Magic Tricks

I would like to preface this review with the observation that the opinion of magicians is of far less importance than the opinions of the lay audience and the firm conviction that it is often unfair to criticise a trick which one has not personally performed for a lay audience several times. That includes my opinion (maybe especially my opinion). That being said it is human nature to do just that so with the proviso that my opinions are uninformed by experience of these tricks and very possibly wrong ...here goes.

Transposition of a torn bill:
Spectator 1 is given a bill, spec 2 on the other side of the auditorium is given a different bill with an end torn off. The torn piece is moved to spec 1 – spec one opens their hand – their complete bill is now torn with an end missing (matching the torn section) spec 2 has a complete bill. Easy to do* lovely effect, stage or conceivably close up.

Thread:
Magician puts thread in his/her mouth and pulls it from his/her eye. Nice effect – certainly different.

Drawing to impossible location:
3 specs are asked to draw an image with their eyes closed. The image is then burned and found to be restored not once but twice. There are some nice touches here but I initially found it hard to believe that anyone would fall for this – hence my point about the opinions of magicians being of lower (much lower) value than the opinions of the audience. Wayne says he has not been performing this long (only three years). He says it is a goer so I believe him. Three cheers for the audience! That said the initial effect is burning the paper. Outside of outdoors or a proper theatre stage I cannot think of many places you could perform this (he does present a non burn version). The venues I work, (hotels, golf clubs, restaurants) would have the fire alarms going nuts.

Helium:
A helium balloon sinks when the audience hold their breath. I would be interested to rework this effect to combine it with a similar effect by Michel Huot. – Very nice, stage, parlour, I am going to try it close up and stage.

Coin to can:
A signed coin goes into a sealed can. If you think you know this watch Wayne’s handling – super smooth.

Influence/ Houdini’s influence:
Spec chooses a card, the spec finds the matching card from a ribbon spread deck (E.g. 2H, 2D). A close up trick though maybe it should be possible to raise the cards off the table and make it play bigger. In my view (see proviso’s in paragraph 1) this Most of my venues do not have large open spaces of table. The method is clever.

A Single Needle:
Houdini’s needle and thread trick using a single needle. Extremely fair, super clean but personally I prefer Scott Alexander’s version from his first Penguin Christmas lecture using multiple needles which is safer and I feel is theatrically more interesting – but again I could be wrong, though Wayne would seem to agree since he says he uses a multiple needle effect for parlour /stage.

I found the lecture slightly frustrating. Wayne clearly has a lot of performance and staging tips which are super useful. Sadly most of these came out as a result of questions from the audience rather than being scripted into the lecture.

I realise that the mechanics of the trick may be what most interests most people, but for me the mechanics are part of the effect, not all of it. I may not want to slavishly copy Wayne's routine but I do want to learn more about performance. Wayne's performance style is very different to that of most performers (close I thought to Joshua Jay's) and I appreciated that.