The Wayne Houchin’s lecture took place on the evening of 10th April 2019. It attracted a total attendance of 57 people. The venue was the Sojourn Room at level 2 of The Hotel Grand Central located at 22 Cavenagh Road.
Wayne commenced by performing the following 4 effects and then explained each of them in turn.
Transposition of 2 Bills – a whole bill held in the palm of one spectator transposed position with a torn bill held in the palm of another spectator standing some distance away from the first. The 2 bills, plus the torn piece, could be given out to the 2 spectators as souvenirs.
Thread – This is Wayne Houchin’s signature effect. A piece of string placed into the performer’s mouth could be retrieved from the corner of his right eye. It was an eerie experience just to watch the performance.
Spoon and Fork Bend – 2 metal spoons and 2 forks were each placed inside a paper bag and held by different spectators. Wayne then took off his ring and placed it inside the bag that contained one of the forks. The 2 spoons were later found to be bent while inside the bags. When taken out of the bag, one fork had one of its tines bent forward. Wayne took the fork and by waving it up and down, caused all the 4 tines to become bent. The other fork with Wayne’s ring was found to have one of its tines wrapped tightly around the ring. A plier was needed to bend back the tine in order to retrieve the ring.
French Kiss – a popular effect of Wayne’s. A spectator’s signature written on a writing pad paper transposed with the signature written by Wayne on another pad paper. The switch of the pad papers was immaculately clean.
An interval followed with food and drinks that allowed participants to take photographs with Wayne as well as to purchase products from him. Eric Chien from Taiwan was in Singapore to take part in Season 3 of Asia’s Got Talent. Eric was our guest at Wayne’s lecture and participants also took the opportunity to pose and take pictures with him.
After the break, Wayne continued with the following 3 effects.
Houdini’s Influence – this is another presentation of his popular “Influence” effect with playing cards. A spectator freely chose one of 12 different polaroid photographs of a single playing card. The identity of this card was found mentioned in a copy of an old newspaper print written about Houdini’s last game with playing cards. An interesting novelty type story effect with playing cards.
Unshuffled – this is Wayne’s method for Paul Harris’ “Unshuffling Rebecca”. Half of a deck of cards was turned face upwards and riffle-shuffled into the face-down half. As the face-up half was pushed into the deck, the face-up cards became face downwards. It was a baffling illusion.
A Single Needle – this is Wayne’s take on “Needles In Mouth”. Wayne used to perform 40 needles threaded onto a string from his mouth. This is now Wayne’s go-to effect with only a single needle knotted onto a piece of string in his mouth.
This was one of the best lectures that we had attended. We all appreciated Wayne’s creativity and admired his unique presentation style. We also enjoyed listening to the numerous anecdotes he shared regarding his creation and performance of some of his effects. No wonder this had one of the largest turnouts in the history of our hosting lectures.