplied when
you sign up, thus making all Magicseen books even better value. Plus,
you can also opt to receive an advance digital download version of each
magazine for free! An email with a link to the download then arrives a
few days before each printed copy is delivered. Also, the cost of a
subscription, which includes P&P, works out cheaper than buying single
copies. Prefer to have just downloads? There are 1 and 2 year subs
available for that version too, both of which are very competitively
priced. But you get an extra perk in that each time a new issue arrives
you are allowed to select any further two back issues for free, thus
enabling you to gradually assemble the complete Magicseen collection.
Oh, and you get the 20% discount on book purchases too. So all in all,
no matter which format you choose, subscribing to Magicseen makes total
sense! Go to
www.magicseen.com/product/magicseen-subscription
to join today.
26.2.22
Illusions
Are Real - Manif d’Art Quebec City Biennial. The tenth edition of
Québec’s well-established contemporary art festival opened on the
February 19th and will continue at multiple venues across the city until
April 24th. The curator states: "Illusions Are Real meditates upon the
proliferating amount of artifice that inhabits our lives today, from
synthetic flavours, altered photographs, and viral conspiracies, to
political rhetoric, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, deepfakes,
and the concocted identities we adopt online. And while the history of
half-truths is nearly as long as humankind itself, the acceleration,
expansion, and ubiquity of deception in the age of social media has led
some to call this the "post truth" era. The Manif d'Art biennial
navigates this disorienting terrain from a variety of perspectives,
congregating artists from around the world who captivatingly build and
break illusions to consider both the seduction and danger of this
growing phenomenon."
The exhibition includes a number of projects that draw on theatrical magic themes, including artworks by Jonathan Allen, Jeanette Andrews, Glen Kaino, Natascha Niederstrass, Jamie Isenstein and others. You can get a sneak preview of one of the exhibition venues here on YouTube, and for more information, visit the Manif d’Art website: www.manifdart.org. 26.2.22
Snakes
Alive! JezO crowned king of family entertainers! The biggest
convention for magicians returned to Blackpool with a bang last weekend
after a two-year pandemic break. A convention highlight among the shows
and other events is always the competition to find the Family
Entertainer of the Year, with both peers and general public on the
judging panel. This year the winner was JezO, aka Jez Bond, well known
in the Cambridge area and beyond as a magician, comedian, compère,
pantomime star and dare-devil.
The six contestants battled it out on the vast stage of the Blackpool
Opera House in front of an audience of magicians and local families. Jez
said "There were nerves and friendly rivalry amongst us all, and for
sure it was as nerve-racking walking out in front of the magicians as it
was in front of Simon Cowell when I did Britain’s Got Talent. Perhaps it
was the snakes that clinched it in the end – my act finished with a
spectacular explosion of multicoloured snakes (not real ones, of
course!)."
Jez is from a theatrical family and his father is also a magician
(Doctor Bondini). They often perform together in theatre shows. Jez is
about to embark on a 90-date tour of UK holiday destinations and will
appear as Buttons in Cinderella at The Empire Theatre, Blackburn, after
a six-year run in Margate Theatre Royal’s pantomimes. See:
YouTube and
YouTube.
26.2.22
Blackpool
Tower disappears! One of the highlights of last week’s Blackpool
Magic Convention was Matt Pritchard’s lecture where he gave an exclusive
glimpse into the workings of his viral illusion videos. To the delight
of the capacity crowd, Matt explained the optical and mechanical
principles behind his ridiculously over engineered creations. At the end
he premiered a bespoke illusion featuring a miniature Blackpool Tower.
Watch the video here:
tiktok.com/ZMLkukXSw and subscribe to see all his other work.
26.2.22
Last Chance For E-Club Pro Sign Up Deal. Mark Leveridge Magic is
currently offering a special deal if you sign up to E-Club Pro in
February. New members will receive a Discount Coupon Code worth £10.00
in each of the first three months of membership, these being useable
against any product available on the MLM website, even those items on
offer or discounted. In fact, since members of E-Club Pro already
automatically enjoy a 50% reduction on all product prices, it means that
the £30.00 worth of Coupon Codes are effectively buying £60.00 of
merchandise at the regular rates! So now is a great time to join the
E-Club Pro membership and not only gain access to over 900 pages of
special content, but also to take advantage of this sign up offer. You
need to hurry though as the offer expires at midnight (GMT) on Monday
28th February 2022. For more information about E-Club Pro go to
www.markleveridge.co.uk/#e-prices.
26.2.22
David
Britland's Cardopolis. Always excellent. If you're really
into magic Cardopolis is for you! Magic, notes,
trivia, and other fragments from the deceptive art. It's free, but a
click on the 'Buy Me A Coffee' link is a nice gesture. DT. Subscribe at:
www.cardopolis.substack.com.
26.2.22
Modern
Magic, The Charlotte Street Hotel, London. Downstairs in the sumptuous screening room at the Charlotte Street Hotel, an
audience will have their minds read, senses manipulated and experience some of
the most astonishing feats of modern magic. Sit down and relax as Jake Banfield
takes you on a journey of dapper deception, sophisticated sleight of hand and
mischievous mind games. Saturday 12th March at The Charlotte Street Hotel, 15-17
Charlotte Street, London W1T 1RJ.
www.modernmagic.co.uk.
26.2.22
Shakespeare and Hathaway - Private Investigators. "This Rough Magic - Frank and Lu investigate mysterious goings-on when a woman dies after being picked from the audience to assist a magician in a stage trick." Thursday 3rd March, on BBC One. See TV Magic. 26.2.22
"Fringe Review: Raymond Crowe – Unusualism"
Click Here •
"Pulling Down The Curtain On The Man Behind The Magic"
Click Here •
"A new start after 60: ‘After 35 years of teaching, I became Magic Frank
– and I’ve never been happier"
Click Here • "This magician escaped slavery by mailing himself to
freedom"
Click Here • "India's Got Talent Season 9: Illusionist makes Shilpa Shetty float in
air"
Click Here • "Powys to be treated to performance by The Greatest
Magician"
Click Here •
"Magic Spike Trick On TV Show Goes Horribly Wrong"
Click Here • Thanks as always for your magic news - see you next
week, Duncan.
26.2.22