Close-Up Magic at a School Open Night in Boherbue, Cork

Walking Back Into a School After All These Years

The principal was in the middle of a speech when I arrived, which turned out to be a gift because it gave me the run of the place for a while. I wandered the corridors, got my bearings and had a good look around before anyone realised there was a magician in the building. Being back inside a school after all these years felt genuinely strange. Even though it was a completely different school to the one I went to, the feel of it brought me straight back to the years when I first started learning magic.

That is really where it all began for me, in a school corridor with a deck of cards I did not know how to use properly yet. So walking another corridor with a deck in my pocket felt like a small full circle moment. It put me in a great mood for the night ahead.

Magic for the Students First

While the parents were in listening to the talk, I stayed out with the students and performed for them at the stands they had set up in their classrooms. They had put serious work into those exhibitions and it showed in how proudly they stood beside them, talking to every parent who stopped about what they had made. The art and the technical drawing on display were a lovely reminder of how much goes on inside a school that the rest of us never get to see.

Some of the students were playing music as well, which lifted the atmosphere and gave the whole place a buzz that carried through the evening.

Then the Parents Came Out

Once the talk finished the parents spilled into the hallways and the night properly got going. These were families with a real decision in front of them, looking around a school their children could be starting in next year, so it mattered that the evening left them with a good feeling about the place. I moved through the crowds while they helped themselves to coffee, popcorn and sweets from the carts, doing close-up magic for whoever happened to be standing nearby. The facilities in that school are genuinely impressive and between the music, the food and the crowds of people catching up with each other, the inside of the building had the energy of a festival rather than a school open night.

That is the part of close-up magic I enjoy most. There is no stage and no distance, so it happens right there in someone's hands with a few people leaning in to watch. It suits a night like this one perfectly, where people are moving between rooms and nobody is sitting still for long.

The Queen of Hearts

Every gig throws up one moment that stays with you. At this one it was a new trick I have been working on with the Queen of Hearts. I am not going to explain what happens in it because it would ruin it for the next room, but I have not had a reaction land quite that hard before and it was a real thrill to watch it work on a crowd that had no idea what was coming.

A School That Cares About Its Students

What stayed with me afterwards was the amount of effort behind the whole night. Every student and every member of staff I met was working hard to make it a good evening for the parents. You could feel how much that school cares about the people in it. They looked after me from the minute I arrived and it was a privilege to be part of something they had clearly put their hearts into.

There is also something funny about a magician standing in a school making the case for what happens if you do not pay attention in class. I would not trade it though. That is where the cards found me in the first place. A night like this one was a lovely reminder of it. Thank you to everyone at Boherbue for having me out.