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1st Lincolnshire Day of Magic
In association with Magic Books By Post
Sunday 26th June 2010
Overlooked by Al Smith
Held at the Washingborough Community Centre, just outside Lincoln City, this
was a well-stocked day of magic. Plenty of dealers, five solid lecturers and a
substantial number of conventioneers. I didn’t attempt a survey, but a quick
head-count at just one of the lectures puts my guess at 150, at least.
As a first attempt, this was a good effort and should serve as a decent
blueprint for the already planned second convention on Sunday 26th June 2011.
A nice touch was a complementary cup of tea/coffee/juice and a bacon buttie to
start the proceedings. Not so thrilling if you don’t eat meat, of course(!) but
definitely a nice touch. And because I declined the buttie, I received a bonus
cuppa. During the lectures the dealers had their own complimentary nosh-up.
Anyway, nice though all this might be, the rest of the day—the magic—is the real
meat/salad.
Open only to those who pre-booked, the first session began at 9am before the
convention-proper began. This was a lecture-dem by Adrian Sullivan and because
it was open only to pre-bookers, I missed it, but according to reports it was a
well-received mix of allsorts.
First up in the official program(sic) was Michael Vincent, (billed as Mike on
the website adverts) with his Tapestry Of Deception lecture. I’ve seen
this twice before, once live and once on DVD. Live is best. The recording is
good, but it doesn’t do it justice.
Mister Vincent is a highly-skilled technician, but the technique is masked by
his presentational skills. The skill that hides skill, as somebody once said.
Shakespeare, I think. Or was it Marlowe? This is the essence of Tapestry Of
Deception, directing and controlling the attention of the spectators before
the trick begins as well as during. I’m nor at all sure it’s quite as easy as
Mister Vincent makes it sound and look, but his enthusiasm is infectious. I
almost wanted to take up card tricks as a result of seeing Card To Pocket
and Two Card Monte. Almost.
Following what the dealers hoped would be a spending break, we were introduced
to Dynamo; by his own admission he’s not a pure lecturer and so offered more of
an informal natter than a tutorial. I’ve certainly never come across this
opening line: “Is there anything you’ve seen me do on You Tube that you’d
like me to do here?” And, of course, there was. And he did. It was all
cards, but with lots of anecdotal chatter about his TV and live work. This is
not quite my cup of tea, but being a magic fan, I found it an easy listen and
enjoyable.
The session ended with a sort-of interview conducted by Paul Cooke of Magic
Books By Post. In reality this was more of the same. No tricks, simply Dynamo
recounting some of his adventures.
After one more spending break, John Archer took the platform. This is also
material I’ve seen before, live and on DVD and live, as ever, is best. Although
not quite as casual as Dynamo, Mister Archer’s demeanour is very informal and he
gets his message across. Well thought out methods that anyone can adopt and
adapt, accompanied by and fully Archerised presentations that suit only one
person. His take on the Kenton Knepper effect Kollosall Killer is the
best I’ve seen—I haven’t seen them, all, of course it very niftily gets around
the blaring weakness of the near-miss factor of the original.
After the final spending break, Paul Gordon set up shop in one of the anterooms.
In what the programme described as a lecture/workshop, Paul served up his
trademark Cool Card Stuff (one of his books). It was intimate stuff, but
the room was packed as Paul demonstrated a balanced mix of card trickery,
relying more on smooth competent handling than heavyweight sleight of hand. I
saw Paul lecture a few weeks ago in Derby (reported elsewhere in these pages)
and can only echo what I said then. This may “only” be card tricks, but it’s
solid, practical material, delivered with energy.
The dealer display was considerable, even if the number of DVDs threatened to
smother everyone in sight. And although I have the programme, not all the
dealers are listed, so I’ll just mention a few that spring to mind. Magic Books
By Post, of course, with an impressive display of books, a splendid counterpoint
to the DVDs. The lecturers each had a table, as did Merlins Of Wakefield, Andrew
Normansell, Magic Attic, Kaymar, Magic Tao, Alexander Allen. More? Yes, but at
this distance—it was yesterday after all—I can’t bring them to mind.
Summing up, and repeating what I said at the top of this ramble, as a first
attempt, this was a good effort and although the second attempt is a year away,
it’s worth noting the date.
© A. E. Smith, June 2010