Are Magic Secrets Always Ugly?
By Frank Moraes for Frankly Curious
Radio Lab recently produced an episode called Black Box. As always, it is great. I think Radio Lab is the best thing on the radio. And this episode is about black boxes: situations where you know what comes in and you know what goes out, but you don’t know what happens inside to make the change. The second segment is about “The Piddingtons” — a husband and wife mentalism act from Australia that was huge onBBC Radio in the 1950s. The story is told from the perspective of their grandson and his search for how they did their act.
The act was pretty much the same every time — just like every other mentalism act. Mr Piddington was on stage with an audience. He got some random bit of information from the audience. For example, an audience member picked a passage from a book. And then Mrs Piddington, who was some place far away (in one case in an airplane), read her husband’s thoughts and revealed the passage. This sort of act can be done with a code — and codes can be remarkably subtle. But in one of the examples, Mr Piddington hardly speaks — certainly not enough to transmit the the amount of information that Mrs Piddington reveals. (Thanks to Michael Lyth )
‘Watch’ orders new magician show from Objective..
By John Creamer for TELEVISUAL…
UKTV’s Watch has ordered a 4×60’ series with psychological illusionist Katherine Mills.
Katherine Mills: Mind Games blends Mills’ skills in ‘mentalism’, together with her love of magic, to perform acts of mind control. The series has been commissioned by Hilary Rosen and is ordered by Watch General Manager Steve North. Objective Productions and Crook Productions will co-produce.
In each episode Mills meets the British public and performs displays of ‘mind magic’. The show will see her “examine the bond between parents and children; the relationship between twins; the connection between staff in a supermarket and the interaction between friends out to dinner or at the cinema. Katherine takes the everyday world around us and makes it extraordinary.”
The series will air in peak on Watch this autumn while Katherine Mills is currently featuring in CBBC’s Help! My Supply Teacher is Still Magic.
Watch’s Commissioning Editor Hilary Rosen said: “Objective Productions has a long-standing relationship with UKTV and makes some of the most innovative entertainment programmes on television. We were blown away by Katherine’s talent and her charm, I expect the Watch audience will be too.”
General Manager for Watch, Steve North, added: “This is a bold and unique programme for Watch. Katherine Mills is exceptional; her skills in mentalism combined with her background in psychology and experience in magic make for an exciting new entertainment series.”
Executive Producer Matt Crook, added: “I’m excited to bring the fascinating area of mind illusion to Watch. This has been the hardest but most satisfying show I’ve ever been involved in.”
http://www.televisual.com/news-detail/Watch-orders-new-magician-show-from-Objective_nid-4468.html
Illusionist Gillen plays mind games with his audience..
For a very long time, we thought of a good magician was someone who could make an intricate sausage dog out of balloons or pull a white dove from his inside pocket, but the new generation of magic men are very different, they want to bend your mind rather than your balloons. Dubliner Shane Gillen is a magician who is not afraid to admit he can’t actually make any animals out of thin air. But he can persuade you that your thoughts aren’t quite as private as you might think.
Shane has been earning money from his brand of magic for seven years, since he was 19 and on a J1 visa to San Francisco. He didn’t know that he wanted to become a magician and he didn’t write it down on the career guidance form. No, he enrolled in college for a degree in English, media and cultural studies. –