He then visually compounded his view by showing film clips of great moments in films, sport and theatre where the performance commanded  excitement, anticipation, attention and focus that led to a personal emotional experience on the part of the viewer.. This included diverse subjects such as the lighting of the Olympic flame by an athlete firing a flaming arrow high into the air to ignite the opening of the world’s greatest sporting event. He showed how Michael Jackson burst on stage and stood motionless for over two minutes, boosting the audience frenzy prior to his performance.  Back in time we saw clips as to how silent film star Buster Keaton could provoke genuine emotion and anticipation without words being one of the world’s greatest silent clowns.

All this was sheer joy to me as for years I have asserted the value of presentation over secrets and Richard McDougall is a fine example of the value of this philosophy. His FISM prizewinning magic act embraces sleight of hand and mime that is pure theatre and lifts him above the crowd. And he has an act holding a large white goose; no cheeky boy cross talk but a wonderful solo script and acting with the bird that is sheer entertainment. I once saw Richard give a talk on stage movement and motivation to a magic convention in Paris some years ago that shook many out of their perpetual card juggling. Nowadays, as well as his magic he makes his living conducting seminars for corporate groups teaching them how to present and sell themselves and their products. Richard McDougall represents in Europe an overlooked magic theatre philosophy that could change the careers of many magicians much as Jeff McBride has done in the USA.

I don’t wish to muscle in on Richard’s work but his beliefs about presentation are echoed completely in my KISS lecture which perhaps accounts for my enthusiasm for his work. Make sure you catch Richard  who will be appearing at the IBM Eastbourne convention in three weeks time. 

KISS is a proven business strategy that got me magic bookings in Paris, Athens, Estoril, Marbella, Copenhagen, St. Petersburg, Istanbul, Morocco, Florida and Osaka.

If you’re an established, professional magician you don’t need this presentation. You know how to do it already. But if you’re an ambitious, middle-of-the-road performer who would like to have the know-how of not only selling yourself and generating consumer and market response, but how to create a programme of magic that will take the pressure off your performance and create a real, fee-earning, repeat booking wow factor – then this is for you!

For over twenty years I was Chief Executive of a successful advertising agency that won big business accounts from other larger agencies using a business strategy known as The KISS Principle. It’s a marketing acronym that means “Keep it Simple Stupid” and what I did was apply it to the business of selling magic. It works and it has taken me around the world.

Look at some of the valuable ideas revealed in this online presentation.

*The single factor that will make an immediate difference to you, your personality and your magic.

* The ingredient that ensures that you will be successful.

*How Dai Vernon used the KISS principle.

*Five practical ways of breaking into a banquet table.

*How to create a stress-free programme.

*The eleven words of Aldo Colombini that will put money in your bank account.

*How to uncover the real you.

*Does your magic pass the television test?

*The Jeff McBride guaranteed 24-hour attention grabber. 

The KISS principle is an in-your -face, 60 minute lecture/presentation that has been staged in the UK and overseas and is now available for the first time online. If you are the type of magician who truly believes that success is more about performance than secrets, then KISS will improve your magic.

This is the the big news that everyone has been asking me about for months. Don’t miss out.

Check out the purchase details on this page – now!

Or just click on The Kiss Principle in the panel on the right

You’ll never regret it!

Get a thumb tip and a 4 feet coloured silk streamer. Attach one end of the streamer into the tip then fold the silk inside and store it in your trousers pocket.

Carry it ALWAYS whenever you leave home.

When the challenge comes – stall and say “Okay, can I borrow a pencil and a gas cooker!” As no cooker is forthcoming, borrow a pencil taking the opportunity to get the tip onto your right thumb in your pocket as you search for the pencil.

Make a great play of touching different parts of the spectators with the pencil and then touching the palm of your left hand say “Can you see the tiny silk worm in the palm of my hand?” They look closely but see nothing. Ditch the thumb tip into the closed left fist by your favourite method, then with the tip of the pencil pull out the end of the silk streamer.

Then keep pulling out the streamer slowly making a pile of silk on the table or the spectator’s hand which after a time looks considerable and quite impossible. I’ve used this a lot and the impact of this apparently impromptu piece of visual magic is powerful and very memorable.

The great Polish magician, the late Silvano who was a great exponent of the thumb tip, always used to keep a tip on his person, even when he was sitting in bathing trunks beside a hotel swimming pool. When challenged he would stand up, pull up his trunks and go into action.

His name is Colin Rose. Trained as a designer and worker in fine silver jewelry and objets d’art, his hobby magic, led to him winning the The Magic Circle Young Magician of the Year which led to offers to become a professional magician. And so he devised together with Pat Page one of the first magic fire acts in the business “Fantasy in Flame” that went around the world for many years including a season with the great illusionist Richiardi Jnr. Jeff McBride openly admits to being influenced by his card manipulations.

With the increasing popularity of fire acts and safety restrictions he turned his creative skills to the manufacture of fine magic apparatus and set up a studio and workshop in the Midlands just a short hop outside Peterborough. Here for eleven years together with his wife Sharron (with her former career in property and finance,) they have made some of the finest apparatus worthy of the quality props that were produced in the days of Victorian magic.

The superb flash frame from playing card size up to portrait size that was featured by Silvan in Italy. Magnificent mahogany tip over boxes, both for the hand and for the stage beautifully crafted with superb dove tailed joints and a lustrous finish. A wooden chop cup that delivers as the final load a stack of coins. The original gimmick which he designed has been described as one of the finest pieces of magic technology in the last ten years. All these and more are produced in Colin’s workshop and nothing leaves until it passes his eagle eye and is die stamped with his unique Five of Hearts trademark. Anything not bearing this mark is a fake and not from the Rose workshop.

He makes illusions for touring  and cruise magicians where his long stage experience helps originate many new features. The Miser’s Dream? Not only did he replicate in modern materials the original Prof. Hoffman wand and split coin that worked like a dream, he now makes from an idea by Gaeton Bloom a slender pair of silver forceps for the magician to reach into space and produce a silver coin at the very tip. The coin is then quite openly and loudly dropped into a silver cup only for the magician to reach in the ether once more and produce more and more coins, You wouldn’t believe the technical simplicity of this beautiful piece of apparatus. A Colin Rose original.

His items are not cheap reflecting the many man hours that are crafted into each and every piece of apparatus that is now recognised and distributed throughout every continent in the world. He has a big demand from magic collectors anxious to possess beautiful replicas of the magic of yesteryear – ball vases, carved wands, production boxes and the like – all made in rare imported woods from Africa, the Americas and other parts of the globe.For the Magic Circle Centenary celebrations he made a ball vase in a rare wood that contained a full size ostrich egg that could be vanished and reproduced at will. It sold on sight.

Colin Rose does not mass produce and all his magic effects, both standards and originals are individually produced in his own workshop in an age that often dismisses the singular quality that was the highlight of the great magicians of the past. Today in our world of magic there are still performing magicians and collectors who fortunately treasure such excellence.

If you would like more information on Colin Rose, Master Craftsman of Magic you can contact him at www.FiveofHeartsMagic.com or +01775 840103

As I was working on the evening in question I only caught the first half of the show but did see Matthew’s presentation which was magical, fun and entertaining and did lift him above in my view of the other entrants. Many magicians did good magic, performed well but many were demonstrators of magic tricks. Matthew added real personality and engaged well with his audience and when you look at his background you can understand why.

After a series of creative jobs – photographer, art gallery owner etc he turned professional six years ago, sold his car and lived for a few months in Chicago and took lessons from Eugene Burger and also had contact with Jeff McBride. He’s gone to university to study special effects and puppetry at the Central School of Speech and Drama. He’s also worked in the hardest of performing theatres – busking in the streets.He deserves to make a break through having given total commitment to his pursuit of perfection and entertainment. How many of us really go for it?

It’s no coincidence that Romany also went to the U.S. to study performance with Jeff McBride and returned to the UK where she won the Magic Circle Stage Magician of The Year. This has led to a big boost in her career with a full engagement book at some of the best venues.

My very best wishes and good luck to Matthew for  his future career.

I recently enthused on this aspect about Geoffrey Durham’s new book – “Professional Secrets – A Life in Magic” which offers invaluable information about stagecraft. But at Blackpool I picked up another excellent booklet on presenting yourself called “Get Your Act Together” by Joanie Spina. Joanie Spina is a professional dancer and choreographer who has been the guiding talent behind many top professional magic performers including David Copperfield. To get some idea of the sheer artistry and theatre of her work check out her web site www.spinacreativeservices.com and see some video clips of magicians for whom she has worked.

 But the book that I picked up is packed with information you can’t buy in a magic shop – strengths, talent, staging an illusion, focus, choreography, dialogue, movement, music, vision and scores of other subjects on stagecraft that can be a real asset to the working magician wishing to give a professional performance.

I believe that Joanie Spina is associated with Jeff McBride and his unique school for magicians who has already shown excellent results for magicians attending. Lady magician Romany travelled to the USA to participate, changed some of her act as suggested by McBride, came back to Britain and won The Magic Circle Stage Magician of the Year Competition and has worked consistently since.

I just happened to find a single copy of this book lying on Bob Swadling’s stand but if your serious about improving your act you could check out Joanie Spina’s web site.