We’re going to start with the incredible Narcissus by Chris Philpott. This takes the principle from the wonderful 100th Monkey effect and brings it to a whole new range of close up and emotionally engaging presentations. If you’re not familiar with the original principle it meant (in its most basic form) that you could appear to make people stop being able to read words. In these effects you take a photo of the spectator with their own phone, holding a card with various things written on it – and when they look at the picture or video, the words have changed in a remarkable way. Fantastic idea, wonderful engaging presentations. Worth every penny! £49.60

Next we’d like to highlight a really innocent-looking but incredibly versatile prop which will enable you to force almost anything. If you’ve been in magic any time the name Svengali Force Pad will tell you all you need to know. But this is an essentially self-working and incredibly versatile item to include as part of a larger effect. We’ve seen them crop up as part of various presentations on things like BGT or AGT. You might be able to make one yourself, but why not get a professionally made one for the very modest price of £10.99.

Regular readers will know that I’m a bit of a fan of mentalism, and Steve Dela has taken an old idea and given it a twist to turn it into a fantastic bit of walkaround magic. Will to Read is a prediction type effect using a page from a book – it takes almost no space in your pocket but has a big impact. And has the potential to be linked in to other effects to make a great routine. £32.50

And finally, since we haven’t highlighted any playing cards for a while, I thought I’d mention the Superior Deck by the Expert Playing Card Co. It comes in an attractive blue, red or black backed deck. Along with the promise of handling well (we haven’t yet had a chance to try them to comment I’m afraid) they also have a tuck case which promises to be more resilient and last longer. All available at £4.99 each. They’ve now released an Invisible Deck, a Marked Deck and a set of popular gaff cards in the same design.

That’s all for this month.  Let us know if you’ve seen anything worth looking at…

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