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Blackpool Magicians’ Club - 63rd
Annual Convention
February 20th, 21st, 22nd 2015
Reviewed by Steve Majes (aka The Tricky Twister)
Photos by Daniel Eden/Eden Photography
Photos © www.eden-photography.co.uk used with permission.
To view or purchase official Blackpool Convention photos visit www.eden-photography.co.uk 'Proofing' and enter BMCDAY1 or BMCDAY2 or BMCDAY3
Friday 20th
I started the day with a relaxing dealers'
demonstration. It was a nice to sit down and have various dealers come along and
show their new wares. If they had added a few tables and a breakfast buffet it
would have been perfect, may suggest that for next year. An array of dealer
items were presented from the currently popular folded card to clear box up to a
large dice that turns into a puppet or rabbit. After the demonstration we took a
small trip around the dealer hall covering only about twenty percent.
The first lecture I saw was Charlie Frye. He demonstrated a mixture of juggling
skills as well as slight of hand and sight gags. He also had a fun sponge ball
routine and a twisting cards routine inspired by Paul Harris with a complete
deck colour change at the end. Charlie had some nice subtleties with coins
across and a lovely sawing the lady in half version of Roy Walton's card warp.
He presented a multiplying balls routine that had a comedy twist of releasing a
ball from between the legs after pretending to swallow it, I'll leave that one
up to your imaginations! Amongst his amazing hat and ball juggling he had some
simple stunts like balancing a newspaper on your nose and balancing a playing
card on your head. He had a long table full of stuff to show, but probably only
got through half, he is certainly a very skilled performer which shone through
in the act he did that evening in the Friday gala show.
Here is a brief run-down of the Friday gala show.
Alpha - Carries off a pirate themed very well with a lot of nice touches and
lots of flashes and explosions, he likes his fire effects. Cannon fire with a
parrot appearing out of a barrel, a rat running along the stage and up into and
empty wooden cage, with a flash the cage fell apart and the rat was now a very
excited dog. There were many bird and cage productions along with multiplying
budgies. Alpha finished on a double parrot production and the audience loved
this.
Two minds combined - Are a hand shadow duo, they did the usual shadows then
added a nice touch creating magicians faces in the shadows like Dynamo, Paul
Harris and Losander. There was a music glitch during the act but they carried on
and received great applause.
Bertox - Created optical illusions with juggling type rings, it had a slow start
but built into a very effective and mesmerizing act. Bertox incorporated the
lean illusion while standing on a chair and had two sets of rings appear via
manipulation to be suspended in the air and then revolved around each other.
Very hypnotic.
Kenris Murat, a Latin dance themed act dressed in black Kenris produced red and
white playing cards along with optical effects producing red silks from red
squares on the cards and then having them shoot back into the card with the red
square reforming. Nice touches were when his dance partner joined him and they
did combined card productions and produced fans of cards on fire. They finished
with fast paced productions and effects with red ribbons and a red confetti
explosion final.
Marco Zoppi was a bubble man, lots of standard bubble forms originally created
by Tom Noddy I believe, then he created a flat screen of bubble using a frame
and string set up. Didn't quite understand what he was doing at first? He
introduced a loop of string and used that to interact with the sheet of bubble
allowing the loop to conjoin and move around allowing him to pass his hand
through the loop and not bursting the sheet. He also created bubbles that would
combine with the sheet bubble and move around the sheet. It was like an
interesting science demonstration.
Danny Hunt's Amethyst presented a series of escapes; the first was Danny wearing
a big strap with chains around his waist which secured his arms, then he was
chained and padlocked to an upright board. He made his escape in full view. The
second was called claustrophobia, where his female partner was handcuffed and
secured into a very small aluminium box, this was secured with a locker type
lock, a combination lock and industrial strapping. She made her escape
successfully in full view of the audience. The last escape had Danny suspended
upside down with his head secured in a tank that was filling with water, he had
to escape from handcuffs secured around his waist and then un padlock the tank
so he could free his head and not drown. He made the escape in good time. This
escape was great but did loose some of the drama as once free he had to wait to
be winched down before he could really take his applause.
Charlie Frye and Cherry presented a fast-passed juggling act where his
assistants character was less than helpful. He featured club juggling on a
balance board the clubs were of wine bottle designed, a clever hat juggling
sequence, multiple ball juggling, zombie gloating bowling ball on bowling
T-shirt, a giant climb through comedy linking ring routine and a combination of
hoop, cane ball and club juggling. He finished on a stunt where he balanced his
waist coat hat and cane on a pole balanced on his chin, he released the pole and
everything fell resulting with Charlie wearing the waistcoat, hat and holding
his cane. Lots of energy and the audience loved him.
Jimmy Tamley was the compare during the show and I'm afraid to say that he
seemed to lack energy; this may be his style? And it's not an easy job! At this
time in the show it was Jimmy’s longer spot and at the start he seemed to be
just going through the paces, he did his grandad routine with a slightly
annoying crow joining in and finished with his boxer routine. The boxer is by
far his best routine and although I'd seen it before he did make me laugh during
this part of his set. Technically brilliant just a lack of energy.
Matthew McGurk's Illusion Show - The curtains opened with two lady assistants
suspended on long silk drapes either side of the stage, they did suspension art
displays and made their way down to the stage where a platform sat, they held up
and waved two flags in front of the platform and Matthew appeared. Next the
girls did a front of tabs sparks flying angle grinding display which led into an
assistant's revenge illusion with a metal framework and chains securing Matthew
before the change over, Matthew then had a triangle shaped box on a table and
shot arrows, with trailing ribbons attached, through it while an assistant
inside appeared to dodge them, in the end she disappeared, the arrows were then
pulled out through the side and bursting through now appeared the assistant
holding on to the ends of the ribbons. A front of tabs diamond shaped sword
basket with fire spikes thrust through was next then back to centre stage for a
transposition with his assistant using a clear box up high on an upright post,
then a multiple fire spikes through assistant in a box on a table with two
assistants appearing at the end for a surprise finish. The act was presented
well with some nice artistic elements but the music was far too loud.
Saturday 21st
Children’s Entertainer of the Year Competition
Colin Dymond entered the stage looking great in his purple jacket and trousers.
He dived straight in with a vent dragon puppet called Snot who had a ballon vent
model duck. Colin had an aluminum vase routine with a pixie story, the vase was
emptied of water into a can and the water kept disappearing, in the end all the
water magically reappears. Colin asked up a young girl helper and made an
elephant balloon backwards. Lolly the lilac love bird did some mind reading,
with Lolly finding the girl's chosen colour ball. The girl helper received the
balloon vent duck (a copy of) and the elephant as a gift.
Gemma Raymond walked on stage in a bubbly friendly manner wearing smart casual
wear and got a young boy Charlie, 4 years old, straight up to help, a
combination of break-away wand and silver septor (case described as it's bed)
played well, concluding with a tissue paper hat tear, Charlie got the hat, some
light up thumbs and some Haribo to take away (I’m never very keen on those
thumbs being given away, used to be a great effect now it’s public domain). Mr
Bringly Circus was Gemma’s next effect, through the bars on the front of a box
we were introduced to cards showing pictures of seals, elephants, lion and
tigers, Gemma was able to rescued the circus show by producing a rabbit! The
finale was a Queen Elsa costume change, with a snow storm in China and confetti
cannon.
Mr Stix (owner of Playtime Balloons) had his assistant Peanut come on first with
an umbrella and squirting a water pistol at the crowd. Mr Stix came to the
rescue and with the help of a girl called Anastasia comically put different
coloured handkerchiefs into a bag, with a wobbly wand and bigger wands the
handkerchiefs transposed to the umbrella with the umbrella cover appearing in
the bag. Anastasia received a large bunch of balloon flowers for helping. Peanut
tries go make a large die vanish with no luck, Mr Stix comes to the rescue again
and turns the die into a guinea pig, the guinea pig is accidentally rolled flat
but is restored back to health for the final. Along the way Mr Stix poked fun at
himself and of course Peanut.
Hannah from Japan entered a dark stage and told her story via a voice over and
presented the dancing cane and card productions finishing on a double dancing
cane routine. A cute little act if a bit short! Not sure this should have been
in a children’s entertainment competition?
Frank Kearns had a glowing floating ball which vanished from his hands to start
his act followed by hat balancing skills, multiple hat juggling, vanishing ball
to hat, multiplying balls and balls from mouth. He then presented an ends off
rope effect before introducing Ringo the monkey who magically appeared on a
metal hoop, the hoop was attached to the rope and Ringo did some ring on rope
acrobatics. Lilly who was only 3 years old came up to help, Frank showed his
Diablo skills and was hoping Lilly would catch it on a large juggling ring, this
didn't quite go to plan, she may have been a bit young. After Lilly sat down
Frank did a toy rabbit from a box gag, Devil sticks while riding a unicycle and
brought his act to a finish with a large wand production from his hat and
another large wand production from a small box and finished by spinning a plate
on one big wand while spinning hoops on his arms. Frank definitely had the
skills but maybe needed some stage direction and prop management.
Simon Sparkles entered wearing red and black with not a sparkle in sight?
Opening with a vanishing cane to silk streamer Simon then got a very jovial Mark
age nine up to help. A red handkerchief appeared on a knotted rope, unequal
ropes became equal, a balloon prize led the way to some fun balloon gags with
Mark eventually getting a laser gun prize. Simon finished with a father and
daughter helping him with a shaken can can of drink transposition, where the
bubbles and fizz were taken from the dads shaken can and transposed in to
Simon's can. Simon got wet and the dad got the can of coke he had as a prize,
the daughter received a special balloon flower.
Between the acts Terry Herbert kept the crowd entertained with his Egg Bag
routine with multiple eggs appearing at the end with a chocolate egg final as a
gift for the little girl helper. He also had a fun routine about Kate and Edith
trapeze artists that find a chosen card, cut and restored shoe lasses story,
Terry's vanishing wand under handkerchief and vanishing handkerchief to kids
hood. As always very entertaining!
The results of the competition were:
3rd Place - Hannah from Japan
2nd Place - Gemma Raymond
1st Place - Mr Stix and Peanut
Gala show
Natalie and Ellie presented many quick costume changes along with multiple
feather flower productions. There was a sequence where one of the girl's dresses
was apparently caught on fire during an effect and burnt revealing she may be a
robot with melted face and exposed body wiring. This left me with a slightly bad
taste as I thought at the time she was hurt by the fire, I’m not sure if the
fire effect was slightly out of control as someone from the audience shouted out
"Fire" and the main curtains did start to close, they stopped as it became aware
that it was ok and this was part of the act as she quick changed back to her
usual self. The changes were very good and built to a loverly finish.
Kenris Murat had a very surreal kind of act with a basic looking black and white
set involving a white desk on one side of the stage and a white box on the other
side. Some nice ideas but I feel the audience was left slightly confused as they
didn't know when a piece of magic had ended or when to clap, so the applause
couldn't really build. It was very interesting with a parallel universe
happening between the desk’s waste bin box and the other box which now had it's
own female guardian that had been created by accident by Keris on his side, it
all ended with a ladder being produced and Kenris climbing down into the waste
bin and via a blackout appearing from the other box. During the act I was left
wondering if some of the effects worked properly?
Katrin Weissensee was an amazing sand artist, she created sand art on a a box
lit from below while an overhead camera showed us via the large screens what she
was creating. You couldn't help but watch, she transformed one sand picture to
another with elements that played the same part in each but with a different
view point. A beach scene became a picture on a wall and an airplane went from
being real to a child's toy, it was a pleasure to watch.
Rob Zabrecky character was a mixture of serial killer meets mind reader. A fun
combination of mind reading effects presented by a kooky character. Rob comes on
with a box that you never get to know the contents of and celebrates his
Granddad's birthday by putting a hat on his urn of ashes. A lady volunteer
rolled a dice to select a card with an emotional action on, "hug" was chosen the
rest were "kill"! At this point Rob removed the plastic sheeting from the floor,
this would have been used if “Kill” had been selected! He read drawings of four
spectators and matched them to the correct person charcter, the last picture he
used mind reading on and drew the picture, also drawing on his face at the same
time in a slightly out of touch with the world manner. Rob finished with an
interpretive dance sequence while performing the diminishing cards effect. A
crazy compulsive must watch act!
Sandorn Balance - Lara Jacobs Rigolo. This was an incredible balancing act all
reliant on the balance of a single feather. Lara balanced large wooden sticks on
each other in the hypnotic formation of a large interwoven structure, this was
then balanced, as she revolved, on her own head like a large wooden frame hat. A
final wooden strut was pivoted from the ground by Lara's foot into an upright
position and the work of art was balanced on top as Lara took her bow. She
approached the single feather and on removing it the structure fell to the
ground in pieces. This was all presented with hypnotic music and the controlled
breathing sounds or Lara as she created the structure. Amazing!
Cubic presented their now classic act involving a large white cube on a small
table. This is a lovely act! The two performers interact with the cube that
seems to have a mind of its own. They are able to push things in to the cube and
out the other side with curious and magical consequences all with the cube
moving around and levitating on its own accord. Eventually a young lady is
glimpsed within the cube and her head pops out the top, this creates even more
interactions with a final series of colour costume changes for the two gentleman
while the cube changes from white to black.
Mike Chao was rooted to centre stage and presented a well rehearsed and minutely
choreographed series of manipulations. A comb changed to cards, balls and silk
handkerchiefs and then changed back to a comb before another series of changes
and manipulations, again changing back to a comb. It was sometimes confusing but
there were some great eye candy visuals to see.
Mel Melers was the very worthy compere for the evening and previously during the
show he had done, do as I do feather plumes and a vanishing cane routine. This
was Mel's longer spot and with his usual comedy and wit he vanished a bottle
after comically revealing a wrong predicted number then he vanished a £20 note,
cut a spectators hand off with a comedy reveal and brought the £20 back by
transforming it from a single piece of toilet paper. As always very funny and
entertaining.
The Confusionist Sean Alexander was the grand finale to this gala show and
confidently presented a multitude of illusions. Sean appeared from a fire table
when a cloth surrounding it was raised and dropped to reveal him, Sean then
produced one of his dancing girls from under a drape curtain alongside him while
standing on a low platform with nowhere to hide and a fire cage produced a
second dancing girl. The two girls stood on top of a double set of stairs well
off the ground and held up a cloth between them as the cloth dropped another two
girls had appeared. Sean and his team presented various illusions including the
chain and rack assistants revenge, fire spikes through girl with a double girl
production at the end, an appearance of a real jet ski along with riders from an
empty cabinet, the sword of Zeus suspension with the sword penetrating the
assistant (she was fine in the end), a lovely double levitation where Sean
floats up after the girl and a modern take on the million dollar mystery with a
revolving box, ending with Sean vanishing from under a cloth on the stage and
appearing in the audience. The team worked very well together and presented a
great final to the show.
Sunday 22nd
Kids r uz lectures
Terry Herbert. It was great to see Terry lecture on the history of children's
magic and also the changing trends in the tricks we use. Terry's main core is to
entertain without resorting to toilet humor which is a sad trend he sees in some
of the so called modern children’s entertainers. Some of the effects and
routines for children documented from Terry’s youth could never be done in this
day and age, and it was hilarious as Terry quoted some of these routines which
also included a demonstration of a vanishing stick of dynamite and silk
transposition routine along with a trick called "balloon fish" which Terry used
to use lots of comedy gun gags with, sadly guns are a no go in todays
environment. Terry also described some effects from his youth that were in
print, involving children dressed up as Chinamen and being encouraged to do very
un PC impressions of said characters, it was scary to think that these type of
routines existed and yet amusing to think of performers getting away with these
type of effects. Terry brought the trends up to date with tricks "you can do"
including his lovely Harry Potter coins routine and an updated version of run
rabbit run. It was a great lecture and highly entertaining.
Shane West - Zoobee. Shane showed some of the tricks that he themes to occasions
like Christmas, Halloween and Easter. Showing us how a classic trick can be
changed and themed to bring new life to it. A six card repeat type effect was
his first demonstration with the theme of Christmas, with present cards going
down a chimney and vanishing at the finale with only an empty Santa sack card
remaining, this trick could also be themed to birthdays. Professor Knot Worth
was another of Shane's marketed effects which had a length of rope placed in
Professor Knot Worths box along with a picture of the Professor sympathizing
with the rope the magician held, the ends were tied together and the Professors
rope without touching it would also be tied, the tricks climaxed happened with
the Professor’s card vanishing to appear back in an empty frame. Next Shane
presented a series of effects that he had worked on with Jimmy Carlo using the
double rope and wand principle this version had Santa escaping from the monster
who tried to steel Christmas and another version involved Halloween characters.
During the lecture Shane also presented tricks that you could do in conjunction
with a puppet, in one case he has Arthur Beard the pirate predicting a chosen
picture card by having a cross drawn on its back. Shane brought the lecture to a
close with his rhyming Halloween themed multiplying bottles routine and a
picture colouring routine created by John Kimmons.
Gala Show
I apologize for the lack of detail in this review, manipulation acts can be fast
paced and therefore a lot of the effects can be missed. I must say that there
were many classic manipulation moves and effects used by each act with different
themes and some clever twists.
Do Ki Moon. A music conductor routine where the conductor had problems with his
baton, it kept vanishing and changing until baton upon baton appeared in a
climatic finish.
E K Diamonds. Flamenco style manipulation act using fans roses, tambourine and
handkerchiefs. Some of the effects were too subtle and were missed by me.
Zhao Jun. An artistic manipulation act using an artistic portfolio book that
grew, paintbrush productions and various colour productions, these were
transferred to a large hanging picture and finished is a snow storm behind the
picture and an umbrella production from the portfolio as a finish. A lot of the
effects were quite subtle and unfortunately passed me by.
Hyun Cheol Young. An amazing dove act with novel and original moves. A white
towel draped over his arm slowly disappeared and became a dove sitting on his
arm. A fire ball spun around his body and into his hand becoming a dove. A cage
full of white doves visually changed into red doves and then disappeared with
the cage falling open. There were many more clever effects with a twist you
wouldn’t imagine, an I could definitely watch again and again.
Gong In Seon. A very talented and energetic young magician of only 13 years of
age confidently produced coloured cards and fans, including flourishes,
throughout his act with a candy theme Gong also produced giant gobstoppers and
added colour changes and clever flourishes along the way. This guy has a great
future ahead, keep an eye out for Gong.
Award presentations from the president of The Blackpool Magicians Club:
Murray Award to Michael Webber.
Neville King trophy to Mick Miller.
Ken Dodd comedy trophy presented by Ken Dodd to Charlie Frye and Sherry.
Nicky Yang. Pool balls, pool gloves and pool cue manipulations with colour
changes and transpositions. A nice touch was having the pool glove that Nicky
was wearing suddenly disappear and appear at the end of the cue.
Liao Xiao Run. A combination of costume and rotating set changes from Chinese
warrior to geisha girl. Along the way there were colour changing masks and card
productions.
Kim Hyun Joong. A top hat on a single thin stand acting as a table Kim performed
many card productions and amazing full hand card fans resulting in a card
fountain of cards springing from his hat. Kim also performed ball manipulations
and concluded his act by placing a white glove back on his hand that he had
vanished at the start.
Duo Magic. Male and female duo costume change act. Many of the changes happened
while a tubular curtain was raised and wiggled around each performer by the
other, they also included a nice changing room type booth with curtain this
allowed very quick changes, as the curtain was closed it was whipped open
reveling the change. The male lead quick changed in to a yellow suit, from the
film “Mask”, and finished by throwing a ball of yellow confetti over the female
lead showering her as she changed to a yellow flowing dress to match the suit.
Very slick!
Prince of Illusions. A very well presented and choreographed routine about a
nightmare that revolved around some very clever illusions. The Prince was in bed
and changed into the nightmare queen, other underworld helpers appeared one from
an especially small brief case on a desk while a sitting room chair came to
life. The Prince, our victim, appears from a shower of sparks in a large metal
hoop structure situated on a low platform. Coming across the stage is a pair of
legs peddling a bike with the rest of the body on a trailer behind while an
assistants revenge illusion takes place with the Prince being chained to an
upright post, the change over happened with no cover just smoke and sparks! The
prince is now free and runs into the audience, a tracking beast is sent out on a
small alien mammal to return him, this was a fun effect. The prince scares the
beast away using a member of the audience and returns to his bed, the bed
levitates and revolves as the monsters return appearing from the smoke and
shadows, the prince is taken and placed in a small round cage on a table which
is wrapped in a shrink wrap type plastic and then suspended in the air, spears
are thrust through the cage and it is raised higher into the air as if bursts
into flames revealing the vanish of the Prince. The monsters vigorously move the
sheets on the bed and the Prince visually reappears and wakes from his nightmare
as the monsters fade into the background and reality returns. It is great to see
a story based presentation using illusions and the Prince and cast received a
well deserved standing ovation.
After gala party show
The Spanish room has always been a difficult venue to find a seat in for these
after show events, so I propped myself against a wall at the back with a drink
in hand and prepared to watch the show.
Karl K was our singing compere through the show while the acts set up and first
on was Alpha. We had seen Alpha in a previous gala show and again he went down
very well with the audience. He did a combination of fire effects for this show,
including a fire rope to cane and a double floating fire ball routine having the
fire balls float through a hoop and travel back to the table they appeared from.
Alpha finished on a rather unique snow storm effect using ash, the ash was
fanned towards a blank canvas and formed into a picture of Pavarotti, this was a
lovely effect and a great finish but I didn’t quite get the Pavarotti connection
when the rest of the act was a very stylized pirate theme. Alpha is a very
exciting act and holds the attention of the audience really well. Karl K sang
while the next act set their props, it was quite difficult to hear from the back
and because of this the audience murmurs and conversations did get louder and
made it even more difficult to hear.
Chris North “The Victorian Conjuror” was introduced and his victorian voice over
and music set the scene for this journey back in time. To music Chris presented
a thin cabinet with silk handkerchiefs inside on removing the silks they were
vanished and turned into victorian walking canes, the cabinet was closed and
suddenly opened again to reveal the silk handkerchiefs had returned. Next Chris
welcomed his wife Belinda to the stage as they introduced the spirit cabinet,
the cabinet was a framework unit with victorian drapes all around. Belinda was
tied to a wooden chair with a tall back by two gentleman volunteers making sure
that she couldn’t move. Items were placed within the cabinet and Belinda was put
into a trance by Chris, the front curtain was closed and Chris called the
spirits, immediately items were thrown over the top from within the cabinet and
noises were heard, on pulling the curtain open Belinda was still tied. It was
quite hard to hear Chris from the back as he did a spirit slate writing routine
with the slates mysteriously revealing the correct order and position of a black
ball chosen by a volunteer from a mix of white balls chosen by other volunteers.
Along the way a spectator got to sit in the cabinet with curious and funny
consequences and Chris finished by throwing a spectators jacket up and into the
cabinet and on pulling the curtain back Belinda was impossibly wearing the
jacket while still tied, this process was then reversed with the jacket being
spiritually thrown back out of the cabinet and again Belinda was still tied.
Belinda was brought out of her trance and along with Chris they took their well
deserved applause.
Unfortunately due to no seating, being slightly tired and the poor sound I left
at this point so I didn’t get to see Matthew Wright’s Gameshow. I think they
need smaller tables and a lot more chairs set in rows for this event.
On the whole an enjoyable convention with plenty of lectures and shows to see, a
big thank you to all the hard work that the Blackpool Magicians' Club put into
this event every year, my review was only the tip of a very large iceberg!
Steve Majes - Member of The Magic Circle and Secretary of the Anglian Magic
Society.
© Steve Majes, February 2105