Trick 1: The Disappearing Beaker
Show the audience a tray with a small beaker on it. Cover the beaker with a napkin, take hold of the beaker and remove the tray. Suddenly, throw the napkin into the air and the beaker has vanished.

The Preparation
Take a small wooden tray and glue a small plastic beaker to the centre of the tray. Next take a cloth napkin or a handkerchief and sew a small circle of cardboard (the same size as the top of the plastic beaker) into the centre of the napkin/handkerchief.

The Secret
Show the beaker in the centre of the tray, them cover it with the napkin so the cardboard circle is over the top of the beaker. As you lift the napkin, hold the cardboard disc in the napkin so that it looks as if you’re holding the rim of the beaker. As you remove the napkin turn the tray with the beaker away from the audience and stand it against something behind your table. Everyone will think that you still have the beaker in your hand. But when you throw the napkin in the air and catch it, they will know that it has vanished.

Trick 2: Beaker Through The Table
A small beaker is wrapped in a sheet of newspaper and then disappears only to reappear under the table.

The Preparation
Gather together a small beaker, a small object that will fit under the beaker and a sheet of newspaper. The piece of newspaper must be larger than the beaker so that it can be completely covered with extra to spare.

The Secret
Place the small object on the edge of the table. Place the beaker upside down over the object and finally wrap the newspaper around the beaker. Ask the audience what is under the cup. This will lead them to believe you are about to make the object disappear. Lift the paper and the beaker to show the audience that the object is still on the table. As you lift the beaker, move it slowly towards you until it is just clear of the table. Let the beaker discreetly slip from the newspaper and land on your lap. The audience must not see this. The newspaper should hold its shape so that your spectators assume the beaker is still in your hand. Replace the paper over the object (still maintaining the shape of the beaker).

Say the magic words and say the object will disappear. Lift the “beaker” and look puzzled that the object hasn’t vanished. Pick up the object and replace the “beaker”.

Tell your audience that you can’t make the object disappear, so you’ll have to try the beaker instead and promptly smash your hand containing the newspaper onto the surface of the table. The newspaper will squash flat and the audience will gasp. You claim the beaker has passed through the table and prove it by bringing it out from your lap under the table.

Trick 3: King and Queens
Take an ordinary pack of playing cards, and pass it to a member of the audience. Ask them to look through the pack, remove the four kings, the four queens and lay them on the table face upward. Arrange the cards in four pairs, king of clubs with queen of clubs etc and so on; put these four pairs on top of each other to form a packet of 8 cards that is left face down on the table. Ask several people to cut the cards (but not to shuffle them) to give the impression that the cards are mixed.

Say your touch is so finely tuned you can separate the kings and queens just by feel. Put the 8 cards behind your back and moments later display the four kings in one hand and four queens in the other. You claim you can reunite the four pairs of cards, again using sense of touch. Pick up the four queens, place them on top of the four kings and leave the cards face down on the table.

As before get a number of people to cut (but not shuffle) the cards. Pick up the cards and put them behind your back. Seconds later produce the cards from behind your back two at a time and lay them face down on the table. When they are turned over, all four pairs have been correctly matched.

The Secret
Part One: When you put the cards behind your back for the first time, take every second card with one hand and the rest with the other. Or, to put it another way, one hand should take cards 1, 3, 5 and 7, while the other hand takes cards 2, 4, 6 and 8. Due to the way that the cards were ordered before you picked them up, this will always separate the kings and queens.

Part Two: When you put the cards face down for the audience to cut before you put the cards behind your back for the second time, the audience should think that you arrange them in a face down pile at random. Make sure both the queens and the kings are in the same suit order. For example spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds because it goes black, red, black, red. Once you’ve picked up the first two queens, the next two will be even easier to put in order. Collect the kings in the same order; spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds.

Make sure you collect the cards together so it looks as though you’re tidying up the cards from the way they were left at the end of the first part of the trick. Once you’ve done that, turn the 8 cards face down and get the audience to cut it several times. When you have them behind your back, take the top four cards in one hand and the other four cards in your other hand. Produce the cards in pairs taking the top card from each hand, until all four pairs are on the table. Ask a member of the audience to reveal each of the matching pairs in turn.