Mark Leveridge products: page 2

The Professional Worker Series is a selection of targeted and focused ebooks which offer professional, sound advice on a number of key performance areas. The ebooks are written in an easy to understand style which cuts out all the waffle and padding, and instead gets right to the core of each subject.

Volume 3 in this series takes a close look at what is required to work commercial magic at a table side. It's probably true to say that more opportunities are available for close up magicians to work at a table side than for any other form of close up. From big dinner functions with large numbers...

The Professional Worker Series is a selection of targeted and focused ebooks which offer professional, sound advice on a number of key performance areas. The ebooks are written in an easy to understand style which cuts out all the waffle and padding, and instead gets right to the core of each subject.

Volume 4 in this series concentrates on the many different ways now available to magicians to promote themselves in order to get paid bookings. If you don't know your SEO from your ROI, or if you're not sure whether online or offline marketing is best, this ebook will provide you with many of...

The Professional Worker Series is a selection of targeted and focused eooks which offer professional, sound advice on a number of key magical areas. The eooks are written in an easy-to-understand style which cuts out all the waffle and padding, and instead gets right to the core of each subject.

Volume 5 sets out to discover whether there is one key element that contributes more than any other to making a performer a success. The conclusion is that CONTROL is a factor that if properly harnessed can exert a huge influence on the life of any performing magician.

With this in mind, I examine...

Learning From Experience is an ebook in which I look back over my 40 years of full-time professional experience and identify 20 key things about performing commercially for laypeople that I wish I had known when I started.

Organizing these into 20 key facts, I explain the lessons that I have learned in this rich period of experience about performance, marketing, fees, trick selection, dealing with spectators, and more, and set out clear advice and food for thought to help you to short track your way to making good decisions.

Here is a list of the contents

• Key Fact #1 - The Booker...

This is the exact routine as used by Mark Leveridge in his commercial close-up work and also to open all his children's shows. No new concepts, no 'flashy' moves, just a thoroughly professional and entertaining routine that has proved its value over countless performances.

There are few more popular routines with lay people than the sponge balls, and Mark Leveridge's fast-paced sequence will provide you with a practical version that you will quickly learn and use.

1st edition 1984, PDF 11 pages.

This is a wonderful participation routine for children's entertainers using the simplest of props - a wand, a silk, and an unprepared bag. Two children come up to assist. A silk is made invisible and handed to one child, while the second helper examines and then holds onto a bag. The invisible silk is 'blown' up into the air, caught on the end of the magic wand, which is then used to flick it over to the child holding the bag. The silk is supposed to now be inside the bag, but the child holding the bag seems to be unable to find it inside. Realising that the silk must still be invisible, the...

Learn about mix and mingle magic the easy way.

This 55-minute audiobook is perfect for listening to in the car or while jogging or at the gym. It contains a reading of the contents of the hugely useful information ebook entitled Going Walkabout, in which I explain exactly how I go about performing at informal mix and mingle events and how to make a success of working close-up magic at reception style events where the spectators are all standing or where there is, at best, only a very informal arrangement of seats, but no tables.

The 7 chapters included are as follows:

• Chapter 1 - Defining Going Walkabout ...

A spectator freely names a card (e.g. 5D) which is cut into the centre of a blue deck. The performer cuts a card of his choice (e.g. AS) into the centre of a red deck. The spectator and performer are now going to attempt to make their chosen cards reverse themselves while the packs are still inside their boxes.

Having mimed the removal and turning over of cards, the performer fans the spectator's blue deck only to discover that there is one card face up, but it's the AS! The magician then fans his red backed deck - and to everyone's surprise, the only face-up card in that pack is the one...

There are many ring and rope routines in print and there are a whole host of ingenious moves which a performer can use. But if we are honest with ourselves, how many of these routines can really be said to be entertaining to a lay audience? Often the presentation is all but forgotten and so the routine becomes simply an exhibition of clever handling and little more.

I wanted to find a way of involving an audience in a ring and rope routine so that it would leave them entertained as well as fooled, and The Ring Competition is the answer I came up with. One of the great assets of this presentation...

The Professional Worker Series - Volume 6

Sit back and relax as I read the complete contents of this fascinating e-book to you. It's a great way to absorb and enjoy the contents whether you are at home, in the garden, driving the car or exercising in the gym.

In this Learning From Experience Audio Book I look back over my 40 years of full-time professional experience and identify 20 key things about performing commercially for lay people that I wish I had known when I started.

Organising these into 20 key facts, I explain the lessons that I have learned in this rich period of experience...

Two sets of 10 cards are counted out fairly and openly onto a spectator's hand before being dropped into two glass tumblers where they can be clearly seen. One at a time three cards are invisibly moved from one glass to the other, and when the piles are counted back onto the spectator's hand again, the first glass only contains 7 cards and the other 13.

This is the classic cards across effect using a method that is completely move and sleight free. Everything happens at fingertips and there is no palming required, nor any special counts. Designed for a close-up or intimate parlour show,...

A spectator is handed an invisible deck and is asked to spread the cards and note that all the red cards are bunched together and all the black cards are assembled together. Splitting the deck so that he holds all the invisible red cards in one hand and all the blacks in the other, he hands over one half which is placed by a second spectator into the invisible cards box.

Now the cards are spread again and the spectator is asked to note that all the court cards are together, and all the spot cards are together. Splitting them into their two groups he is invited to hand either section over...

The performer selects a lady with the object of discovering whether she has female intuition or not. Spreading a pile of envelopes, each one of which contains a double blank card, he invites her to select any one and to remove the card from inside.

The lady helper now nominates and names any person around the table who she is emotionally close to or with whom she feels she has some empathy. It could be a relative, a close friend or maybe even her husband! Let's say she selects a close friend called Sophie.

She writes the name of her chosen person, Sophie, on the back of her chosen blank...

The idea for this routine came after I read Derek Dingle's Silver Quick routine in Apocalypse (Sept. 1978) which was a sort of coins across into a spectator's hand. I played around with the Dingle routine for a while but I felt I would not be able to use it commercially, although I liked the idea of something happening with the coins in a spectator's hands. After much experimentation and change, Slo-Mo was put together and is the routine I have been using with lay people ever since. I hope you like it.

1st edition 2003, PDF 8 pages.

This is ideal for walkabout performance or a set close-up or parlour show. A length of rope is handed out for examination and the ends are then tied to form a rope loop. A spectator's watch is borrowed and the strap done up so that the watch is also in a loop. The watch is then threaded onto the double strands of the rope loop which is held between the two hands. By moving his hands up and down, the performer shows how the watch can slide up and down the rope, but provided he does not let go with either of his hands, the watch is safe on the rope.

Then the magician says he will demonstrate...

A deck of cards is spread and freely displayed back and front. Four cards are selected at random by a spectator and then placed in a fan on the table. A snap of the fingers and when the fan is lifted, four coins are seen to have instantly appeared underneath.

As a lead in to a four coin matrix routine this is ideal as it creates an unexpected and sleight free intro. You just need a regular deck, which you need to prepare once (takes about 15 minutes), and four small coins (10ps or US quarters).

Remember – no palming or sleight of hand is required.

1st edition 2021; PDF 4 pages,...

Ambitious Card in reverse.

One of the classic card effects in magic is The Ambitious Card, and many close-up workers use one variation or another of it. I was looking for an in-the-hands card routine that I could introduce into my strolling work, and it suddenly occurred to me that maybe you could do the Ambitious Card in reverse.

Hide and Seek is the routine that I came up with and which I have been using in my commercial work ever since. Here's the plot.

A spectator selects a card, let's say it is the 3C. The minute you see the card you express concern because you explain that this...

A blue-backed deck is openly displayed and one card is selected from the face-down deck. Cutting the selection back into the pack and shuffling the deck, the performer offers to find the selection quickly and effectively.

Snapping his fingers over the deck, he turns the cards face down and spreads through the entire deck to reveal that every card back has changed from blue to red, except for just one card, and that turns out to be the selected card!

No sleight of hand is required, this is designed to instantly re-set in front of the spectators and everything takes place up in your hands,...

At the 5th British Close Up Magic Symposium, John Bannon and Mark Leveridge held an open discussion for nearly an hour on creativity in close up magic. The techniques revealed in the course of this discussion will enable you to set about creating and refining your magic, as it provides you with a clear framework and approach. The combination of interview and questions from the Symposium audience makes for a lively and often humorous session which not only provides you with many concrete suggestions to work on, but which also entertains. Some registrants considered this to be the highlight of...

All six issues of 2005 for a reduced price. The cover personalities are Ali Cook & Pete Firman, Paul Zenon, Marc Paul, Andy Nyman, The Twins, and Luke Jermay.

All six issues of 2006 for a reduced price. The cover personalities are Paul Kieve, Paul Daniels, Dynamo, Anthony Owen, Shahid Malik, and Graham P. Jolley.

All six issues of 2007 for a reduced price. The cover personalities are Wayne Dobson, Luis de Matos, David Stone, Juliana Chen, Jay Sankey, and Matthew J. Dowden.

All six issues of 2008 for a reduced price. The cover personalities are Geoffrey Durham, Singh, Michael J. Fitch, Marvin Berglas, Shawn Farquhar, and Chris Cox.

All six issues of 2009 for a reduced price. The cover personalities are Pete Firman, Keith Barry, R. Paul Wilson, David Copperfield, J C Sum & 'Magic Babe' Ning, and Guy Bavli.