The Billet Article - The Stevie B Page

This article is taken from The Billet Issue - 431 - Feb 2008, Authored by Stephen Bellerby

The Stevie B Page

Hope you enjoyed the Party Night.

I thought it was a lot of fun and particular thanks must go to Keith for arranging most of the puzzles on the evening. I was responsible for the Charades game. It seemed to be well received. I used to enjoy watching ‘Give us a Clue’ on ITV many years back; my favourite celeb being Roy Kinnear. I introduced it to the Easter Parade Convention last year as the Late Show offering. One of the titles that came up was; Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes. Quite a challenge and neither team was able to get the full title in the two minutes allowed, the real frustration being that they all knew the film quite early on! It was opened up to the audience and Graham Colvan from Glasgow gave us the full title. He’d used his phone to go onto the internet to find it. Took him three minutes mind! It was a lot of fun with a variety of film titles on offer which could have included; Sherlock Holmes in the Singular Case of the Plural Green Moustache, The Fable of the Kid Who Shifted His Ideals to Golf and Finally Became a Baseball Fan and Took the Only known Cure and even; Another Demonstration of the Cliff Guibert Fire Hose Reel, Showing a Young Girl Coming From an Office, Detaching Hose, Running With it 60 Feet and playing a stream, All Inside 30 Seconds. And those teams and ours at Bradford thought we had it tough.

This year, Spring Parade (not at Easter time, you see) will take place on 5th & 6th April over at Scarborough. The Saturday will mainly be at the Hotel St. Nicholas with the Junior Show and Stage Competitions being held at the YMCA theatre. The event on the Sunday will all be at the YMCA theatre and will include a cracking Gala Show to bring the convention to a close. So who’s appearing there?

Lectures will be presented on the Saturday by Peter McLanachan – The Cardman. On Sunday, Tricky Ricky will be presenting a lecture on Children’s Magic. As well as the lectures, there will also be workshops. These come from Jim Cuthbert, Alan Maskell and Michael Jordan. Jim Cuthbert, on the Saturday, will be discussing how to start up a collection of magical memorabilia, which is designed to suit all pockets. On Sunday, Michael Jordan from High Jinx will be running a circus skills workshop on juggling, all totally hands on and with everyday objects as well as professional props. Later Alan Maskell will present a workshop of ideas that offer a twist on the normal, mainly around mentalism.

Michael Jordan and family will also be selling juggling equipment as dealers. The Dealers will only be there on the Sunday, however. Joining Michael will be Kaymar Magic, supplying a broad variety of general magician’s effects and accessories; Black Cat Magic, who specialise in escapology supplies; Burning Card Magic, who mainly concentrate on street magic, effects with fire and general close-up; and finally Magic Books by Post will be joining us with …… books! Only 5 stands but a huge variety of magic to choose from and no need to go looking round loads of stands for the cheapest prices.

History of Mystery will feature Jon Marshal discussing the magicians from the old Victorian fairs. And there will also be competitions. These are the Close-up Competition and the Junior and Senior Stage Competitions. Are you interested in representing Bradford Magic Circle as a competitor? If so please let me know. All of the competitions take place on the Saturday and after the Stage Competitions there will be another Late Show although with a different theme for last year’s.

The Sunday morning kicks off with the AGM for Northern Magic Circle members. If you’d prefer not to visit the dealers or the AGM as an NMC member, you could instead attend the Non-Magic Event. Fred Normandale will be talking about some of his adventures as a trawler-man with many humorous anecdotes.

The weekend will also include an ongoing caption contest with a prize for the funniest entry. Finally, of course, there will be a Gala Show. This year’s will feature Ricky McLeod, Su Jayne, High Jinx, with their comedy award winning act, and Andrew Green.

So that’s Spring Parade. Of course some of you will be going to Blackpool’s convention. This is not to be confused with Showzam, which is taking place in Blackpool but organised by the Borough Council with input from Derek Lever. There will be loads of events taking place and amongst the performers will be Honorary Life Members Shahid and Lisa Malik, as well as Amethyst. I hope they all have a great time. It seems unlikely that thousands of tourists will flock to all the shows in a month of entertainment but you never know. Blackpool convention will be right on the tail of this extravaganza and hopefully there will be a report from it the Billet. That’s assuming there will be a Billet, this being Keith’s last edition.

After Blackpool of course will be our own exhibition at Bradford Industrial Museum. Please note that the Roy Davenport Lecture will be held there as well. Let me know if you want any help with where the Museum is situated. Roy will be with us the following night at the Hey Presto Show. Have you got your tickets yet? There’ll be other things happening as well but more about those nearer the time. For now though, thanks for reading and see you later.

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