I've seen an American magician fry an audience with a $2 trick you buy in your local magic store: personality, not technical skill, is what's important. The most beautiful thing I've seen was a flying act by Arturo Brachetti, in a show called Y at the Piccadilly Theatre in 1983 I've seen David Copperfield fly, but it always seemed odd. If you could really fly, you wouldn't gently drift off, as soon as you went six feet off the ground, you'd be like, "My God, this is brilliant." What Brachetti did was shoot up towards the proscenium arch before suddenly losing the power of flight The audience wept at his loss He didn't require 13,000 technicians. In fact, I'm sure magical "experts" would disapprove at the simplicity of his method But then, what's an expert? An ex is a has-been A spurt is a drip under pressure. Alan Shaxon President of the Magic Circle"I first saw Harry Blackstone Junior's Floating Light-bulb trick 10 years ago; 1,500 magical enthusiasts rose for a five-minute standing ovation You saw his wife, Gay, come on with a lit table lamp.
Blackstone would remove the bulb, which would stay alight in his hands. Then he released his fingers, as if he'd burnt them, and the bulb floated around. Harry would say something and the bulb would shoot off the stage, flying along the front row, inches from the audience's faces before returning into his hand. You could not beat the simplicity of the presentation, and there is something particularly touching, given the history of magic, that it was passed down from Harry's father, the great Blackstone, to his son, along with the rest of his show. Sadly, Harry died three years ago but Gay will be a guest at our centenary convention next week.
The secret rests with her." Professor Richard Wiseman Academic psychologist and magician. With Jeff McBride, he performs The Science of Magic at the Science Museum, in London, on 27-29 July"It's hard to beat the simple trick in which a magician brings someone on stage, sits them facing the audience, then makes a scrunched-up piece of paper vanish in front of their eyes [by throwing it over their head]. What's great is that the mechanics of what's happening are exposed to everyone in the room except the person on stage Paul Daniels does a brilliant version. To walk out like him and do a 45-minute show armed with little more than a set of paper napkins is brave. But my favourite trick is when there's no trick, pushing a skewer through an inflated balloon It works on physics. You simply need to know where to push, but because we don't understand science we see magic where none exists." Marvin Berglas Of Marvin's Magic, one of the world's biggest suppliers of magical props"My father, David, was a former president of the Magic Circle. Yet I remember being blown away the first time I saw Hans Moretti's Cardboard Box Sword act It was in Lyon, France, in 1976 I was about 16 or 17.
