Page 1 Page 1 The Fylde Mystics Promoting the performance of Magic October 2014 Page 2 Magical Memoranda Editorial by Paul Joyce. Page 3 News, Views and comments Morgan & West Review by Page 4 George Jennings Magic Decoded By Allan Clarke Page 10 Your Club need you - Alan Page 14 Mylecraine Page 15 Magician FX Offer DVD & Book Library Page 16 Page 21 Fylde Mystics Programme Page 3 Page 3 Editorial by Paul Joyce Where there is no imagination there is no horror." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Welcome to the October edition. I am sure you will agree that September has been a fantastic month for the Fylde Mystics and am sure October will continue in the same vein. Looking ahead, I am looking at putting together the Xmas edition (sorry, I know it sounds a while off!). Ideally, I would like to be able to do a special Xmas edition, if you have any stories that you think may be of interest please do let me have them, all articles are appreciated. See you soon Paul Page 4 Morgan and West Chorley Little Theatre Friday Sep- tember 19th “A grand adventure” By George Jennings Just under a year ago we went to the Chorley Little Theatre to see Morgan and West and they came back with a different show in the same characters they had already established as Victorian travellers. I had thought that as they had gone down really well that word of mouth would have increased the size of audience, but if anything there were slightly less than before. Perhaps the audience did not realise it would be a new show. Page 5 However this time the number of magicians present had increased. Brian Sefton was back for a second time, but there were several more that I recognised mainly from the Manchester area, which was a surprise as they were doing the same show at the Lowry in October. After they had introduced themselves in a rather novel way they talked about misdirection and made excellent use of changing focus between the two of them for a series of effects that registered well including the vanish of their magic book. The plot for the rest of the show was based on their magic book of lies having disappeared, stolen, and their travels following a series of clues, a bit like round the world in 80 days, to get the book back. In Magicseen they had said that their characters were Victorian educated and silly and that certainly describes this performance. I mean how many acts do you know that do jokes based on Latin, even though it was quite a good one? I am not sure that given the amount of chil- dren attending that this particularly registered well with all the audience. Page 6 They did an excellent presentation of the miser’s dream involving a child from the audience and the use of a full size puppet a bit like the Tina Lenert act. The head was a top hat with goggles on and it was operated between the two of them and it had a similar sort of effect on the lad as some of the monsters on Dr Who. A double salt, or as presented here, a double sugar pour got a good reaction. Less effective was a series of effects that started with three runes being selected from a bag. We were told by Morgan that they all had fir trees on them. The problem was that even in a small theatre these could not be seen. It would have been better if the person doing the selecting had said what they were before proceeding. These were then revealed to have been predicted on a document that had a whole series of runic characters on them. So by the time it got to the correct one it just looked like a series of outs and lacked impact. A tarot cutting was also too small to be seen properly, but the concluding section using two spirit slates did register strongly. The Tony Stevens no tear paper and a version of the card sword without playing cards were both strong items, but going into the interval turned out to be an anti climax. Given the way they were presenting the story it needed a cliff-hanger of some sort a bit like the Dick Barton stories, for those old enough to remember them, to finish the first half. Page 7 Instead it just sort of stopped in a very low-key sort of way and the audience were just left bemused not sure what to do. In fact the only way we knew it was the in- terval was that the house lights came on and no one applauded as by then it was too late to react. Even to use the Dick Barton idea of a voice over with a series of questions relating to what was to happen on the rest of the quest would have worked in this situation. In the second half they used a “previously” recap, like you get at the start on so many TV series as a joke and this, if we had been left wondering what was going to happen next, would have worked really well at the start of part two. Page 8 The second half was shorter than the first half. For me one of the stand out bits was the use of a mouth coil. This is where the use of a double act really scores. Nor- mally when you see someone use one you are restrict- ed to an arm length at any time of pulling it out. Here the use of a second person allows a much greater dis- tance to be used and it is far more impressive as it seems as though far more is being produced than is really happening and without the danger of it being snapped. There was also a very nice combination of being tied up and put into a bag with a triple prediction whilst appar- ently tied up before doing an escape from the ropes. The big trick in this half was a substitution trunk which spectators had sat on during parts of the show using the locks as the reason they needed to change places. There were other tricks with billiard balls, rope routines and a dove pan, but the finish was a verbal one as to how they travelled in time to recover the book to finish the act. I am keen on using stories in magic and this is based on one huge story. The weakness in using stories is that sometimes it is difficult to get the magic to fit the story and there are times in this that there are too many words used to get to the magic. Page 9 Although I preferred the earlier show as it had more magic this is still worth seeing if you get the opportunity as it a rare thing to see an approach like this used on to how to present magic. As this is a show on tour I would not be surprised if based on the reactions of the audi- ence if they make some changes as the structure at the end of the first half does need changing if they are to get an audience to respond. If you go you can let us know if it does. Page 10 Magic Decoded? by Allan Clarke Steve Cohen Lost Magic Decoded History Channel Amongst a number of programmes I recorded from the TV this past year was 'Lost Magic Decoded'. I noticed in the advertising that it was being presented by 'Magician to the Millionaires', Steve Cohen who performs each weekend at a suite in the prestigious Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. The ‘magic decoded’ thing did worry me a little as I was afraid that secrets would be revealed in Steve's bid to re-create some of the lost magic of the past. I needn’t have worried as the out- comes left a lot more questions than answers. I watched Steve a couple of years ago when he was part of the line up for the 'Essential Magic Conference' and he was most impressive, not only with his magic but in the process he followed when trying to secure what must be some of the best gig's in the world and convincing The owners of the Waldorf Astoria that it would be good for their business. Now there's a book I would pay good money for! However, back to the programme. His aim during the two hour 'special' was to explore and try to recreate some of the best known and often lost secrets of a number of puzzling illusions. His first foray was in 'Pulse stopping', first presented by Herman. This took place in a private suite of the Waldorf to an appreciative audience and followed a well trod path of having a physician tap out the beat of Steve's pulse in a glass as he slowed it to a stop and re-started it. The suspense he created was palpable and was a fitting demonstration of how performers played up the impossibility of what they were doing. Page 11 utomaton' of magic, 'The Turk'. 'AThe Turk was the brainchild of Wolfgang Von Kempelen. It was a chess playing 'robot' first displayed in Vienna in 1770 and became feted by Kings and Quens around the world. It went into the history books when Napo- leon himself challenged the Turk to a game.