Year: 2023

Magic is made for TV. It’s somewhat different from magic on stage. In a theatre, people are watching the act from all sides and above and below. On TV there is just one viewer, the camera. You in TV land don’t get to watch what you want, you get shown just what the performer and producer want you to see, with the dodgy/tricky bits hidden.

They always used to say no camera tricks, being non-specific about the meaning of the word ‘tricks’. They don’t seem to say that any more, and certainly some magicians in recent times have used technology to, er, enhance their performances. And there’s some neat editing.

My first memory of magic on TV is watching David Nixon in the 50s and 60s. Nixon was a tall, bald, rather elegant and well-spoken chap. He was intelligent and appeared on many quiz and panel shows. He had a hand in introducing the Mellotron to the UK, and Basil Brush. He was also a heavy smoker. However entertaining Nixon was, he was not a great magician.

And Ali Bongo…

There have been plenty of people on tv over the years who have revealed how magic tricks are done.

A few years ago there was a series, Breaking The Magicians’ Code, Magic’s Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed, where the Masked Magican showed a number of classic tricks, and some not so classic, and showed ways they could be done, complete with sexy assistants:

Penn and Teller have at times shown how some of their tricks were done. There are channels on YouTube with people explaining how tricks on Penn & Teller Fool Us could be done. You can easily find those yourself.

John Lenahan has also explained tricks, and that got him expelled from the Magic Circle, basically a magicians’ union.

Nearly always, the explanation of the mechanics of a trick or illusion get the response ‘is that it?’ Often it’s a bit of elastic or invisible thread, double sided tape, doctored playing cards or something similar. Or maybe some kind of optical illusion.

Just because someone explains how a trick can be done does not mean it’s the only way. Very often, there are multiple methods. They always say you should never repeat a trick, but using different methods can enhance the puzzlement.

You sometimes hear someone say ‘no-one knows how such-and-such a trick is done’, but that’s a lie. Of course people know. The designers and builders of the trick or illusion, the performers, of course they know. It may be kept a secret, but people know.

Exactly what is it that magicians do?

I would like to say that basically magicians come on the stage or on our screens and they lie. That’s what they do.

Take a very simple card trick. The magician says to a probably unwilling audience member, “I have an ordinary pack of cards here. They are all different, look. I will shuffle the cards so we don’t know which card is where. Pick a card at random, you have a free choice. Put it back at random, you have a free choice. Look, I have a banana here, I will make you card inside the banana. It’s not there? Oh no, it’s been under your chair the whole time.”

So, the cards may be ordinary, or they may not. Things can be done to alter the shape or surface of a card, for example, that is not immediately detectable.

The cards may not all be different. They could be. If they are fanned out, you may not see them all.

Pick a card at random, a free choice. Well, maybe, or maybe it was forced.

It’s in the banana. Not, that’s misdirection. And the card under the chair may not be your card, but a duplicate.

The magician does not have to say anything at all. By their actions, they imply they are doing something they really are not. It’s just a lie. And maybe we like being lied to.

Did Copperfield actually vanish the Statue of Liberty? No, of course not.