Magic For The Asking

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31247, 20 December 1966, Page 9

Magic For The Asking

There Is always an aura of magic about Christmas and there will be more magic than usual in Christchurch this year, when members of the public will be able to see tricks performed on the streets at demand. About 100 magicians from New Zealand and overseas will attend the magicians’ convention in the Christchurch Teachers’ College hall from December 26 to January 1. For the first time, overseas magicians from Britain, the United States, Holland and Australia will also take part. Although the public will not be given the opportunity of learning “trade secrets” by going to the convention, any member of the public who wants to be both entertained and baffled can ask any wearer of the convention badge (pictured) to perform a trick, and the magician will have to oblige. All magicians attending the convention will have to wear the badge at all times in public, and regardless of where or when they are approached, will have to present a trick. Mr R. B. Scandrett, the president of the Canterbury Society of Magicians, said that he first saw the badges being used at a convention in Hamburg, Germany, in May, 1963. They were also a great success at a recent Australian convention. The star of the convention, and of the public performances, will be Maurice Rooklyn, of Australia, whose sleight-of-hand feats have earned him the title “the Amazing Mr Rooklyn.” He is regarded as the world’s greatest billiard ball manipulator, and was winner for sleight-of-hand at the international congress of

magicians in Vienna in 1958. Theo de Leeuw, from Holland, Will also attend the convention. Among the well-known New

Zealand magicians will be I Bert South, the resident! magician on the WNTVI child-1 ren’s television programme,! and “De Larno” (Mr R. B. I Scandrett), his CHTV3 counterpart. A performer on I Sydney television programmes for children, Atf Hayes, will I also attend. The magicians will mainly be entertaining each other at the convention, and it is far more difficult for a magician I to entertain other practitioners than to entertain the general public. Among the convention events will be a programme by the Canterbury society, which is organising the convention, competitions, a magicians* picnic, a bus tour of Christchurch and a lecture on stage make-up. The public programme will include a special performance for Birthright children on December 28 and two public shows in the Civic Theatre the next day. A children’s matinee will be given in the afternoon, and a different programme for the public will be presented at night. At these performances, many types of illusion will be presented. Girls will float unsupported in mid-air and magicians will escape from locked boxes. Live doves and rabbits will appear and disappear, and an endless supply of cigarettes will be plucked from the air. Members of the audience will be asked to help on the stage with some of the tricks, and if they are lucky, they might get their heads chopped off or be cut in half. They might even be returned to their seats in one piece. On Saturday, December 31, the magicians will visit children in Christchurch hospitals.