These Club nights appear to be very popular, over 30 members met and, after the usual notices and exchanging of news, the meeting became a member?s own night, sat at tables enjoying each other?s company whist also enjoying a tea or a coffee. At these types of evenings we find members bringing ideas, tricks, conversation, and a real feel of enjoyment to magic meetings. Help, advice and tricks from Paul Gordon, who had at least 10 people sat around a table, asking questions and watching his skills, enthralled many members. Others sat talking over their own ideas and in some cases fears on performing or just working out tricks and their handling of them.
We see a great deal of magic on these evenings but more importantly a sense of everyone adding to the night. As a club we need to be more interactive as individuals and it was lovely to see this in action on Thursday.
A special warm vote of thanks to Pat and Bob who have been particularly unwell and who both, without hesitation, changed their normal format to meet ours on the night. Bring on more nights like these.
MW
Dinner 2004
Saturday, March 13th White Hart Hotel, High Street, Lewes. 7.00pm for 7.30pm.
Put it in your diary, a great night of food, music, awards and magical cabaret. Tickets this year are available from Mark Worgan and cost ?29.
Cheques should be made payable to The Sussex Magic Circle and if early indications are anything to go by, we should have hopefully around 70 in attendance.
The cabaret this year is Richard MacDougall. Richard is World Open Champion for Close Up Magic, Award winning Stage Magician at FISM the Olympics of Magic). He has performed for HM The Queen, on two occassions for HRH The Prince of Wales including his 50th birthday at Highgrove, Paul McCartney and at the wedding of Sting. He was also a creative consultant on the Derren Brown Mind Control TV Special, which won the Silver Rose of Montreux.
Don?t miss the night. Any questions call Mark On 01273 401841
Presentation Counts
Mark Worgan hosted this meeting, which was held on 19th February about presentation, aided by many of the members who were present. He started off, naturally, with entertaining children - we discussed ?the devil child?, the importance of making eye contact and ?the look?.
Chris Nicholls showed us that your entrance should match your personality, and showed us how a look around the audience can get attention.
We also talked about ?feeling? your audience and knowing your tricks so that they can be performed naturally and with confidence - timing + practice + personality = a good performance.
With Paul Leacy we went through introductions, walk-ons and microphone technique - with more to follow at a later date I hope!
Giles Cartwright helped us discuss a walk on part and gave us a magical interpretation of Jabberwocky.
After the break, Jonathan Cann gave some helpful tips such as, arriving at the venue early to see if there are any unforeseen problems and talked about ways in which good stagecraft can be used to include all your audience. He also spoke about angles when performing in different venues. He also told us that his 3 main guidelines are, be seen, be heard and be safe.
Mark Worgan continued by drawing on his corporate experience and talked about voice, body language and patter. He also gave out useful handouts.
Paul Gordon gave everyone invaluable table hopping tips - these included approaching the table with a clear route and further emphasised the use of eye contact especially with the person furthest away. Paul also mentioned the importance of personal hygiene. He gave us some anecdotes including one about being at the right venue with the right audience.
By the end of the evening, we were discussing difficult spectators and it was obvious that this topic of presentation, body language and voice must be discussed in the new season as it is of huge interest to all members.
It was a fascinating evening on a huge subject and we still haven?t discussed hecklers, stage fright and personal appearance. We all enjoyed and benefited from the evening and eagerly await the next meeting.
As you all can see, I cannot sum up the evening in just one line!
GB
52nd Annual Blackpool Magicians? Convention
The Blackpool Convention commenced on Friday 20th February. It consisted of ten top class lecturers, including the likes of Franz Harary, Rene Lavand, Henry Evans, Billy McComb and Boris Wild, all of which were of the highest quality, and much was learnt. The Convention also featured three highly entertaining evening shows including the Best of British Command Performance, which featured sixteen of Britain?s finest magicians. The weekend concluded with the International Gala Show. There were fourteen performers including Joe Pasquale, Ken Dodd and Franz Harary. The weekend also contained close-up sessions and over 100 international dealers. The event was organised to a fantastic standard and I couldn?t fault the weekend in any way. I would strongly recommend future Blackpool Conventions to anyone. SH
