Home Counties Magical Society

Two Peters but two very contrasting performances and magic from the two magicians. Peter Clifford has a very gentle and softly spoken style and performed a series of mentalism effects and magic using his theatrical career as a narrative backdrop.  Mr Wardell on the other hand was an outrageous, loud and energetic ex-busker whose audience participation was quick witted and great fun.

Clifford performed a three way book tests, billet predictions and an on going coin / box selection effect where people in the audience won prizes.  His subtle humour and clever misdirection allowed for his story telling to shine.  Leading up to his billet reading he explained how his maverick uncle had tricked a young Clifford into grabbing a handful of nettles and to console him, had the young Peter look into a broken tomb where a skeleton spied back at him.  This might sound like a tale of traumatic psychological episode but it was done so with great humour and one suspects a slight dose of salt  This neatly led to his “spirit box” billet prediction.  Clifford used a rubber Yorick skull tossed into the audience to select his book test participants using Dickens Christmas Carol and Shakespeare as the source of predictions.

Peter Wardell emerged on stage dragging a trunk  slowly and quietly before exploding on stage with a high pitched delivery of egg bag and Kiwi fruit production with a young chap from the audience.  This led seamlessly into a  supposed transference of signed money in envelopes to the money failing to arrive across the auditorium but appearing in the kiwi fruit from the earlier routine.   Wardell’s next routine used a selected card dumped with all the other cards from the deck into a bag.  His hands were bound and held by two members of the audience.  Wardell escaped but unfortunately did not find the selected card only for it to appear in a wallet, in the place of a ten pound bet.  He closed on a tour de force cup and ball routine with members of the audience up on stage to re-create the busking ambience.   Wardell’s ability to combine sleight of hand as deftly as his ribald humour whilst including the audience was magical.

By placing these two very contrasting styles of magician together will inevitably invite a comparison metaphor like  a game of two halves.  I’m going to go for a dining metaphor and suggest it was a two course menu with Clifford’s Beouf Bourguinion  as the main dish followed by Wardell’s profiterole mountain with flaming sparklers.