Our show night, which of course is our December night held this year on the 26th November, saw 40 members and friends turn up to watch a show compered by Mark Waddington. Mark started with a comedy opening ~ the Entertainers Charter which ended with the word BULLSHIT appearing from the words on the charter. Mark introduced Ross Risdon who told a story of a card driver ~ played by Paul Sunderland. Paul drove a car, actually a child's steering wheel with a horn on. On the wall Ross stuck the words Traffic Warden, Speed Camera & Traffic Lights. The story had three coloured balls - red, amber & green to represent the traffic lights which changed around. Paul was at the lights so long that he got a parking fine from the traffic warden of £60 and 3 points on his licence. When the green ball eventually appeared at the top, Paul sped off to be caught by the speeding camera and get 3 more points. An entertaining story, played along marvellously by Paul. Mark came back to place a green hankie in a change bag and take out 2 green hankies, then a string of hankies, then 1 hankie of three colours. Joe King changed a sock to a 'pear', instead of a pair of socks. He then placed the pear into a change bag and brought out a pair of ladies panties. Having a card chosen, Joe placed some blocks into a frame. When he reopened the frame there were ten hearts to match the chosen card of ten of hearts. Finally he told his assistant, Ann, that he was a pickpocket, pulling out a bra from behind Ann's back. Geoff Robertshaw did flash string to cane; and vanished a silk in his hand and then made it reappear from a folded card. He then lit a candle and placed three coloured silks through a tube. He placed the tube over the top of the candle, which went right through the candle. The candle was still lit and Geoff pulled the silks through the tube and candle. Several small pieces of paper were changed into a full newspaper, from which Geoff extracted a dove. Angela placed this in a cage along with another dove. Geoff blew up a balloon and burst it in a second cage in which a third dove appeared. Geoff put the two doves in the cage on top of another box. He pushed the cage down and the doves changed into a rabbit. Mark did 6 card repeat to find that the last six cards left spelt STEVIE. Unfortunately Stevie B was not ready, despite having nearly 30 minutes round the back to get ready! When he did appear Betty chose some ESP cards and Stevie named the cards she had chosen. 5 Keys to Baldplate had Victoria's ring tied onto a lock. Ann eliminated a key at a time to find the last key opened the lock to allow Victoria to get her ring back. Anthony imagined a card. Stevie wrote something on a sheet. Anthony announced his card as 3H. Stevie turned over the paper to show Phil written on. He then showed a pack of cards where Phil was written on the back of the 3H. Dennis Calvert tied together three coloured ropes which changed into one large rope. He got Steve up to assist with the glasses case trick where the chosen card appears on the glasses case (Dennis obviously didn’t know that this effect was created by Steve!) Dennis finished with some 3 ball juggling. After a rope effect, Mark introduced the final act, Ray Roberts. Ray started with a Chinese Sticks routine. He then got 5 people to write a number between 1 and 999 on a pad. I then got to add up the total. Meanwhile Ray placed some shuffled cards into a houlette and took one card at a time from the bottom to the top of the houlette. As any member of the audience called out 'stop', Ray placed that card on a stand. When the cards were turned over they were seen to match the total. Ray then performed the Thumb Tie effect. He had his thumbs tied together by Anthony. He proceeded to catch rings thrown at him which went through the tied ropes. He finished by catching a barbed wire ring. Finally Ray ended the show with a packet of Vanish Soap Powder where dirty hankies were placed into the packet. Ray turned the packet upside down and took out clean hankies. He opened the packet to show it empty; all to a nice rhyming routine. All the acts received some very enthusiastic applause for the efforts they had all put in. | 
