Competition night! It's now become an established part of our calendar, awaited with excitement and trepidation by our steadily growing group of Members. Excitement because it's always a night of good magic and good fun; and trepidation because it's the night when lots of our new and young magicians first "try out their wings" under the gaze of their peers and colleagues. In these situations an attack of nerves is always to be expected – many would go so far as to say it's desirable.
Newbies
There were five entrants
into the ‘New’ category. Somehow Stas slipped into this group although
he’s been in the society for more than a year. His picture here 
devising a restaurant setting with
Andrew playing the part of a very harassed waiter. The young man
explained afterwards about his act, that he wasn’t sure of the origin of
his sponge ball eating routine but that he’s been working on his variation
for some time and was pleased to be able to try it out in public. Well
done for trying something different.
There isn’t a keener person to perform than Sam Harrison and he was straining at the leash but number 4 in the queue and had to wait his turn. As a genuinely ‘new’ performer he made a helper’s card change colour and did a version of the jumping aces. He’s certainly come on in leaps and bounds. You can see him in the top row being helped out by Fiona McKenzie.
Michael Ilic was third on. His picture is to the right. 
I owe him a debt of
gratitude. With a mile long checklist I thought I had come well prepared
to the meeting, potato chips, biscuits, tea, coffee and sugar but horror
upon horror, no milk. I sounded out half a dozen people to see if they’d
dash out to get some. Michael was the only one to agree. Using great
enterprise he returned from the restaurant a couple of doors up with a
couple of litres. He even got them to accept on trust that we’d replace it
later. Thank you Michael and my attempts to influence the judges with
news about this kind act failed to affect the scoring at all. 
Your good
deed was outweighed by your two minutes over-run. Pity, as I enjoyed
your mentalism effect and the Michael Ammar silk and coins routine
Our Asian friends have tremendous ability with coins and cards. John
Fung (left) is no exception. He performed, with great panache, 3
coins across and something he termed ‘flurry coins across’ finishing
with a silk/jumbo coins production. Methinks you should have been
performing in the Intermediate section John; you certainly will be next
year.
Vyom Sharma gave a very slick routine with coins and cards
and performed Hollingworth’s ‘Casandra’ like a pro. He beat John into
second place by just a couple of points to take the prize for first place.
Vyom has requested that his involvement in the competition should be considered as his inaugural
performance as part of his entrance requirements into the society as a full member.
The Middle Men
A handful of members entered the ‘Intermediate’
category.
Nick Morton was the star, winning this section by a
mile. He’s seen on the right performing an extreme
mentalism act and this was the only piece in his very
exact ten-minute performance (newer members take
note). To make a single effect last ten minutes and
keep the audience on tenterhooks at the same time
means it has to be strong. This was. One of the bags
contains the remains of a broken bottle with some very
nasty looking shards pointing upwards. Nick used two
helpers to instruct him when to stop his hovering hand
as it moved across the top of the bags. No equivoque
here. 
When stop was called, he stopped, and then
removed the bag by smashing his hand down on it.
Scary stuff but thankfully when three had been
eliminated the reaming bag was lifted to reveal to
broken bottle
Andrew Vashevnik (right) performed Braindeck
and an ambitious card routine and managed to magic a
coin into a sealed soda can,
Grant Wicks (bottom right) managed to elevate a
Viagra pill (I thought it was the pill that was supposed
to raise something) and worked a very neat routine
with the Ninja Rings 
while Bob Sheridan with a lot of
help from Michael Ammar entertained with a pack of
cards. Peter Cook was his usual amusing and
inventive self-doing all kinds of things with Chinese
coins (Hooster); 
nuts and bolts (Doc Eason) and a bit
of everything with a ball and glass. Peter received two
awards before the competition had even started.
These had been languishing in the bottom of the library
cupboard and he never took them home. Most likely
because his trophy shelf’s probably full.
With the Intermediate stage completed we took a short
break to enjoy the tea and coffee made possible by
Michael Ilic’s trip to the French Restaurant
Top Dogs
There were half a dozen guys in the Pro section. These are magicians
who regularly earn money from their craft. Tom Stevens appeared first,
attired in his clown outfit. What a joy to see somebody actually taking the
bother to dress up for the part. Using furry things and various props Tom
delighted the audience with hypnosis, disappearances and
transformations.
Next up was Neville Finney and like Tom, he had taken
the trouble to dress up and he looked like a magician. His waistcoat
seemed to me as though it could hold a dozen aids to his magic. Neville is
of the old school and he performed like a Pro; confident and well
rehearsed as he did variations of the 3 card Monte and changed the
colour of penknives with remarkable dexterity. Jason Varga knows lots of stuff and he reeled off a selection; fitting into his ten
minute slot routines with originators like Gregory Wilson, Larry Jennings,
Bill Malone and Patrick Cuffs. 
He didn’t seem to put a foot wrong.
As always, Dean Atkinson was hilarious and very entertaining. In fact, he
won the popular vote from the audience and was the “Most Entertaining’
magician of the evening. 
I was so taken by his performance that I failed
to make any notes but a couple of things stick in my brain. He grabbed
Michael Court out of the audience to help out with one of his tricks and
this was a very smart move as Michael was official timekeeper and was
unable to keep track of the minutes as they passed by. This was all done
with great humour and the audience loved it; as they did with his vent act.
This comprised of a couple of big eyes on the top of his hand. 
I’d not
seen this before and enjoyed every minute.
Graham Etherington was second last and he did clever stuff with a rubber
duck and a card rising effect that concluded when the controlling device,
held by an 
assistant, exploded and fell to bits.
Finally, came Simon Coronel. Last year the
comment was made that the only way to stop him
winning was to tie one hand behind his back. He
rose to the challenge and did a ‘Rene Lavand’ (see
picture right) with great effect. He managed to
locate exactly a selected card as number 33 in the
spread out deck; convincing me that we should put
another restriction on this brilliant performer. He squeezed into first place beating Dean by only a point. This was
poetic justice as Dean beat Simon into second place as the most
entertaining by a similar narrow margin. The race is on…………