the griffin - the north wales magic...

Cylchlythyr Hud Gogledd Cymru

The North Wales Magic Circular

The

Griffin Vol. 74 No. 8 June 2017

Free to Members

MAGIC OF THE MIND

STEP INSIDE THE EYE OF YOUR MIND

LET THERE BE LIGHT

NEWS - REVIEWS - MORE

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3 From the Lectern

Thoughts you never wanted in a way you never wanted them.

4 Hail to the Chief(s) A monthly address from the birthday boy

5 Magic News What’s new in the world of magic and mystery.

7 The Mental Magic Competition

In This Issue Vol 74 No 8

13 Review ID7 reviewed by Chris O’Brien..

15 Magic at Ruthin Castle A familiar face performs for the Probus

17 Let There Be Light Professional advice on theatre lighting

22 Podcast of the Month The Kids Entertainer Podcast

23 The Next Meeting A very special lecture, Shoot Ogawa is coming at last.

24 Diary Keep up to date on what’s happening in your society and others.

This Month’s Member Contributors (in no particular order);

Jay Gatling Chris O’Brien Chris Baglin Bob Scott External Contributors;

Neil Rose The Griffin is kept going by your contributions, thank you.

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From the Lectern

Tinkety-tonk, Old Fruits, I am very excited this month to

be able to present something a little different. When I went to University to read Drama there was a man in my year who was the go-to guy for anything tech-nical. In my first year he handled the teched Rosencrantz and Guil-denstern are Dead and didn’t seem to stop for three years. It came as no surprise that Neil went on to a successful career as a the-atre technician both home and abroad. We as magicians may not know much about lights and sound (I know my own knowledge I lacking) yet they can enhance a performance or act im-measurably. So when I sought out advice where did I go? Neil’s col-umn will run for the next few is-

sues exclusively in the Griffin!

When did it become okay to heckle? I was taken by this at as I was waiting my turn at the recent competition. I was watching as fellow performer was indulging in badinage with interruptions from the front row, it was clearly fine for him and he was used to spar-ring with the public, and Old Thunderlungs here just steamrolls over interruptions. But for the less robust performer, already nervous about their performance, this could be enough to put them off their stride. Okay you may say the realities of performing are such that you might need to deal with worse than this from drunks and idiots, but I would argue that the Circle should perhaps be a safe environment, an exception to the rule (especially during a competi-tion). After all, our fellow magi-cians are a nerve-wracking audi-ence at the best of times, if they’re going to mess with your pacing, you might a shortage of competitors in future. I’ll leave it with you.

I remain Your Faithful Servant

Prof. Llusern Pp.

Chris Baglin Et Salve ad Iasonem Isaacs

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Hail to the Chief(s)

reetings one and all.

Yet another bank holiday has passed with more magic per-formed by many of our members at lots of different events around the country. It’s great to see that we have such talent in our ranks and such fine entertainers too.

This of course was seen last month in our mentalism competi-tion, with several great acts. Chris Baglin, Chris O’Brien, Paul Hughes and I all took part. More will undoubtedly be said further on in this very issue, but on my part it’s always great to see our members taking part in these competitions and supporting the club. If you were inspired by last months comp and fancy flexing you own magic muscles then don’t forget our stage comp is coming up later in the year. It’s a great opportunity to try out new

material or even just gain experi-ence performing in front of a crowd. Trust me, if you can per-form in front of a bunch of magi-cians, you can perform in front of any one.

There’s still plenty coming up this year at the club. Remember to pick up your tickets for the dinner in November as it’s going to be an epic night. And coming up next month a lecture I’m really looking forward to…Shoot Oga-wa is coming to North Wales. I’m sure you’re just as excited about this as I am so I hope to see a great turn out for July.

And finally a shameless promo on my part. If you’re looking for something to do at the end of June then we’ve got you covered. On the 24th and 25th Conwy town is being taken over for The Tourna-ment a massive medieval event. I’ll be in attendance as the official Wizard, but don’t let that put you off, as there will tons to see and do. Sword fighting, jousting, a medieval market and much much more.

And that’s all for now, but as always come on down to this year’s meetings as much as you can, catch up with friends, learn something cool and of course have fun. We’ll see you there.

G

Allons-y

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Magic News

Our Circle News

Mental Magic Competition 2017

We have had our mental magic competition and you will find more on that in the dedicated sec-tion later on. If you weren’t there you’ll have no spoilers here! Suf-fice to say everyone had a crack-ing time.

Balloons - a reminder

NWMC member Mike Harris has very kindly offered to provide fellow members with modelling balloons (Qualatex) at cost price.

Qualatex 160q 100ct £4.30 + vat





Mike runs For Every Occasion Balloon Artists and can be con-tacted over Facebook or on 01745334299. He orders every Tuesday and deliveries are usual-ly received on a Thursday.

The Annual Dinner Dance and

Cabaret

Tickets are still available!

Debbie writes “A fantastic line up. Tickets £35 for a lovely three course meal and three fantastic acts. 6.30 for 7pm seated on Sat-urday 25th November

If you are unable to join until later, limited show only tickets £20 you must arrive by 8.30pm in the main bar and be able to join the evening entertainment by 8.30pm - 9pm when the show will

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Magic News

start. Please email me your re-quirements

[email protected]

Very reasonable room rates at the Springfield Hotel”

The Wider Circle

BGT

We have seen the future and her

name is Issy Simpson. Regardless of what your opinion of her act is or what side of the debate you come down on., the fact that mag-ic and a young magician has been at the forefront of Saturday night entertainment cannot be a bad thing. It is worth catching up on her interesting performances some aspects of which are very modern and others harken back to Jean-Eugene Robert Houdin. Goes to show there’s no such thing as an old ide

a, just good ideas and bad ideas.

Trix in the Stix

The Editor was there and a fan-tastic time was had. I have not laughed so much in a very long time. The highlights were a 17 year old magician called Max Fulham (watch out for that name in the future) Rafael from Bel-gium and Tom Scott from the USA. I was going to do a write up but the fantastic folk over at Mag-ic Daily have already done a cracking job. So read theirs here http://tinyurl.com/nwmcgriffin748 .

All items are accurate at the time of going to

press. We try our best but sometimes mis-

takes will creep in, please bear with us.

Please address any complaints to British

Airways, London N1

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The Mental Magic

Competition

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Here is a precis of what hap-pened on the night of our annual Mental Magic Competition, being a report rather than a catalogue

you may forgive me the odd omis-sion and occasional flourish.

Four cards came up and stood before the assembled faithful. Four Knaves looking to be King. One at a time the dream-sellers opened their bundles of rags and reminders and laid their wares upon the ground. Here are our children, they seemed to say, here are our darlings; be kind.

The first to face the music was, by happy chance, one half of our president, that is Jay Gatling. Jay possesses a calm self-assurance that is impressive in performance. This was useful as he seemed to suffer from an unusual amount of

heckling from his fellow magi-cians who should, perhaps, know better. (See From the Lectern page 3 for a strong opinion piece on this). Jay sparred back but got on with his effects with a not quite and ACAAN where a whole deck was divided and divided and divided again only for the correct card to be divined by Jay. This is a very visual effect, and works well from a spectator standpoint with all those cards being effec-tively thrown away, until only one remains.

Jay followed this up a series of effects, notable amongst these was a mind reading effect where he divined the name of a close individual from the mind of Jade (who is swiftly becoming a pro-fessional audience member). This was achieved well with an almost offhand delivery of the final reve-

Mental Magic Competition

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lation which sat well with his self-depreciating style. He finished his set with a variation on the In-visible Finale, a variation which allowed the spectator to reveal the turned down card. And I am still scratching my head as to how it was accomplished!

Second on the docket was Paul Hughes made us laugh with his dry, self-deprecating humour. He opened with a think of an object which went well and we also saw a split and shuffled deck and some mathematical magic of the kind that is always beyond me to

recall! Paul is an honest and open performer, and the audience re-spond well to that. When things went occasionally awry the audi-ence were kind in their support in reaction to his warm personality. His back and to with Marc was remarkable and overall a valiant effort.

Next up was Chris O’Brien who elected to theme his act to-gether with a story. Chris told us all about his dream which began in the circus big top but, as dreams often do, ended up on a very circuitous journey which

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even touched on Doctor Who along the way (this was sure to get Jay’s approval). What comes back with Chris’ performance is, as ever, not the effects them-selves, but rather the stories that hold them together. Chris’ style is methodical and avuncular, not showy. He can put an audience at their ease in a few moments and keep them there almost indefi-nitely.

I cannot comment on my own performance so at this point I hand over to the other president, Sarah Gatling;

Professor Llusern began by ex-

plaining that in the course of his studies he had come across some unusual results. He believed that in prophecy, the ancients had a skill has been lost to us today. Terry was chosen to assist in an effect using playing cards. The professor explained that cards were difficult to predict as there were so many possible outcomes. But despite the odds being against him, he successfully pre-dicted the outcome.

Bob was the next to help, bring-ing with him an envelope that he had had in his possession for sev-eral weeks. Mark brought a copy

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of that days' newspaper. On opening the envelope, it con-tained a prediction of several items from the newspaper, in-cluding "cricket win in Europe" and "Wrexham lose 9".

For the following experiment the Professor told us about his favourite film, "Night of the De-mon". From his brief description of one scene, Jade was able to successfully give the correct house number, 42!

For the finale James chose a song from a large selection and was asked to picture it in his head. After looking at a number

of items of clothing, and a selec-tion of musical instruments, the Professor settled on a brightly coloured string of flowers and a ukulele, and to the amazement of all began to strum the opening of "Somewhere over the Rainbow", which was of course the song that James had been thinking of!

It was a very close-run compe-tition by all accounts with yours truly only just pipping my com-petitors to the post. This means that I will have my name a sec-ond time upon the chalice, and now we can all relax for another year. Or until the next competi-tion at least!

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Advert

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Everlast by Rafael D'Angelo and Mazentic

I am going to start by quoting the sales blurb for "Everlast” a ring for mentalism that I bought on pre-release at a discount price and is the first magic item I have ever sent back and sent back de-spite having a collection of dubi-ous purchases made over the years. I will tell you why I did so at the end of this review but I have already heard that a number of other people are hacked off with this ring.

Mentalism writers such as boon, swami and other types have al-ways been plagued with the prob-lem of refilling the gim-micks. Everlast is the world's first

swami writer that never needs to be refilled. EVER.

Everlast has been surrepti-tiously designed to hide in plain sight on an unassuming finger ring. Everlast is made from a special soft metal and, since its development 7 years ago, we're still using it. Be-cause of its form factor, it's extremely low profile, hidden in plain sight and never needs to be loaded or ditched. It re-quires no special paper, and writes exactly like a pencil on most common paper types. Predictions, revelations, and spirit writing are just the beginning of the thousands of types of uses for Everlast.

• Never runs out of ink or lead

• Hidden in plain sight • Always ready to perform • Writes on most common pa-

per surfaces • Organic/low profile swami

writer • Never have to ditch any-

thing • Not erasable, great for reve-

lations Now you can have a writer that lasts a lifetime with Everlast.

Everlast: Review

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Review (continued)

Okay, first let me say that the quality of the ring I received was less than I would expect to find if I had paid £1 for it, including postage from China. If you do de-cide to try one on your thumb it needs to be worn very close to the tip of the thumb to use, and to keep it in that position is not prac-tical, so moving it to a more nor-mal position is needed which could be a problem unless your thumb is the same size around for its full length

Secondly, I must admit I do know of people that have received a somewhat better quality item and are able to use it - after fitting it out with a ring reducing insert and sticky tape! When I say better

quality, I mean the inside was smother than mine and did not scratch the thumb. They tell me that if you can make the ring sta-ble on the thumb it works as de-scribed. So, if you want a pencil like writer that cannot be erased this may be what you are looking for, but I doubt it! I am giving this 1 star and that is only because the idea is good, but to my mind the everlasting bit would have been better if it had been fitted to a TT. I expect this will be returned on mass and discounted soon, or bet-ter still withdrawn from sale.

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Magical Lunch at a Historic Castle

Recently our Treasurer Bob Scott donned one of his other 'hats' as

Secretary of the Rhyl Probus Club, a lunch club for retired

PROfessional and BUSiness peo-ple from the area, to organise a special lunch at Ruthin Castle.

The very tasty fine dining spe-cial lunch was magically turned into a truly memorable experi-ence for the diners when they were surprised by the entrance of the Ruthin Castle resident court Jester, none other than our very own Steve Ashcroft. The Probus Club members were repeatedly

enthralled by the Jester's infec-tious and enthusiastic magical entertainment between each course culminating with a pro-longed session after coffee which was very well received indeed.

Steve captivated his audience…

with great acclamation.

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Rhyl Probus Club Special Report

I was delighted that Steve had chosen this occasion to introduce the very first public performance of his 'Medieval Rhyming Story' to illustrate and empathise with the historic effect of the Egyptian cups and balls which in true jester style Steve captivated his audi-ence to receive a very appreciated acknowledgement of this 'first rendering' with great acclamation.

This exceptional Probus Club special lunch had yet another 'highlight' when the Court Jester gave a conducted tour of the cas-tle, parts of which were built in the 16th to 18th centuries. The tour ending in the very oldest part of the castle, the presence room prior to entering into the medie-val banqueting hall itself.

Steve explained the formalities of a banquet with the Baron and Baroness chosen with acclama-tion from that evenings guests, the singing Ladies of the court, the harpist and the harpsicord player, the very special décor and of course the magic of the court Jester. Steve said that the best way to get the most from the ex-perience, guests were encouraged to hire costumes of the period, come in a group as big as possi-ble, sample (nay indulge) in the mead and wine to loosen the inhi-

bitions and enjoy the food offered by the serving wenches in the tra-ditional way of using just a dag-ger and your fingers.

Needless to say, the Rhyl Pro-bus Club were greatly indebted to Steve for making such an enjoya-ble visit. Mutterings were heard to encourage the day's organiser to find some/any way to gather a group for a medieval banquet to sample that which Steve had so very ably and infectiously de-scribed.

Bob Scott - Secretary

Let There Be

Light

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The Griffin is lucky to welcome a guest spot from professional

theatre technician Neil Rose. Neil has some advice to improve our chances of a fantastic looking

show in a venue with the use of some clever lighting.

Taking an act into a venue can be tricky thing. You might be greeted by barrage of questions you don't understand, let alone know the answer to, as soon as you walk through the door. Or you might have everything for your show sorted within ½ an hour of arrival, and be relaxing in you dressing room for a couple of hours. Every venue is different, just as every show will be differ-ent. Sometimes everything will go your way, other times, nothing will seem to go right, but the main thing is to try not to let this affect the show you give to the paying customers.

My advice is to start with the 5 P's - Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance, and K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid.

So you have your show, you know how it works, you've creat-ed your best work, but you're not quite sure how to translate that into a theatre show, well that's where the 2nd acronym comes in

– K.I.S.S. Ultimately you want your audience to see you, and to hear you. The venues you go to will most likely have sound and lighting systems installed that should be suited for the venue. Trust that the venue staff know how to use their equipment, and can best advise you on what will be best for your show. If in doubt, talk to them, ask their opinion. They know their venue better than you, as they work there more than you do.

For your audience to see you, you'll need some light on stage, and (if the venue is large) a mi-crophone might be needed so the audience can hear you. Lighting terms you will encounter are: 'General wash', 'Special', 'Spotlight', 'Front light', Back light' 'Moving light' 'LED'. Sound terms you might come across 'radiomic', 'SM58', 'Active', 'Passive', 'Monitor', 'Wedge', 'Foldback', 'Shure', 'Sennheiser'.

Knowing what to ask for isn't as complicated as you might think. To begin with all you really need for lighting is a full stage open white general wash. Your audi-ence should be able to see you, and any venue should be able to provide this. This (in my opinion) should be the basis of your show.

Technical Pointers - Lighting

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You will be able to move around the stage, and everyone should be able to see you. After all, they are paying to see you perform, not paying for an extravagant light show. As you start to become more familiar with your show, and how it works in a perfor-mance setting, you can (if you wish) start to get more creative with lighting. Colour can add mood, emotion, build tension, or add specific effects. Please bear in mind that every venue has dif-ferent lighting equipment, and in different positions. So what worked brilliantly last night, might not work as well today. My advice for your first few shows is to concentrate on delivering your act to your audience, keep the lighting simple, until you get a feel for what works, or what doesn't. Once you are confident with your own performance, then you can start to embellish with lighting effects if you wish.

Colour can add to the mood or feel of a particular part of your

act – blue can be sad, or slow, red can be angry or passionate. Pur-ple can be mysterious or romantic (depending on the shade of pur-ple!) If there are specific points in your act, that you feel may bene-fit from a bit of colour, then make sure you provide a clear cue sheet, with a clear tell-tale that the moment is coming up. For example – 'when I start talking about my mother, change the lighting to blue please', or 'once the applause has finished after I've revealed the rabbit, change the colour to red'. In your cue sheet, rather than detailing lots of specific moments, you would list the colours of washes you re-quire. A lot of riders for music acts I used to work from would ask for; 'A 4 colour wash, red, blue, amber, and green.' What I used to deliver would be split these into front light (face light) and back light (separates per-formers from the backdrop, adds a bit of depth to them.) So I


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would provide a red wash (front and back light), a blue wash (front and back light) and Amber wash (front and back light) and a Green backlight wash, with an open white front light wash. Lighting people in green from the front I always found to be a bad idea, unless you are going for a panto villain dramatic effect.

If you have specific areas you stand on the stage to deliver a routine, you may wish to consider asking for a spotlight or 'special'. These are pools of light, focused

on specific areas on the stage which will be fixed to one point. Specials can have a fuzzy edge (soft focus), or a well defined edge (hard focus). My own pref-erence is for soft focused spe-cials, as I feel these are more sub-tle than a hard edged spot. Spe-cials will however tie you to one fixed point on stage, and if you use them, it's worth asking for a mark to be put down on the stage floor, so you can get to the same point every time. There is nothing worse that a performer being lit from the neck down because they are standing too far back, or from the chest up with the hands in darkness as they are too far for-ward, as they didn't hit their mark (or didn't ask for one).

Followspots follow the same principal as spotlights or specials, except that they are able to move around the stage, and as the name suggests, they follow the per-former around. They have a hu-man operator who's job it is to follow you around on stage, and make sure you are lit. Terms you may hear are fairly self explana-tory and denote how much of the performers body to illuminate – 'full body', '¾ body', 'half body', 'head and shoulders', 'headshot/pinspot'. These, like the special,


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can be hard focused or soft fo-cused. Colour can be added to the followspot, but keeping them open white is often simpler. If I'm giving followspot operators their cues, I will often ask for soft focused ¾ body spots. The soft edge is a bit more forgiving for the operator, and the ¾ body shouldn't illuminate too much other than the performer. It's worth mentioning here that Fol-lowspots are quite often availa-ble in theatres, but as these re-quire an operator, there will be

additional labour costs involved, so you couldn't just turn up on the day and ask for a followspot, as there wont be a member of staff available to operate one! This is the sort of thing that gets decided at contract stage in your rider (more about that later!)

Neil Rose

To be continued in next month’s Griffin

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Podcast of the month

The Kids Entertainer Podcast What is it? The follow up to Magicians’

Business Podcast

A podcast by kid’s entertain-ers for kid’s entertainers.

Why you should listen:

If you’re a children’s enter-tainer you should already be listening to this valuable re-source.

Entertainers from all fields and all over the globe.

Magicians, Balloon Model-lers, Games leaders and More.

It covers everything from show building to marketing .

What are the downsides?

They do have a product to sell in the form of the Kids Enter-tainer Academy but the shil-ling is usually out of the way at the beginning.

Number of Episodes?

78 so far and still going

Highlights so far?

Working with children with special needs.

Tips for performing in hospi-tals

How can I find it?

It is on iTunes or at the Kids Entertainer Hub website

http://kidsentertainerhub.com/category/podcast/ Heard a podcast you like? Let the

Griffin know at [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]?subject=Podcast%20of%20the%20Month

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Our Next Meeting

The

Griffin

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Next Issue

6th June: Summer Social

4th July: Lecture – Shoot Ogawa

1st August: Stage / Cabaret Competition

5th September: Lecture TBC

3rd October: President’s Night

31st October: Halloween Séance

at the Hen Llys

7th November: AGM

25th November: The Annual Dinner Dance and Cabaret

The Summer Social

Guest Feature

Podcast of the Month

More reviews

More on Tarbell

Forthcoming Meetings

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