On the 28th November we held our, what has now become, annual show night, where members of the Bradford Magic Circle can get up and perform. Arranged by Henry Norris, the committee members were disappointed to hear that two of our members who had volunteered to take part, cried of during the day. This hardly helps Henry when he is trying to put together an evening's entertainment for us all. Luckily some members are willing to take part, even if they are struggling with the flu and are having difficulty speaking - thanks to Colin Gough here, who toiled manfully throughout his performance with a deteriorating Well those who took part were: Peter Bainbridge, who brought along and envelope in which he placed a jumbo 3 of clubs. There was a whole in the back of the envelope, so that the audience could see the card throughout. He then displayed another set of cards, which he showed everyone but his assistant (Cohn Gough again, despite his ailment!) to be made up of all 3 of clubs. He asked Colin to choose a card from the pack and then asked him to name it. Colin said it was the 8 of hearts. When Peter had got over his concern and looked at the card in the envelope, it too turned out to be the 8 of hearts. Henry Norris performed a quick card trick to fill in some of the missing time. This revolved around the card chosen being the only one with a different coloured back. Simon Jackson performed a book test with Karen McDonald (it makes a change from Darren!). Simon displayed three books. Karen chose four assistants, who were then asked to write a page number on a card, one under the other. Karen then chose a book. She then chose a number from the four written down and opened the book at that page. Simon asked her to read the top two lines of the page to herself. Simon then wrote down the main focus of those two lines, which he identified as 'twins'. When Karen read the two lines, it was found that they were about a set of twins. Simon then asked Henry & Phil to cut the deck and remember the card they see. They then had to repeat 'red/black' so that Simon could identify the colour of the card. Then the suit similarly. Finally the number. Simon correctly identified the cards as 6S & 5D. Colin Gough manfully attempted a rope routine where knots kept appearing on the end of the ropes. A knot tied in the middle jumped to the end. As his voice gave way, John Hotowka jumped up to interpret ate for those at the back of audience, which resulted in a very funny rope routine, done by Colin under very difficult circumstances. Well done Colin. Stevie B had 4 green balls and I black one. He placed them in a bag and had 5 different people choose a ball, which he did not see. By asking each person if they had the black ball or not, even though each could lie, he correctly identified the recipient of the black ball.
Karen assisted again by finding that only one of 5 keys opened a padlock Stevie had. She mixed up the keys and then had 5 members of the audience choose one. She was then asked to work out which was the correct key, which she did.
Stevie got Oliver to choose a pack of cards and shuffle them. Using the other pack, Stevie had Henry & Jeff chose a card each. Stevie then memorised the order of the pack and told each of them the number down in the pack their card was. They were both then given around half of the pack each. Oliver chose 15 cards from his shuffled deck, and as he named them, Stevie told whether Henry or Jeff had that particular card in his half of the deck. Dazzling Darren had a small pack of cards. Getting Phil to put on a wig and large boobs, he gave him a skirt to hold in front of him (the effect is called 'Garters" I think). Phil chose a card. Darren wrote Phil's name on it. Darren folded the card and tore the corner of it, which he gave to Phil to hold. The card vanished. Darren opened an envelope, but there was only a card which said 'chick under skirt'. Darren found an envelope in the garter under the skirt Phil was holding. The card was not there, just a message which said 'little bird tells me in the bag'. Darren burst a paper bag and feathers flew out. Using a dove pan out came a large bird and from it an egg. Inside the egg was a chicken and in the chicken's mouth was the card. To finish, Darren did the hydrostatic glass routine over Phil's head luckily it worked! To finish we had an audition by a youngster, Ros Risdon. Very bravely he agreed to do his audition in front of the whole group. He started by showing matches, a noose, syringe (injection), cable and a knife. This led to a murder story where the knife vanished and letters identified the letter 'K' as being the murder weapon. The knife was found and now had blood on both sides.
Ros placed 2 cards on the table, showing that the backs of the other cards were all different. He asked for a number and counted down to that card. One of the chosen cards was placed at that spot. This was repeated for the second card. These turned out to be the only cards with this coloured back.
Next came a colour changing knife routine, before he finished with a neat cups and balls routine, ending with three fruits under the cups.
An excellent performance, particularly in front of a large group of magicians. Not surprisingly, after a quick meeting, the committee were able to welcome Ros as a member of the Bradford Magic Circle. Thanks go to our compere for the evening, Ivan Robinson, who kept his inexhaustible supply of gags coming between acts. Thanks also to Jeff, Angela, Dennis and Gemma who looked after the teas. The evening ended with another well-deserved round of applause for those who took part in a most enjoyable evening's entertainment.
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