Being A Professional Amateur - The Andrew Jeffrey Lecture

20 June 2005

Our President put a lecture together because he was asked by another magic club to provide an evening of entertainment some time ago. His dilemma was whether to entertain with a show or a talk or both or perhaps a lecture, which he had never done. He chose to lecture and thank goodness he did.

Andy is someone I have got to know very well since his regular appearances at the Komedia entertaining the audiences as a warm up and during the interval. I have also worked with him on many private events as well and I can honestly say for a full time teacher is a great magician. His thought behind and into effects is matched by his delivery. Andy cares about his magic and himself as a presenter of magic and it shows.

He showed us six tricks which were all available in his lecture notes/book which was also accompanied by his personal thoughts on magic, the psychology and the reasons we should do certain moves and say certain things. Uniquely he also offers a CD Rom, which has everything in the notes together with video demonstrations of the effects. Each trick had a break down and explanation in good clear detail starting with Flash Coin, now his trademark effect of producing a chocolate coin from empty hands and a cigarette paper which bursts into flames.

Then into Junk Mail, my favourite as it transcends Close Up into cabaret, a great thing for a trick to do. Basically five winning certificates are shown and a helper is asked for a number between one and five, five being the number of certificates. The cards are mixed by the spectator then counted from top to bottom with every card at the chosen number reversed until only one card is remaining. All the cards reversed are read out to show what could have been won and last is of course a booby prize, although it read An evening with a Famous Magician. That might be true one day!

His third effect was The One Ring, a take on Lord of the rings where a predicted word on a freely chosen page of a freely chosen book from one of the trilogy of Lord Of The Rings was seen to be correct. A good principle with a strong impact.

For the fourth effect we were treated to Blast Off, a trick which he uses when confronted with a spectator who wants to be taught a trick. A card is chosen and then found by a count down of cards where the magician pushes an out jogged block of cards in and out of the pack showing the faces of the in and out cards which read 4-3-2-1 and the final face to be seen being the chosen card. A pretty effect, which I am sure works well in the situation Andy described its use for.

The Fifth effect was Andy's own presentation of Brainwave. Andy did not concentrate on the trick but more on the reasoning behind it and why he does it the way he does. He stressed that this was the first trick he saw at the Sussex Magic Circle when he joined and it made such an impression on him that he wanted to do magic the way the trick made him feel. Indeed he stressed that the magic you perform needs to be amazing and it needs to look like the first time you saw the piece of magic that so enthralled you. If you can carry those thoughts at all times into your performance then you will create magic for the audience too.

Lastly was his Lazy Mentalist effect of a freely chosen card from an untouched deck magically appearing in a previously empty envelope. The magician at no time holds any of the props and does not know the card. For a lay audience I imagine this would blow them away. Looking round the room, some in the audience were perplexed it was easy to tell.

I don't like to critic a friend but it is easy with Andy. He is a nice man, with good principles a sound faith and supportive family. He loves magic and likes people. Liking people is what makes him likeable as well. It is just such a shame that not more of the club members turned out to see our President deliver what meant an awful lot to him. As he said, the Club has given much so him, he wanted to give something back and that is exactly what he did.

Mark

• << NEXT
• ALL ARTICLES...
• PREVIOUS >>