Description

E. Brian MacCarthy is probably best remembered for his billiard-ball manipulations, but in this book his focus is on a less formal branch of magic — impromptu effects that can be performed with borrowed objects and, at most, a few minutes’ preparation. Impromptu’s one hundred pages are divided between chapters on magic with coins, cards, cigarettes and matches, and every routine is original to MacCarthy. Wonderfully clear illustrations accompany the text, showing readers exactly how to perform a delightful selection of, amongst other things, coin productions, transpositions and vanishes, narrative card tricks, transformations and divinations, a smart torn-and-restored cigarette, a novel method for causing a cigarette to reverse itself instantaneously and a multi-phase routine with matches that combines the interactive appeal of Two in the Hand and One in the Pocket with the visual spectacle of the broken-and-restored plot. A great read!