Group magic.

Vernon and the greats used it. Fred Kaps used it.Peter Warlock, Jack Avis, Francis Haxton and other names used it. And I’ve used it together with Alex Elmsley, Jack Avis, Lewis Jones, Bob Read and others. So what is group magic?

I’m not knocking the magic clubs, the conventions and celebrity lectures but to get to the real meat of magic free thinking and creativity you assemble a group of magic friends who you admire, are talented and with whom you can talk freely without inhibition. You meet in someone’s home say once every six weeks on an evening. You talk, show things, ideas, discuss dvds, other magicians, the latest magic items but you talk freely. Everyone has to show or discuss at least one item during the evening, It can be a trick, a move and even just an idea and everyone says truthfully what they think. Nobody takes offence – nobody is offended if someone says it’s not as good as so and so. It’s a very free discussion on your magic, the magic scene, anything and the criticism is not personal but genuine. And the presenter accepts the comment in good faith,

The results are outstanding. Just a little suggestion about the handling of a move, or an idea that takes a trick in another direction, or a recollection from something seen in the past. In Jack and Alex’s day some wonderful thinking came out of these group meetings that helped create outstanding magic.And I can personally testify to many genuine ideas that have made all the difference in my own presentations of a stage or close-up effect. Just someone seeing the idea from a different direction can make a world of difference.

There are really only two rules. Pick a group of six or seven magic friends whose work or thinking your really admire (and they of you) and be very open in your discussion and throwing out any ideas.

Whilst Jack and Alex and Bernard Weller, all former members of our group have passed on we currently have six like-minded magi, but each with different interests and skills. They are Lewis Jones, Tom Whitestone, Angelo Carbone. Michael Symes, Don Wyatt and myself.

And whilst we all enjoy magic club life we are all agreed that some real valuable, in-depth magic and ideas has resulted from these meetings that would not have been possible in the everyday social atmosphere of the average magic club. Noel Britten has said that you are not as good as you think you are and he’s right

I promise you, this is a really valuable concept that will improve your own magic. And it costs nothing but effort.

Firstly – I’ve been persuaded to record many memories and sometimes hitherto unknown facts and magic ideas about many of my colleagues of earlier days. Friends like Alex Elmsley, Jack Avis, John Ramsay, Cy Enfield, Al Koran, Hugh Scott and many others with whom I mixed over fifty years ago. In relating these tales it was pointed out that when I’m gone much of this intruiging information will be lost forever. Consequently I’m writing a series of 2,500 word essays  called “Yesterday” about these magicians many of whom fashioned some of the magic we treasure today. These will be available as a pdf downloaded from your computer, with the added bonus of a magic effect or item from the subject of the essay. The first of these will be Alex Elmsley and watch this site for details. If you love the romance of magic and magicians of the past, you’ll love this new series – “Yesterday”

Did you know for example Alex Elmsley’s nick name? Did any one ever tell you that Jack Avis, a most polite and modest man publicly stormed out of a convention in a rage? Did you know that Cy Endfield, a most creative man in all directions once made a chess set that fitted inside a magic wand? And off stage Al Koran stuttered very badly, struggling with words and screwing up his eyes as he tried to speak – there was a reason for this.These and many other interesting stories, magic ideas and tips will be the subject of this new series on this site, to be announced shortly.

And secondly – and I’m really excited about this. I’m shortly putting out an effect I’ve used that truthfully is a blinder. Not for the method necessarily (although it’s quite ingenious) but for the effect on an audience, particularly at a wedding reception. It’s called “Welded Bliss”. In one hand you show a ladies diamond wedding ring. In the other a gentleman’s gold signet ring. You speak about your own personal and successful marriage happiness and openly drop the two rings into a wine glass. Nothing in the hands. Continuing the dialogue you tip the rings into a spectator’s hands – and the two rings are seen to be permanently linked together. And everything can be examined. I’ve done this at weddings and cocktail receptions, sometimes dropping the rings into a half empty flute of champagne, drunk the champagne and then tipped out the joined rings. The audience impact has been amazing.

I’m just working out final details as to how I am going to distribute this but check this site for future announcement. That’s all for rhe moment. Play your cards right!

I’ll not go into a listing of the effects but just to say that what Guy added to his outstanding teechnique (performed in a slow, natural style a la Dai Vernon) was a brilliant playlet that told the story of the ubiquitous Erdnase whose book “The Expert at the Card Table” has defined card work around the world for over a century. Presented by Guy in full evening dress and setting with just a card table, some chairs, a desk with mirror, tumblers and other ephemera, he wove an intruiging tale of the legend of Erdnase interspersed with card deals, card routines and other effects including his amazing torn and restored card, in a manner like an unfolding plot by Raymond Chandler with an ending that had a  touch of Alfred Hitchcock.

It was sheer theatre and the packed, largely non-magic audience were clearly enthralled and the performance restored one’s faith in the belief that magic for the public should be an entertainment and not a demonstration of digital skill. For me Guy Hollingworth has crossed that line that separates the thousands of demonstrators from the true artistes of magic that in the present day can be counted on the fingers of two hands. Guy Hollingworth has added an extra finger.

In the audience was one who in my view is part of that select coterie – Richard McDougall. As we left the theatre together, it was he who uttered the single word that summed up the performance, Sublime! 

I published the outline of the workings of the box and the gimmick some years ago and a few magicians have asked me where they could get the gimmick made. Good metal workers who can handle magic props on a lathe are few but I believe I’ve found a technician in magic who is able to create the precision required to make this rather stunning and unique item that is so different from the run of close-up effects.

So if there are a number of  magi out there who are interested in this specialist item, I believe I could commission from him a small quantity to be exclusively made (he won’t make a number of this precision item) . If anyone is interested contact me early and if the number is right I would be prepared to commission this rather special magic item. It won’t be cheap, custom made precision work never is but you would be the owner of a very exclusive and  stunning classic of magic. 

But there is another long established magician /craftman whose pedigree goes way back to the days of Harry Stanley and Ken Brooke. Bob Swadling. With his lovely Oxfordshire accent and a brain and skilled hands that were trained at top level working in the aero/atomic industry that were turned to the craft of making outstanding magic props where quality and reliability were paramount. He was the man behind the scenes who made superb fake coins and other engineered items of magic for top professionals and the trade and on his retirement he created Swadling Magic, creators and manufacturers of original quality magic. I was reminded of all this at his excellent lecture at The Magic Circle earlier this week when once more I saw his amazing changing cards that literally change in mid air. (This is an outstanding item and he made me a special set some years ago whereby any card could be freely selected from a spread and shown to be the only card with a different coloured back. It’s quite brilliant)

But he showed a whole parade of brilliant thinking and craftsmanship, lovingly put together for those who value quality.From his Power Pack whereby a deck delivers timed coins into a tumbler, to his exquisitely made coin box, the stylish aluminium three shell game, torn and restored card that becomes whole in mid-are in a flash of fire and his visible coin through handkerchief where you actually see the coin  penetrate! Everything he makes looks terrific and works perfectly, the hallmark of Swadling magic. And look out for his shortly to be seen prize winning coin in the bottle whereby the coin is seen to penetrate in the side of the bottle!

And if you want to witness his ingenuity ask to see the Kristal Card Stab, designed by him for his daughter’s cabaret act where a dagger pushed through the side of a deck correctly stabs a selected card, seen on the blade as the deck drops away in a burst of flame. Great theatre and great magic. Bob and his wife Val (herself a magic competition prizewinner) are just off to to the U.S. for Christmas with their daughter but he’ll be at Blackpool so do yourself a favour and check out his outstandingly made magic. Or if you want a quick run down on his items, he produces  two DVD’s called “Magical Moments with Bob Swadling” – email:swadlingmagic@btinternet.com

Alex Elmsley – Gentleman genius.

An appreciation by John Derris

I knew him for over fifty years. Intellectually he was light years ahead of me but he was a genuine friend who shared his magic, his time and his thinking with great generosity. He spoke with an upper class accent and was quintessentially English although born in Scotland and bore a strong facial resemblance to the philosopher Bertrand Russell. Around the world he was acknowledged as one of the sharpest and most inventive brains in magic for the past fifty years.

In his retirement years he was seen occasionally at London magic gatherings, recognisable by his bushy eyebrows, check sports coat, carpet slippers and a large glass of whisky in his hand. Prominent magic visitors from overseas would often telephone me hesitatingly asking if there was any way they could privately meet this magic brain of Britain. An appeal that was usually delivered with solemn deference as if asking for an audience with the Pope. He was such a gentleman that he nearly always acceded to such requests.

His writings and his originality of method were quite unique. Widely praised by the great and the good, they filled two hard-backed volumes totalling nearly a thousand pages which are among the definitive works on magic. It would be true to say that every magician who sports a pack of cards has used one of his unique sleights, in particular the cunning ploy he devised for openly counting four cards but only displaying three, a vital card being concealed.

Alex burst onto the magic scene in the 1950’s and dazzled everyone with his inventiveness. Not just devising a few good tricks but scores of them, involving new sleights and new plots that have achieved status as modern classics. Talk to any card aficionado and he will instantly recognise Elmsley gems – Between your Palms, Point of Departure, Diamond cut Diamond, En Voyage, Brainweave, The Four Card Trick and many others that take their place alongside card classics of yesteryear like Everywhere and Nowhere, The Ladies Looking Glass and The Danbury Deviler.

In ten prodigious years between 1949 and 1959 over seventy original Elmsley tricks and sleights appeared in print: few magicians achieve that kind of output in a lifetime. His skill and fame attracted the greats from the USA and many names sought sessions with him in London – Dai Vernon, Paul Le Paul, Slydini, Persi Diconis and many others who openly admitted to having been fooled.

His first magic lecture was delivered at the I.B.M. British Ring Convention, Scarborough in 1957 under the title “Low Cunning”, the lecture notes of which are now a collector’s item. Later he presented a similar lecture in Chicago followed by other US city lectures where he had further sessions with Dai Vernon, Ed Marlo and Charlie Miller. They were an outstanding success and are still talked about today.

Born in St. Andrews, Scotland, the son of a naval officer, it was during a period of convalescence following an operation for appendicitis that he became interested in – juggling! A search for juggling equipment led him to magic which quickly deposed the art of tossing balls in the air. His father died in 1937 and with little money during the war his mind turned to sleight of hand and manipulations, a skill fostered by his original interest in juggling.

Later he started developing his own tricks and presentations and soon his unique perception and inventiveness became noted by other magi. His intellectual mind and sharp brain eventually led him to be educated at Eton and following a period of two years National Service in the Army, he entered Kings College University, Cambridge, graduating with a BA degree in mathematics and physics. During this time he became a leading light in The Pentacle Club, a magic society within the university. Following his graduation he moved to London and acquired a position with a Patent agency. This location brought him into close involvement with the London magic scene when he started his prodigious period of invention and contributing his ideas to magazines.

Then in the 1960’s – he suddenly disappeared from magic.

Science fiction and the launch of computer technology supplanted his interest in magic and he was hired by a leading British computer company, travelling the world as an international lecturer in computer languages. He still kept brief contact with close magic friends like Jack Avis, Peter Warlock and Francis Haxton and he experienced a fresh interest in magic in 1972 when his work was recognized with a Creative Fellowship from The Academy of Magic Arts in Hollywood. This led to more articles for magic magazines and a new lecture which had its début in London and Monte Carlo and then on to the USA.; it was a brilliant sell-out everywhere he went.

Then in 1975 following his highly successful lecture tour – he disappeared from magic for a second time.

He cited no dramatic reason for this sudden withdrawal but with his constant travels to computer clients all over the world, plus the need to look after his widowed and now blind mother living in London, and his passion for science fiction, he said that his mind was fully occupied. Thankfully, renewed and widespread magic interest was re-awakened in 1991 with the publication of the first volume of of The Collected Works of Alex Elmsley, a magnificent book written by American author Stephen Minch and published by Louis Falanga of L & L Publishing. Stephen Minch should be thanked by every practising magician for his gargantuan task of tracing and assembling the work of Alex Elmsley, who granted permission to publish but said that he did not wish to be involved in the actual writing but passed on Xerox copies of some of his notes.

Minch went on the international detective trail with the help of many names formerly associated with Alex – Jack Avis, Roy Walton, Gordon Bruce, Milt Kort, Ron Bauer, Dr. Gene Matsuura and many others, who all gave time and contributions in helping to compile one of the greatest books ever published on the unique work of one man. The Collected Works of Alex Elmsley was followed in 1994 with a second 500 page volume containing a further 110 original Elmsley tricks and sleights including his acknowledged card masterpiece The Dazzle Act. The two volumes are rightly deemed to be classics and thousands of copies are to be found on the bookshelves of serious magicians around the world. This was later followed by the highly successful launch of four video tapes, recorded and issued by Louis Falanga and showing Elmsley performing and explaining many of his famed moves and routines. Thankfully, magic now has a permanent, visual record of the work of this outstanding magician.

On retiring he lived a recluse existence in a basement flat in Chelsea affectionately named by his close friends as “Wuthering Depths”. He loved the company of fellow magicians and one could see a visible change in him with his occasional rises to the magic surface prompted by his friends of many years. His mother and brother having passed on his only nearby living relative at that time was a nephew in Shepherds Bush. He spent his time reading detective novels, writing poetry, smoking too many cigarettes and was occasionally given a jump start into magic by friends proving that the dormant but still effective adrenaline was still there The fire was not blazing but the embers were always smouldering.

He was perhaps a too close a companion of the amber nectar of Scotland which he courted for many years, largely to quell his lifelong torment of clinical depression. Like Winston Churchill he too referred to this as his “Black Dog”. He was aware of the situation but strived to achieve a balance between his health and his lifestyle. He was utterly polite, English to the core with all the courtesies and elegance of his middle class upbringing. He was a magic gentleman and it was my privilege to have enjoyed his friendship for over fifty years. Anyone who shuffles a pack of cards should offer grateful thanks to Alex Elmsley for all that he so freely gave to the wide world of magic.

At the time of one of my telephone calls to him to advise of the next meeting of our coterie of conjurers I received no reply. The same happened on the following two days. I telephoned his hospital who contacted the police; they broke into his flat and found him lying dead on the floor. An autopsy revealed that he had died of cancer, a condition about which none of us had any inkling as at no time had he given any verbal or physical indication of his illness. An example surely of the stiff upper lip stoicism inherent in his middle class background.

We contacted his nieces and nephews living in Ireland and invited them as special guests to a tribute evening to Alex at The Magic Circle at which we showed film clips of him together with some of the country’s leading magicians performing his outstanding magic. With tears in their eyes they revealed that he had never told them of his world status and achievements in magic; they said he occasionally did a couple of simple tricks with cards and coins for their children. A revelation to the world of the true measure of one of magic’s greatest and most modest of people. Finally they told that as a youngster he was nicknamed “Bonzo” a name that stayed with him in his family circle throughout his life.

But in magic, somehow The Bonzo Count doesn’t sound quite the same

I am not a Punch and Judy man and was in the middle of Spain but I sat down and composed the following essay based on my inherent knowledge and common sense. Several workers have subsequently asked to have this as a reply to similar complaints which in many cases has resulted in the objection being withdrawn. For the common good I am happy to publish the essay again.

Punch and Judy are no Bonnie and Clyde

Punch and Judy is a 300 year-old theatrical, Italian fairy tale that depicts the light and shade of life that has entertained millions of children for three centuries without psychological harm or terror. In concert with all classic stories for the young it concludes with the triumph of good over evil when Punch is apprehended by the law.

That said, there is scant difference between the scenario of this quaint piece of children’s theatre, with its garish, colourful, wooden characters and squawking voices to the range of experiences described in classic, traditional tales for children like Grimm’s fairy tales, Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Rumpelstiltskin, The Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and many other stories All contain elements of villainy and heroism but children remain impervious to alleged psychological damage for such stories seek to show the highs and lows of life and all pointing the way to a moral conclusion.

If you compare these time-tested tales to the highly visual and audible children’s video games sold in millions as entertainment, that portray high speed violence against property and persons, it is not difficult to consider that acts of vandalism and crime by young people are more inspired by these contemporary blueprints than by the portrayal of a wooden figure, knocking his partner on the head with a stick, in the way that circus clowns right down to Laurel and Hardy have done for years.

Punch and Judy is pure, simple theatre based on a formula that is the basic ingredient of Opera or Shakespeare where the vagaries of life are presented in a way that entertains as well as moralises. Punch and Judy are no Bonnie and Clyde and in the current climate of gratuitous violence for the old and the young, they depict nothing more than an individuals misfortune – the man slipping on a banana skin, that has been the basis of comedy since Roman times.

John Derris – November 1999

But in this new production there is an excellent vanish of the lead singer covered by an umbrella of boa fans of the chorus line with only her hand projecting through the feathers Excellent and caught everybody including me off guard. And another instantaneous change of a male dancer for a girl covered by a swirl of smoke as he rotated in a dance routine. Beautifully done with real artistry. I don’t know if there was a magic consultant behind these incidental effects but the whole production has some excellent and imaginative presentation ideas that make this a top show that’s playing until 10th January.

Former legal director of the Daily Express, the newspaper has challenged him to predict the headlines of a forthcoming news item which will ensure the presence of one of Britain’s leading broadsheets. This show is the first night of a London tour and all proceeds go to the Head & Neck Cancer Trust. For tickets call 020 7226 1916. The King’s Head,115 Upper Street, Islington, N1 1QN.