What Happened at the Meeting on Friday 17th July 2026

The theme of the night was "Impromptu & Everyday Objects" hosted by Steve Irwin.

Al commenced with a classic. He shows a 10 cent piece, a salt shaker and a serviette. Try as he might, he cannot make the coin go through the table by covering it with the shaker and the serviette. After a few tries, he crushes the serviette and sure enough the salt shaker has gone straight through the table instead! Short and sweet but very effective. I first saw this trick taught in the Klutz book of magic.

Joel started off with just two cards, a five and a nine. He gives them both to Steve Irwin who holds them between his hands. Now Joel removes just the nine and Steve notes that he can still feel a single card. When it is revealed, however, it is just a blank card and there is no more sign of the five or the nine. Flowing on from this, Neil initials a blank card with a sharpie and holds onto it, hidden, while Joel initials one from a deck of blank cards. Moments later, the initials completely disappear from Joel's card and Neil reveals that both are now written on the card that was held in his hand the whole time!

Noel was next, performing a very deft coin sleight whereby the coin disappears from the grasp of his hand and appears on the top of his palm. This was followed by the classic disappearing coin appearing from an ear. There are coins everywhere it seems, even above the door! Sticking with the everyday objects theme, Noel tells a story about a chicken that was adopted, went for a walk and was hit by a bus. Now flat and demonstrated with a hand towel, he picks/rolls it up and reveals that after a visit to the hospital, not all is lost... at least a roast chicken is still possible.

Steve Irwin had four free choices drawn on pieces of notebook paper by Joel, Raquel, Noel and Al. These were all folded up and handed back before Steve proceeded to put Dianne in a trance. He then opens up each piece one by one and after a false start or two, Dianne was able to divine correctly who drew which image. Some additional impromptu mentalism was demonstrated when Steve used his mind alone to convincingly bend a spoon, first a little, then at right angles and finally totally snapped in half. Cracking! Steve's last effect involved taking a piece of tissue paper and ripping off the corner. He places the corner on the table in full view before tearing apart the rest of the paper multiple times. Moments later he unfolds the tissue paper and it is completely intact, aside from, of course, the corner, which perfectly matches the corner still sitting on the table. He also shared a joke about seeing a butterfly which I'm not going to reveal here because I think I might use it in my act some day.

David Whitson rounded out the performances with several effects involving everyday objects. He began with a handkerchief, for which he finds the middle, ties an invisible hair to it and then the middle moves in line with the hair. He is then able to manipulate the handkerchief to appear just like a rabbit. Next he proceeded to show the classic "finger jump" using two hair ties. After it jumps from the first and second to the third and fourth fingers and back, he is able to repeat this with a band interlaced across the top of the fingers. He calls this the "Twister Sister" and we can see that the band jumps without resistance. Finally for something new, the band jumps from the fingertips directly through the barrier and down to the joints and back again. Taking us back to our childhoods, David gets Al to select a card by saying stop during a hindu shuffle and then displays a jumbo paper chatterbox. This is used to find the card with the spectactor picking a number and the chatterbox counting. There are two more rounds with the spectator picking a shape and then a season, both being counted through. There is one last selection before David reveals that many other options existed within the chatterbox. The chosen one only says that the spectator will choose a number card and that it will be black. However when opening up the entire construction there is large clear picture of the chosen card, the four of clubs. Quite nostalgic.