The magic was hosted by Steve Irwin, on the theme of "Coins". Steve commenced with a coin item arranged like "ring off rope", using three Chinese coins (because they have holes in the centre). Each escaped the ribbon on command. The next item was a transfer of four coins from one hand to another, invisibly. He finished with a $20 note held between his hands, and it became suspended in the air at one end on one finger tip.
Kangaroos were the theme of the first item that Noel Clair did. Calling the item "Jumping Kangaroos", Noel made the kangaroo coins jump from his right hand to his left one at a time. Next, he showed a handful of "doubloons" and made one of these shiny coins transfer from his left hand to his right, and then repeated this twice.
Noel continued with a story to tell us – about the "Escape from Alcatraz". Despite frantic attempts to stop four dangerous criminals (four bottle tops) escaping from Alcatraz, one bottle top does make it across from one hand to the other. In the midst of alarm bells ringing, one by one the other bottle tops escape to join it.
He showed us the "Flying Eagles" – US coins moved across from one hand to the other. Here were two different presentations of a transference item.
Al Hirschel spoke about Australian echidna coins. He laid out four $1 coins in a square matrix, and covered it all with a thin blanket. The echidna loves to burrow, he said, and we could see his hand burrowing towards the other corner of the blanket – and behold, he showed us that the single coin was now two coins. Progressively, all four coins joined each other by magic at one corner of the blanket.
Jeff Clark did not have his puppet this night! Instead, he whirled a deck of cards around his head, and they opened out into a concertina. Next, Jeff put two coins very cleanly in each of two candleholders. He then poured them out on the table, there were three coins in one holder and one coin in the other. He repeated this, and showed four coins in one holder and none in the other. Your reported watched the handling very closely – there were no tricks, Jeff just poured the coins out and it happened !
Jeff selected a volunteer (Neil) using a pin poked into a notebook. The pin moved towards the person's name. Jeff asked Neil to sit under a small plastic bag filled with water into which Jeff poked biro pens without the bag breaking (thankfully, Neil said).
Steve Irwin, who was dressed in a Santa suit, danced and sang a Christmas song while his Santa hat played the music, which worked in well with the Christmas party theme. He also vanished a 20 cent platypus coin.
A floating credit card was David Whitson's first item – simple, but very baffling. Your reporter looked carefully at the credit card floating above David's hand and I could see nothing. Next, David had a number chosen, and asked the helper to tell him which of several cards he showed to him had the chosen number on them. David was then able to tell him the number. Lastly, a coin was place into a circular box, and plastic needles were driven through the coin, even though it was solid.
