Home Counties Magical Society

Geoffrey Durham is probably one of the most well known faces in magic, he's appeared on countless TV shows, and is constantly 're-inventing' himself to stay at the top of his career.

His set of lectures are based around his book, 'Professional Secrets - A Life in Magic', and in a completely different approach to lectures, he's strived to make each one different.

The Home Counties Magical Society enjoyed lecture number five.. which I feel was one of the best, as Geoffrey talked about routining, harmony, volunteers and running orders.

One of the first things Geoffrey talked about was Harmony, or the audiences need to have something ‘completed’ an end to an effect, for instance, the torn and restored newspaper. Geoffrey talked about how the trick was perfect and an audience loved it, because the newspaper was restored, there was a logical end, you torn up the newspaper, you restored it, from an audience point of view.. the trick is complete, unlike tricks where you vanish something, to have it not re-appear, these 'complete tricks', from Geoffrey's viewpoint make an audience feel happy, and comfortable.

The dates for the NEW Derren Brown tour are now released, This is a new show touring next year. For us, the best local venues are Oxford on the 12th and 13th May 2009 and Reading on the 21st and 22nd May 2009

Read more for full tour date and locations. It also appears at the moment that a lot of the venues DON'T have tickets listed yet.. We will again be offering ticket sales through our partners to raise funds for the society..

Decembers meeting (held earlier in the month on the 5th December) will be a normal club night, however we'd like all members to get into the Christmas Party Mood.

Bring along your Party Games, Puzzles, Bar Bets, Gags and Tricks that make a family Christmas Party such fun. Share your favourite items with us and pick up new ideas to make your Christmas or New Year Party this year the best ever!

Despite the very wet evening there was virtually a full house for the second edition of "An Evening of Comedy, Magic, Illusion and Mind Reading" presented last Sunday at Twyford's Loddon Hall. Clive Winterton, Chris Marris and Robert Bone were in action before and during the interval with their "in-your-face" close-up entertainment and appeared to be preforming continually, and more important, entertaining AND mystifying.

The October Meeting saw the first .... and hopefully other members will follow the example ...  of two lecturettes from our own members.

Brian Dodridge opened the evening with a fascinating talk on the Houdini Seances. He had several attractive posters on display and an easy presentation which touched briefly on the early career of, probably the best known name in magic as far as the public are concerned, but concentrated mainly on the latter years when Houdini was very active in his exposure of fraudulent mediums.

He covered events which followed Houdini's death on 31. 10 1926 when his widow waited for the "agreed code word" to come through from "the other side". Eventually a medium was able to give her the agreed (and apparently only known to H and his wife) word. The Press were somewhat sceptical of the claims and she suffered continual disbelief during her remaining years.

A very meaty subject and apparently still causing a great deal of interest and conjecture ... undoubtedly Brian will have aroused the interest of members present (I shall certainly be re-reading all that I have in my own library).

A great start to the evening and this continued as Brian and Robin Maddy demonstrated very convincingly Geoffrey Scalbert's Mystery of the Seventh Card. We broke for refreshments (as always Susan was active in her domain) ... and awaited the second half of the evening which was to start with an explanation of  "HOW" they had fooled us so well.

Members sat fascinated by the explanation of the 7th Card Mystery and we were taken through the effect stage by stage which enable us to "have a go" with Robin (who played the mental receiver in the presentation) and check our results at each stage in the effect. Brian and Robin had slightly modified the original presentation and without doubt I can see several of us "priming our other halves" so that we can also mystify our friends.

Robin then took the floor for his showing and explanation of just a few of his favourite items which covered a modern version of George Blake's "Uncanny Hanks"; T & R Tissue with a lovely cod explanation to finish; a baffling newspaper prediction (pleased that I'm not the only one who uses this excellent effect) and closed with a very strong ESP Envelope Divination. The explanations were very clear and easily understood by all present ... shame of you missed the evening ...'cos we all learned something and I would put money on several using at least one of the effects shown.  Make sure YOU don't miss the next similar evening.

Simon expressed our thanks to Brian and Robin for a mystifying and entertaining evening .... further offers to present your own "mini" will be welcomed by Dan (aka Fred in the Shed) Hudson who handles our programme.