The theme of the meeting was “Packet Card Tricks”, hosed by
John Ferguson, and he led off with a “Prediction Card” effect in which the
spectator chose four cards, and more cards were dealt on top of each of these,
then by counting down to the total of the indices of the four cards, the
predicted card was revealed. He later
performed “8-card Brainwave”, a.k.a. “Red Hot Mama”, in which the one card of
the eight displayed that is chosen by the spectator is the only one with a
differently coloured back.
Joel Howlett performed
five close up items. He did
three classic rubber band tricks – Crazy Man’s Handcuffs, Band through Thumb, and Travelling Cash. In
this, Joel asked Tom Blunden to fold a $5 note around one of four strands of
rubber band between Joel’s fingers. When Joel flexed the rubber strands, the
note moved by itself down to the next strand. It was nice to see these classics
carried out again so neatly. He
followed these with sugar grains to filled sugar packet, and torn and restored
paper napkin.
David Whitson presented three single-coloured cards to pick,
and the one chosen by Al Hirschel was the one he had predicted.
Then David showed us a packet trick of four king cards called the “Mystic
Kings”, purchased many years ago. The
chosen king vanished. Al Hirschel
recalled that Alf Hayes who ran De Larno’s so long ago in the Piccadilly Arcade
had told him that of all the packet tricks he had, “Mystic Kings” was the most
popular ! Next, David had a card chosen, and it appeared sliding out of a large
colourful card frame.
“Mind Reading Extraordinaire” was the theme of Michael
Blakeman’s item. He tried to find the
card Steve Howlett had chosen by questioning him Steve about it, and judging from his
facial expressions what the card was.
He succeeded. Twice. This was impressive ! His next item, and the final item of the
night, was a chosen card revelation by making the chosen card reverse face up in the
middle of the spread face down deck.
This was a very visual conclusion !
