Pete Wardall Lecture

14 December 2006

We'll start our notes as Pete started his lecture, by diving straight into the Cups & Balls. In my ignorance I didn't know this was Pete's trademark routine, but with good reason. The routine was fast and furious with non-stop banter and some really nice touches.

As Pete himself commented, very few of the audience are likely to make their living from performing magic on the street. However, as he talked us through the development of his routines and the thinking behind them, there were lessons for each one of us, regardless of our performance area.

The Cups & Balls routine was essentially the Dai Vernon one, but heavily influenced by Gazzo and Cellini and their ?street? attitude. He also attributed various moves in the opening sequence to Michael Ammar. Pete has been doing this routine for 12 years on the street and it showed.

We were taken right through the routine in detail and the thinking behind particular props (he heavily plugged Gary Animal's cups and other props) was well explained. It was a good reminder that lay-people don?t notice things which we may think are very obvious - like large bags attached to our waist! Pete's discussion of misdirection - and especially things like covering noise with a good gag or a laugh was really helpful. His discussion of -crowd drawing - was likewise useful. And many of the principles of routining so that you refer forwards and backwards within the show could be applied to any show.

For those of us who had never actually seen it before (I am probably demonstrating my ignorance here) the Flip Stick vanish looked very magical. Pete explored the psychology of making a noise to indicate the ?magic? is happening and sell the effect (based on an idea from John Carney in Secrets).

There was a lot of instruction about the problem of too much magic. What the audience really want is performance - and that doesn't necessarily mean non-stop magic. Sometimes we also need to help the audience when there is lots of magic going on. So he would introduce the Cups with the line "keep your eye on the little white balls".

He also presented his 'one cup' routine and explored the difference of performing on the street and in a corporate context and discussed the different issues of angles and alternative approaches to misdirection in these settings. Very practical.

After tea (yes we took an hour on the cups and balls!) Pete rushed through a number of different effects and their thinking. He praised the Slydini Silks routine and took us through the basics of a 3 phase routine (recommending Fulves or Gibson as the reference works for this classic of magic, or Charlie Edwards in Routined Manipulation Finale). He told a hilarious anecdote about a Romanian body-builder who managed to break his silks at a Trade Show - so watch who you ask to help!

One of the great things about the Slydini Silks is the opportunity it presents to make any number of different steals. Pete took us through watch, wallet and pen steals and even shared thoughts on a tie steal - but you need a lot of front for that.

We then explored some card ideas, and in particular looked at this business of routining a show to maintain people's interest. On the street, when a trick finishes, that is an excuse for people to move on. And that is the last thing you want them to do. So by flagging up tricks which are to appear later, and not allowing too much time after a climax but moving straight into the next thing, you can really hold on to people.

Pete demonstrated Ambitious Card linking into Ring Flight, with an extra climax of the ring appearing in the wallet (after the card has done so) - a wonderful example of clever and entertaining routinging. He also showed us a way of setting up the cards for McDonalds Aces by cutting to the aces and then performing a Triumph style mix-up and resolution - very neat. He also showed us a really nice card to wallet steal - the "cheeky steal".

We had an excellent evening and learnt a lot about the performance of magic. Perhaps above all he urged us to learn a few tricks and then to perform them - rather than to 'do a lot of magic'. If it's good enough for David Devant (see the preface to The Royal Road!) then it's good enough for us too.

Philip Sweeting

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