Friday 2nd of September saw the annual Bradford Magic Circle Competition night. The evening was really well attended with at least 50 people turning up to see some excellent acts in both close-up and stage magic. Our judges for the evening were Mark Lee and Phil Peters from Merlins Magic Shop in Wakefield and Paul and Pauline Dempsey from Thornton. The evening started with the Close-up competition, this year the competition being open to Juniors as well as Seniors. Mark Waddington was the first to take centre stage. He started by asking a member of the audience to choose a card number. 6 was chosen and Mark proceeded to find the four 6's from the deck after some very fancy shuffle moves. Three other spectators were then asked to choose cards from the pack that were then placed on the top of the deck. Again after some shuffling, Mark proceeded to find the spectators cards, the third one by means of spelling out the letters of the name of the card which happened to be the Five of Diamonds. Mark ended an excellent routine by shuffling all the 5's in the deck to the top. Next up was Colin Gough. He was wearing a rather spectacular blue starry waistcoat, which, he explained, had once belonged to his good friend George Powell and in whose honour he was wearing it. After a 'Gough Special' joke (too corny to be repeated here), Colin began a super Ring on Ribbon routine in which the ring repeatedly appeared on the ribbon then melted right through. He then went on into a rope routine in which two ropes were tied together. The knot moved from one end of the rope to the middle, then to the other end. He completed the rope routine with three ropes that turned into two, then one. Colin then showed us two dice. Showing the numbers on one side of the dice, he informed us of the numbers that should be showing on the back. These, however, kept magically changing every time the dice were moved around. His final item was to change three different lengths ropes into ropes of the same length and back again. Unfortunately the 'time-up' bell rang soon into this last routine, so Colin craftily informed us that "That was the end of my performance, I'll show you the rest of the trick now!" This brought a lot of laughter and Colin went on to finish a great routine. Third up was Ross Risdon. Ross told a tale of a famous artist and an invisible paint brush. To illustrate the story, he gave the 'invisible' brush to a member of the audience. He then changed the colour of four aces, then their backs. The aces reappeared, this time with coloured sponge balls, the cards matching the colour of the balls. The story went on about how the artist was getting greedy so he sold his paintings and starting gambling with the money. Showing four coins, Ross had them disappear from one hand and reappear in the other. Ross then laid two red aces and a black ace on the table. A spectator was asked to keep his eye on the black ace but found he kept picking the red ones. Ross brought out three bills; put one in his pocket yet there were still three in his hand. He then folded a note, tore it up and restored it. Finally, Ross placed all the money in a bag. It all disappeared except for one coin which had IOU written on it, all going to show that artist should have been a little more careful with his money! That finished a superb routine from Ross. The final contender for the close-up competition was Henry Norris. To start his routine he showed the audience five cards. A spectator was given a blank card and asked to write down any of the five cards, this card then being placed into an envelope and given to the spectator to look after. Another member of the audience was asked to pick a card, this turning out to be the Five of Spades. It was placed in the pack and twice magically rose to the top. Henry let us into the secret and showed us that the whole pack was actually the Five of Spades! The card was shown to have a red back, signed and lost in a blue backed pack. When the pack was turned over and spread it turned out that the only red backed card was NOT the five of spades after all! Then, having looked again, it turned that indeed the signed Five of Spades DID have the red back - all very confusing to me! The spectator was then asked to deal some cards onto the back of a jumbo card and then choose one. The jumbo card was shown and turned out to be the same as the chosen card. Henry then placed three red sponge balls and three orange sponge balls into his hand, wrapped a very lovely pink handkerchief around them then showed them to have disappeared. To finish off a wonderful routine, Henry showed that the spectators chosen card earlier placed in the envelope the Queen of Diamonds had disappeared from the five original cards he had handed out. The evening then moved on to the Stage Competition, again open to Juniors as well as Seniors. Ross Risdon started us off with a music based routine turning a ball into an egg and breaking it into a glass. He then changed a red ball into two balls, then to a white ball and again into an egg. A spectator was asked to choose a card and remember it. Ross then took a red silk and changed it into a white one, pulled a flower from the silk then promptly changed the silk back to red. This red silk had the King of Hearts printed on it, the spectators chosen card! Ross then picked up a large framed picture of an old man. He pushed his head through it from behind, turning into the old man himself! Ross made a cane appear from nowhere then treated us to some interesting dance moves! We were then shown an empty crystal box in which balloons suddenly appeared. Ross ended his act by blowing up a balloon, passing it behind his back where it magically turned into a balloon doggy! Throughout his routine his bowtie managed to change colour a number of times, sometimes so quickly I didn't notice! Next in the stage competition was Joe Manning. He showed us a clear tube into which he placed a green, yellow and red ball. Under the cover of another tube, these coloured balls changed places. Eventually the red ball disappeared from the tube and appeared in a previously shown empty box. Joe next borrowed a ring from a willing victim, sorry spectator and placed it under a silk. He gave another spectator an instruction book to read aloud. The ring disappeared from under the silk and appeared attached to the binder of the book! Joe then introduced us to his biggest fan a real one! A spectator was asked to choose a card, which was then lost in the deck. Having chosen the Three of Hearts, the spectator was asked to stand up and throw the deck of cards at the fan. When the fan stopped spinning we could see three red hearts on one of the blades. Joe picked the cards from the floor and showed the Three of Hearts card with holes where the indices were! A 'fan' tastic end to a great routine! Third on stage was Mark Waddington. He showed the audience five cards and threw away a couple but still had five cards in his hand. This he repeated and was still left with five cards. Next he borrowed a ring from the audience, exchanging it for a kiwi fruit. He placed the ring into a silver box then asked a spectator to choose a number. This number was matched to items on one list then to a description on another list. Mark correctly guessed that the item chosen was a silver carving knife. Next, Mark placed a coke bottle into a paper bag. He waved his hand over the bag and, pulling out a bottle of tomato sauce, claimed to a very sceptical audience that the coke bottle had magically turned into the sauce! To prove his point he put the sauce bottle back into the bag and pulled out the coke bottle once more. The audience was still not convinced so Mark placed the coke bottle back into the bag and having pulled the sauce bottle out again, crumpled the bag into a small ball to prove the coke had really disappeared! Mark then showed us his 'folding' magic wand a piece of rope. Bringing out two other pieces of differing lengths, he turned all three ropes into ropes of the same length and finally back into three different lengths. By this time the spectator who had lent their ring at the beginning of the routine was getting decidedly worried as to whether they would ever see it again! So to finish a brilliant act, Mark took the kiwi fruit and carefully cut it open to reveal the spectators ring inside! How did he DO that? Last up in the stage competition was Dennis Calvert. Dennis presented a lovely routine set to music in which a white wreath was pulled from an empty bag. He then placed a yellow ribbon through a hole in the centre of the bag and produced a yellow wreath. He did this again with a green ribbon, pulling out a green wreath, then again with a red ribbon and a red wreath. The wreaths were placed back into the bag and the coloured ribbons placed through the hole together. To the final crescendo of the music, Dennis pulled out the three wreaths, threw them into the air where they turned into one large multicoloured wreath! He then asked a spectator to choose a card, the spectator choosing the Seven of Spades. Dennis informed us he had predicted this card would be chosen and would prove it by showing he earlier placed the same card into a wallet. He pulled a card from the wallet which was not the right card. Never mind, he said, he would have another go. Again he pulled a card from the wallet but this was still not correct. Not giving up, he pulled yet another card from the wallet but again it was wrong! And a fourth time! Finally he pulled out a card which had all fifty-two cards printed on it, claiming the Seven of Spades was on there somewhere. Then, much to the audiences' amusement, he turned this card around and on the back was you guessed it the Seven of Spades! Well-done Dennis! That ended a wonderful evening of magic, much appreciated by the large audience. A very big thank you to all those who took part. The winners of the Close Up competition were: Ross Risdon, first place.
Mark Waddington, second place. The winners of the Stage competition were: Ross Risdon, first place.
Mark Waddington, second place. No, it's not a typing error; those were the winners in a closely fought competition. Well-done guys! |
