January 2008 Update

After a gruelling year in 2007, Keelan and Charlotte are looking forward to having a more settled year with life onboard the beautiful cruise ship, the NCL Jewel. They are currently cruising around the Caribbean and have been since October.

2007 brought them many opportunities especially after winning the prestigious British Magical Championships. Keelan says “We been fortunate enough to work on some of the most beautiful cruise ships and see different parts of the world but not only that we have been able to develop our show to 60 minutes and include many different aspects of magic. We enjoy the Quick Change and Dance Illusion side of magic where we are able to work together yet I have still managed to include my lifelong skill of sleight of hand using cameras and projectors to astound the audience.”

In 2008 they hope to continue to work on and bring new illusions and effects into our show. Charlotte said “We are very fortunate to work in some of the most amazing theatres here onboard the cruise ships and this helps us to improve and go from strength to strength in order to produce a better show.” They are currently working on a new quick change act that will hopefully be ready by the end of this year. It will be a completely different style to the act they have now and will hopefully include many more quick changes.

Keelan and Charlotte will be returning to the UK in February to appear in the World’s Greatest Magic Show held in Blackpool as part of the festival of Magic and Variety. They will be performing in the Blackpool Opera House on the 8th, 9th and 10th of February.

 

Star Princess

In June 2007, Keelan and Charlotte were the resident illusion show onboard the Star Princess of Princess Cruises. They were performing their show in the beautiful Princess Theatre and were sailing around Scandinavia and seeing the treasures of the Baltic Capitals. Their visits included, Copenhagen – Denmark, Stockholm – Sweden, Helsinki – Finland, St Petersburg – Russia, Tallinn – Estonia, Berlin – Germany, Oslo – Norway and Gdansk – Poland. While onboard they met a variety of other entertainers and saw many different acts as well a meeting some wonderful people like Eric Waugh who as well as being an amazingly talented artist is a really nice guy! (see Picture below). Keelan and Charlotte had a wonderful time onboard the Star Princess and hope to return there at some point in the future.

Charlotte with one of Eric Waughs paintings created on board the Star Princess
www.ericwaugh.com

  

 

Keelan 24 from Coulsdon, who has the largest illusion show in the UK and is the magic consultant to BBC 1’s Dick and Dom in da Bungalow and was bought in to help with filming preparations for Strictly Dance Fever, invented brand new magical illusions for this act. Keelan believes that this combination of ballroom, latin and modern jive dance combined with the spectacle of magical illusion is pioneering in the entertainment field. Keelan has been a finalist and runner up in many national dance championships in the last few years but this is the first year he has used his magic to help him and his team actually win.

 

Alongside Keelan was Karen Skilling, 25, a solicitor from Maidstone Kent, who was the principal choreographer/manager for the team. Karen teaches Ceroc in Romford Essex on Wednesday nights where complete beginners can learn this new dance phenomenon. Other members of the team were the twins Paul and Glen Brooks from Ceroc Nights, who had a great time learning their new magical skills, Charlotte Voller who is Keelan’s assistant and Boba Lee who teaches Ceroc in Ewell on Tuesdays.

Strictly Come Dancing and Strictly Dance Fever have popularised partner dancing again with more and more new people joining Ceroc each week.

 

Feb 05 - Keelan discusses his DVD Flirting with Magic on the television show This Morning he also demonstates his body language effect 2020 on the show.

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Jan 05 - Keelan launches his DVD Flirting with Magic on the television station Ideal World with Magic Tricks.co.uk on the 30 Jan and 3 Feb.

This is the definitive guide to flirting in the twenty-first century. This DVD will add excitement to every night out and transform your love life. Imagine never being nervous about approaching someone you're attracted to, ever again...

This DVD will teach you powerful body language techniques and detection strategies to recognise whether someone is flirting with you. Over a dozen powerful magic effects, specially designed to give you the edge in the dating game, are shown and explained in detail.

There are 12 main magic effects specifically designed to help up you break the ice, gain rapport, obtain and give contact details and magical excuses to artificially induce physical contact and break the physical contact barrier, plus a whole section on reading body language and 4 bonus magical effects.

Have the edge in the dating game…..Flirt with Magic!

 

 

Nov 04 - This Morning ITV - Magic & the Power of the Mind mini series

This Morning ITV - Magic & the Power of the Mind mini series

We spend millions of pounds as a nation on mystics, psychics and people who we think will be able to predict our future or explain our past. But should we be more wary when we part with our hard earned cash? Are we being conned each time by people who don't have mystical powers but are only masters of illusion?

Over the course of the next six weeks, psychologist Dr David Lewis and magician Keelan Leyser will explain how easy it is to be deceived with visual, mental and physical tricks. Each week they will look at a different psycological topic, Keelan will demonstrate a trick and Dr David will explain how it works, how we can be fooled, but also how to use these techniques to a positive effect in our daily live...
Why We Really Can't Believe Our Own Eyes
Those who claim that "Seeing is believing" are totally wrong! Your mind can easily be manipulated to believe you have seen almost anything. Sometimes the power of suggestion used by pseudo psychics is so great, they can delude their audiences through psychological techniques alone without any need for props.

COMING UP OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS

1] Let Us Direct Your Attention
We like to believe that we can pay attention to whatever we choose; this is however far from the truth. Pseudo-psychics skilfully direct their audiences' attention to wherever the tricksters choose, in order to disguise their own trickery. We will explain the psychology behind this and suggest some practical ways to avoid being taken in.

2] The Power of Movies in the Mind
Imagination is the plaything of the pseudo. We explain the ways, in which this is done and show how the same vivid mental imagery which can lay one open to being tricked and deceived, can also be employed to our benefit, enabling us to perform almost superhuman tasks with ease.

3] The Damaging Power of Negative Thinking
People can easily be persuaded to talk themselves into failure, something which pseudo psychics prey on to make their victims more open to suggestion and less capable of resisting their powers. They use negative thoughts and natural fears to peddle everything from "luck clover" to talking with the deceased. We give two powerful demonstrations of how people can talk themselves into failing and provide antidotes to such fears.

4] The amazing power of positive thinking
All of our feelings, beliefs and knowledge are based on our internal thoughts, both conscious and subconscious. We can be in control, whether we know it or not. If people can be easily persuaded into negative thinking, it follows that they should also easily persuaded into positive thinking.

5] The Eyes Have It! & Are We Betrayed by Our Body
The eyes, it is sometimes claimed, are the windows of the soul. Certainly they can convey a great deal about what we are thinking and feeling - provided you know how to read them.

Eye movements are one of the key tell-tale signs used by pseudo psychics when conducting what is called a "cold reading". That is where subtle aspects of feedback are used to discover how close - or far from - the truth their generalised comments about that individual might be.

Freud said that however skilfully someone lies with their lips they will always betray any deceit via tiny muscle movements. These almost invisible changes in muscle tensions can be detected by training and then used to demonstrate, among other things, seemingly impossible feats of mind reading.

Pseudo psychics use body language in what is called "muscle reading" to give themselves the appearance of possessing paranormal powers, for example by discover a small object, a key, a coin or even a needle, hidden anywhere in a large room, an entire building or even a city block. We will explain the give away signs and where to look for deception.

Oct 04

Keelan and Charlotte perform two illusions on CBBC's Exchange programme.

The BBC show Xchange devoted a whole programme to Keelan. Keelan performed two illusion had an indepth interview with a live phone-in and gave a quick master class on how to become an illusionist.

Sep 04

Sod's law

Keelan and colleagues Dr David Lewis and Philip Obayda come up with an equation that tests the likihood that Sod's law will strike. This equation gained international coverage with newspapers like The Metro, The Sun, The Evening Standard, The Times, The New Yorker Wired magazine and many more covering the piece. The equation was also a question on the Big Fat Quiz of the Year with Jonathan Ross. There are many chatroom devoted to he equation now and even a company in the states is producing T-shirts with the Sod's Law equation on the front and 'S**t Happens' on the back.

Here is just one of the storys taken from the Newspaper @The Scotsman

Now, the formula that predicts when Sod's Law will strike next

IAN JOHNSTON
AUTHOR Jerome K Jerome bemoaned the fact that while wearing boots a man would never bump into anything, but would stub his toe shortly after putting on sandals, while fellow writer Maurice Rock quipped: "Any body plunged in liquid receives a phone call".

The infuriating certainty of Sod’s Law - that if something can go wrong, it will and most likely at the worst possible moment - has caused consternation down the ages.

But now a team of freelance academics has come up with a formula, which they claim will help ordinary people "cut the seemingly unbeatable Sod’s Law gremlins down to size".

The saviour of the hapless and the accident-prone - assuming they have access to a calculator - is: ((U+C+I) x (10-S))/20 x A x 1/(1-sin(F/10)).

Dr Keelan Leyser, a London-based economist who also performs as a magician, the psychologist Dr David Lewis, formerly of Sussex University, and a consultant mathematician, Philip Obadya, also based in London, worked out the formula after studying the experiences of 1,000 Sod’s Law victims and also helpfully came up with a seven-step guide on how to perform the calculation.

The formula looks at five factors relating to any event or action: urgency (U), complexity (C), importance (I), skill (S) and frequency (F).

A score of between one and nine is applied to each of these factors, with a 0.7 score for aggravation (A), and then the formula can be used to find a Sod’s Law rating of between zero and ten.

The higher the number, the more likely it is that someone will fall foul of Sod’s Law.

For instance, wearing a new shirt when going on a first date only increases the chances of spilling a drink on it before meeting the person, and, despite having a drawer full of spare lightbulbs, none of them ever matches the bulb that has just blown.

Dr Lewis said: "The lesson from this is that, to cut the seemingly unbeatable Sod’s Law gremlins down to size, change one of the elements in the equation.

"If you haven’t the skill to do something important, leave it alone. If something is urgent or complex, find a simple way to do it. If something going wrong will aggravate you, make sure you know how to do it.

"For example, you spill a drink on yourself before a date because making the important decision of what to wear, you forget all you knew about getting a cup to your lips and throw tea down yourself. So concentrate harder on drinking."

The study, which was commissioned by British Gas, might have helped United States Air Force Captain Edward Murphy who became known for doing experiments that always went wrong when performed in front of a more senior officer during the Second World War. In the US, Sod’s Law is known as Murphy’s Law.

The survey found that the top ten most likely examples of Sod’s Law included spilling something on your clothes before a first date at No1, followed by the boiler breaking down during a cold snap and rush-hour traffic being worse when you are late.

The others included computer crashes just as an e-mail containing an important document is sent, a washing machine breaking down just before a holiday and the cooker breaking down when you are expecting guests.

Anne Morton, of British Gas, said: "In our experts’ tests, the mercilessness of Sod’s Law emerged. Not only do things go wrong, they do so when they are most likely to drive their victims up the wall.

"For example, Sod’s Law shows how cruel it can be when it comes to the shower turning cold just as you’ve shampooed. But because men aren’t bothered as much, the chances of it happening to them are low. Women hate it and it happens far more to them."

Dr Chris Theobald, of Edinburgh University’s maths department, an expert on decision theory, modelling human sensory data and "probabilistic risk assessment", told The Scotsman: "It’s obviously not serious. It sounds like a bit of fun.

"Sod’s Law is probably because you remember things that occur at a bad time more than you do things that don’t. It’s more of a psychological thing than a mathematical one, I would suspect."

Dr Theobald’s work deals with issues such as advising farmers on how much seed or fertiliser to use on a field to be as cost-efficient as possible.

He doubted he would use the Sod’s Law formula in his daily life: "I’m not sure I would believe anyone else’s formula."