Meet The Magic Circle

On Tuesday, I attended one of the twice-monthly Meet The Magic Circle evenings at the wonderful magic headquarters just by Euston station in London.

If you enjoy watching magic and you’re curious to find out more about The Magic Circle, I definitely recommend one of these soirées. They are open to anyone over 14 and, although many people go in largish groups, you can also go as a couple/pair or even alone. The hosts are friendly and welcoming and the event runs like clockwork – in fact, like the secret workings of the clock made by Robert-Houdin (father of modern magic) that you can see in the Devant Room.

At 7.30, Iain Moran appeared at Table 2, where eleven other people and I were eagerly awaiting the close-up session. He and three other talented magicians entertained us with cards, coins, ropes and silk handerkerchiefs – the usual magical paraphanalia and so great to see it in such a totally magical context. After that, it was up to the lovely Magic Circle theatre for a talk on the history of magic, given by the Vice President (a new president will be elected in September to replace the late, lamented Ali Bongo) and then back to the Devant Room for sandwiches and more close-up magic.

The experience concludes with an hour-long stage show. On Tuesday, we saw three very different comedy magicians, excellently compèred by Noel Britten: an uplifting finale to an exciting evening.

Spiral staircase of The Magic Circle

Listen and learn!

I recently spent a day with my friends Marc Oberon and Iain Moran, at Marc's beautiful house in Nottingham, and I came away buzzing. Watching them demonstrating their different styles of close-up magic is always fun in itself but I particularly relish the discussion around it, the evaluation of each trick, the suggestions, the tweaking and reworking, the synthesis of ideas.

Marc Oberon, on a rare day off

If you're a new magician, I encourage you to spend as much time as possible hanging out with experienced, established members of the profession. Apart from the fact it can be so much fun, you can learn tons from just listening to them talk and tossing ideas around. As I've said in my Ten Top Tips for Becoming a Good Magician, get involved as much as you can. Join a magic society if there's one near you, go to conventions, frequent your local magic shop. Of course, not everything experienced magicians tell you will be useful (or even true) but soaking up their ideas and distilling them into your own will save you a lot of time and, for me, anyway, it's a very stimulating process.