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Paul Scott’s Close-Up Lecture
The Cornish Magical Society
July 2013
Reviewed by Brian Adams
At the July meeting of The Cornish Magical Society members and guests were
treated to a lecture by the Society’s Secretary and Past-President , Paul Scott.
Paul has over 40 years experience as a professional magician and has been a
magic dealer for a large amount of that time. This was the first of two close-up
lectures that Paul has recently been working on.
Paul commenced by giving us a brief introduction to his background in
professional magic and throughout his lecture gave various performance tips
including some insights from his earlier TV work. Whilst he has developed a
large number of original tricks over the years, Paul also develops new slants to
both classics of magic and more recent commercially available effects.
Paul’s first trick, “Back-Hand Deal” was a transposition of four double-backed
cards to four queens that employed a novel use of roughening fluid to achieve
the desired result. This was followed by his own presentation of “Colour Monte”
which Paul had first used to good effect on the “New Faces” TV show. His own
take on “The Ambitious Card” was followed by another of his own tricks called
“Computer Vision” which was loosely based on Alex Elmsley’s “Four Card Trick”.
Paul’s “Impossible Card to Wallet”, using a Proust Wallet, had a clever
convincer which drew appreciative comments from the audience. Paul closed the
first half of his lecture with another of his own inventions “Ultimate Printout”
which had been 2 years in gestation.
The second half opened with an effect still under development, which gave an
insight into how Paul develops an existing trick to meet his own exacting
standards. In this case it was a “Hopping Coins” routine that Paul was providing
a stronger ending for. This was followed by another of Paul’s new routines which
was a coin’s across effect using Chinese coins and an enchanted dragon box. As
with many of Paul’s routines there was a strong story line to support the
action. Timothy Wenk’s “Misled” was Paul’s starting point for his next effect.
Paul clearly showed a pencil passing through a £5 note and a piece of paper.
When the pencil had been pulled all the way through, the resulting hole was
clear to see in the piece of paper whereas the borrowed £5 note was completely
unharmed – this for me was the best routine of the lecture. Paul ended his
lecture with an effect based on David Britland’s “Necromancy”; a couple of
additions from Paul enhanced what was already a strong effect and was included
in Paul’s lecture with David’s permission.
Paul had a number of the effects he lectured on available for sale along with
some of his other products and was happy to answer any questions. The Cornish
Magical Society greatly appreciated having Paul give them the first showing of
his close-up lecture.
Paul will be happy to talk to other magic societies that may be interested in
his close-up lectures. He can be contacted on: 01726 851 823 or 07747 122 659
and paul@paul-scott.org.
© Brian Adams, July 2013