Mark Leveridge Magic

A Wrinkle On - The Present

MARTIN WEBSTER

During the course of a telephone conversation with Martin Webster he happened to mention how he had used a bit of presentation with Pass The Parcel. When he told me about it, I said I thought it would be perfect to use as the presentation for THE PRESENT instead as it fitted the trick perfectly! Martin has no idea where this idea comes from (if any reader knows, please let me know!) but having tried this myself with THE PRESENT I can only say that it is excellent.

With this presentation you simply have five of the supplied picture cards (the one with the wrapped gift on it and any four of the other five). No envelopes are required. Start with the pictures in a face down pile in any order except that the wrapped gift picture should be the bottom card of the pile. Have a card stand ready for use on your table.

Explain that the birthday box, Max, is going to magically produce a present for himself. But first he has to choose a present. Fan the pile of picture cards with the faces towards you to show that there are five cards and tell the children that you won't show them the pictures straight away but instead pictures will be got rid of one at a time in a random way until there is just one left, and whatever that picture is, Max will try to make a similar present appear for himself by magic.

You now mix the cards face down. Any mix will do but just keep the bottom card in place until the very end of the mix when you move it to the centre position (3rd from the top and bottom of the pile). Hold the cards in a squared face down pile between your hands.

Explain that everyone will now sing Happy Birthday, and for every word in the song, one card will be put under the pile. As the children start to sing you do just that. HAPPY (top card is placed under the pile) BIRTHDAY (next card to the bottom) TO (next card to the bottom) YOU (next card to the bottom), HAPPY (next card to the bottom) BIRTHDAY (next card to the bottom) TO (next card to the bottom) YOU (next card to the bottom), HAPPY (next card to the bottom) BIRTHDAY (next card to the bottom) DEAR (next card to the bottom) MAX (next card to the bottom), HAPPY (next card to the bottom) BIRTHDAY (next card to the bottom) TO (next card to the bottom) YOU. The final card on the last word YOU is not put under the pile but is lifted off the pile and the rest of the pile is placed down.

You now go through the business with the noise for the card in your hand before showing it and placing it on view on the card stand. You then pick up the pile and repeat the singing again to produce another discarded card. Repeat this twice more. The very last card left at the end will always be the wrapped present card. You then conclude the trick as normal.

The singing of Happy Birthday not only makes a real feature of the birthday child's birthday, but is totally logical in a trick in which he is going to produce a birthday present for himself. It also does away with the necessity for envelopes and any card switching at the end as the force is automatic. I think this is great!

Keith was very enthusiastic about THE PRESENT right from the moment he bought it and he took the trouble to write in to make a couple of presentation points which he thought others might like to think about.

Keith uses a small drawer box to produce the actual gift at the end of the effect and he says that he feels it is important to show the box/bag empty immediately prior to producing the gift in order to maximise the magical surprise of the present appearing. If this is not done, the length of time between when the box/bag is shown empty at the start and when the present is finally produced at the end is perhaps rather too long.

Keith’s other point is that he feels it is important to produce a gift which looks exactly like the picture, and so to this end he uses yellow tissue paper, red ribbon and attaches a gift tag with the birthday child’s name on it.

He uses a box of crayons as the present and as his previous effect is a magic painting, he feels this is a logical tie in. It occurs to me that if you were to use BIRTHDAY CARD SURPRISE either before or after THE PRESENT, the crayons produced could be used by the child to colour in the birthday card!