Desert Island Tricks

A magic classic finally gets its next chapter and the creator is as thoughtful as you’d hope. We’re joined by magical royalty, Guy Hollingworth to talk about More Drawing Room Deceptions, the highly anticipated follow-up to his legendary Drawing Room Deceptions, plus the re-release of the original book with a new chapter that shows how his routines have evolved through real performance. If you care about strong plots, clean handling and material that lasts beyond the hype cycle, this conversa...

Eight tricks, one book, one banishment and a lifetime of lessons packed into a single, fast-moving session with performer and author Mark Piazza. We trace his arc from 25 years of kids’ shows to a sharp mentalism repertoire, pulling apart the choices that still earn repeat bookings and real reactions. From the tactile honesty of Hundy 500 to the elastic power of propless tools like Quinta, Mark shows how method serves meaning when the script and structure are tuned for impact. We dig into the...

A sliced finger, a kiwi, and a lesson in checking your props, our cold open sets the pace for a no-fluff, real-world rethink of the “eight tricks for life” challenge. Two years on, Peter Nardi returns to keep what still stuns, swap what no longer fits, and explain exactly why. We dig into the pieces that survive time and venues: the elegance of Horizontal Card Rise, the open-ended power of Extractor, and iChange, the interchange Peter refined over two decades to make cleaner and ...

A great trick hits harder when the audience already cares. That’s the heartbeat of this conversation with creator and worker Jon Allen, where we unpack eight routines he’d take to a desert island and the principles that make them land: meaningful framing, suspense over flash, and full-circle reveals. We start with Silent Treatment, a cinematic cold open that resolves like a twist ending, then move to Destination Box, where Jon breaks down the film-school difference between opaque surprise and...

Stranded for two years with a snooker table and a legendary list, Liam Montier finally gets a rescue and uses it to rethink everything. We revisit his original Desert Island picks and watch half of them evolve: Dynamic Coins gives way to Peter Kane’s Variant, Psycho Dice upgrades to Steve Cook’s The Gamble, Twilight Angels steps aside for Stephen Tucker’s Alpha to Omega, and John Bannon’s Royal Scam edges out Strangers Gallery. What stays says as much as what changes: The Kick survives ...