Stranded with a Stranger: Elliott Hodges

What if the strongest magic in your set isn’t the flashiest or the fastest to reset, but the piece that shines where you actually perform. Coffee shops, classrooms, living rooms? We sit down with hobbyist magician and primary school teacher Elliott Hodges to explore eight effects that prove context and clarity beat pocket space every time.

Elliott opens with Ambitious Jazz, a tight packet routine that builds phase by phase, and Elmsley’s Four Card Trick, a masterclass in logical endings powered by a single elegant move. He champions Quadratic, a lightning-fast calculation stunt that turns everyday calculators into proof of skill, and he shares how Wonder Spot paddles do more than amaze, used with care, they can calm a room and shift emotions. We also dive into the AAA Book Test, a clean, borrowed-book revelation that feels truly impromptu, and Tenyo’s Tower of Dice, a silent visual that doubles itself into disbelief.

Along the way, we talk Card Warp as the ultimate everyday carry, adapting to whatever cards or tickets are on hand, and we spotlight Fred Kaps for timeless lessons in timing, expression, and audience command, even after the Beatles. Elliott’s stance is clear: ditch the snobbery that labels effects “beginner.” Foundational methods, smart structure, and honest framing still crush with lay audiences, and books like Scarne on Card Tricks are goldmines for adaptable, modern miracles.

If you’re a hobbyist building a set that fits real life, or a pro who wants to refresh fundamentals with purpose, this conversation is your blueprint. Send in your list to sales@alakazam.co.uk to have your own episode in the future! 

Find out more about the creators of this Podcast at www.alakazam.co.uk

Chapters

• 0:32 Welcome And How To Submit Lists
• 2:48 Elliot’s Hobbyist Ethos And Reset Debate
• 4:17 Ambitious Jazz Packet Miracle
• 6:04 Quadratic And The Power Of Math
• 8:28 Wonder Spot Paddles And Calm
• 10:26 Elmsley’s Four Card Trick Logic
• 12:59 Triple A Book Test Versatility
• 14:56 Tenyo’s Tower Of Dice Visuals
• 17:02 Fred Kaps And Timeless Craft
• 18:29 Card Warp As Everyday Carry
• 20:08 Banishment Of “Beginner” Snobbery
• 22:57 Skarne On Card Tricks Enduring Value
• 25:19 Luxury Item Pen And Paper Magic
• 27:22 Recap And Listener Submissions
• 29:41 The 1914 Announcement And Future

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:32

Hello and welcome to an episode of Stranded with a Stranger. So we haven't done one of these in a long time, and I'm very excited to have some back in the vault so we can get some of these out. Now, if you want to be a part of one of these, the idea is you send in your list of eight tricks, one banishment, one book, and one non-magic item to sales at alakazam.co.uk. And in the subject line, put my desert island list. That way it comes through to me and I can get one of these recorded. Of course, the more of those we have, the more of these we can record. So please do send them in. We love hearing your lists just as much as anyone else's. And today we have the wonderful Elliot Hodges who has written in. So he's given us a little bit about him first, which is what we ask everyone to do. So if you are going to send in your list, tell us a little bit about you so that we can understand your process and maybe the reasoning behind your list. So here we go. Elliot says, My name is Elliot Hodges, and I'm a primary school teacher in my mid-30s. I'm proud to do magic as a hobby and have no intention of ever doing it for a living. I've been doing magic since I was 14 and, in recent years, have been on a mission to encourage other hobbyists to help them see that there's no shame in not intending to perform professionally. One of my platforms in this mission was Craig Petty who kindly interviewed me despite never having met me, and we discussed doing magic as a hobby together. It's on his YouTube channel. I've also written several blog posts for another magic company about this subject. I think there's been a lot of criticism of people who just do magic as a hobby and of their likes and dislikes when it comes to tricks. Many a time on magic forums I've seen comments that criticize people who like a specific trick that others don't because of its features. The best example is the reset of a trick. If I'm a professional magician doing a trick 12 times over the course of an evening, then I get the importance of having a very quick reset, or no reset at all. But just because a trick might take longer to reset doesn't make it a bad trick. It's just not ideal for the gigging environment. As a hobbyist magician, I might show a trick to a friend when they come around my house or when we go out for a coffee. I will only do the trick once, so reset isn't an issue for me. I'm very privileged to have the superb card magician and author Justin Hyam as my mentor. His books are terrific and definitely worth checking out. Justin and I talk about Saturday evening tricks versus Sunday afternoon tricks. Saturday evening tricks are your workers. They need to be angle-proof, have instant reset, and take up little pocket space. Sunday afternoon tricks are the ones you can have set up or get from your magic cupboard, etc. The bottom line, as far as I'm concerned, is this. With that in mind, some of my tricks will probably not be considered workers, but that's fine with me. Okay, so we know that Elliot is a hobbyist magician, and I absolutely agree with you. I think it may be John Bannon maybe who talks about uh being a semi-professional, the fact that obviously he has his main job and that he just sort of does magic as a side hustle, so to speak. And that that is no bad thing. And I think it's really interesting the idea of constructing a list without any parameters, because you don't have to worry about maybe pocket space or how long the trick's gonna take or the environment that you're in and the reset. So I think this is gonna be a really interesting list based on that. So let's get into it. In the first position, we have Ambitious Jazz. Gary Jones is a terrific creator of close-up magic with huge impact. Ambitious Jazz is an eight-card packet trick that happens in the spectator's hands. At the time of writing, it's my most recently performed trick as I took it to a coffee shop last night when I met a friend for coffee who often asked to see something. In this routine, four jokers are shown and held face down. Then four duplicate cards are also shown. One of the duplicate cards is placed near the bottom of the Joker's pile and somehow jumps to the top. Then a second duplicate is placed into the Joker's pile, but this time in the middle. Suddenly it's back on top. This is repeated twice more with increasing fairness. Before I was married and had children, I used to do some paid gigs, and this was always in my jacket breast pocket. It's a worker, but it's also super strong for casual performances. There are a few performances on YouTube, and it's taught both in Gary's At the Table lecture as well as volume one of his book. Definitely worth looking up. I've done it hundreds of times. Okay, so we're opening with a packet trick here. I was unaware of this one, so I did Google it and watch your performance on YouTube. Brilliant, brilliant thinking from Gary here. It's such a wonderful commercial magic trick. Now, what's really interesting is this is instant reset. So if you did want to perform this one again, you could instantly go back into it. But I love the idea of the two piles, and you know, each time it just looks cleaner and cleaner until that last one where you drop the pile on top of the ones on the table and the last card comes to the top. It's a brilliant, brilliant choice in at number one. So number two, we have Quadratic. Quadratic is a lightning calculation trick by Vinny Sagou. It predates him by many, many years, but he's made it accessible and easy to do. Anyone who knows my magic taste knows that I love maths magic. While I couldn't carry off a full show of maths magic, I do think having a few maths stunts handy is helpful. Why? Most of them use paper, pen, and calculator. There was a time when calculators were found in a desk drawer, but now we all have a calculator with us 24-7. This to me makes a strong maths trick practical. I do appreciate that some maths tricks are tedious and complicated. Quadratic ticks the boxes. A spectator names a large number and you instantly write down some numbers smaller than that number. When those numbers are added up, they total the selected number. I combine some of Vinny's presentation with some of Mark Paul from his Penguin Live lecture, uh, taking what I think is the best of both. To me, if I could do real magic, I'd want it to be useful and serve a purpose. Confession. Ooh, confession. Uh for someone who teaches maths every day, I'm not that good at it. I took three attempts to pass my maths GCSE. Would it not make sense then that I would want to use magic as a shortcut to make it seem like I'm better or more confident at maths than I am? For me, the perfect maths trick is one where my ability with maths appears greater than it really is. Some mind reading number tricks are good, but they don't always show the skill I want to portray. Quadratic fits the build nicely. I've done it for 50 people with a flip chart and four people with a notebook. It's very versatile. Great. I know uh Mark Paul talks a lot actually about having these sort of mathsy style tricks at the very beginning just to show that he has these skills, and then each time he sort of builds on it because the maths side of things almost feels tangible, it almost feels like you could really do these things. So then when more of the sort of surreal-y things start happening, it almost gives more impact to those things. So I think it's really interesting. This is another one I've not heard of, and I think it sounds brilliant. It's one that I'll definitely be checking out. So let's move on to number three. We've got the Wonder Spot paddles. I love paddle tricks. Oh, the power of that simple move. I've played with many over the years, but ultimately can't sing the praises of these two little sticks highly enough. My five-year-old son had some friends around once. One got very upset over something or another and his mum couldn't console him. I knelt down beside him, asked him to hold his hand out and caught a spot from his hand. The spot disappeared, reappeared, and jumped. You know the rest. But the real magic is that he stopped crying. One mum watching amusingly suggested that I must have had at least six paddles, that was genuinely the number she named, and that somehow I was switching between them. Again, the power of that little move. More recently, a child in my class was dysregulated and he needed a distraction. I showed him a paddle, caught the spot from his elbow, and you know the rest. He calmed down and could talk calmly. A pair of paddles is now in place in my class desk drawer. Honourable mention must go to Andy Clockwise's Rubik's Rod, which is a great for both children and adults. A great choice. It's one that we don't have a huge amount of, which I'm really surprised because paddle tricks are just such a classic of magic. It's one of the ones that we learned quite early on. It used to be in a lot of like beginners' magic sets as well, of or a version of it anyway. And I think that just because of that, we tend to not think highly of it anymore. When really, if we're all entirely honest, it's just as falling to an adult who sees it for the first time than when you were a kid. It is absolutely baffling. And I know, you know, honourable mention for our very own um version of that with Eric Stevens, because when I saw his version, I couldn't believe the thought that had really gone into that. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. That leads us on to number four, which is, funny enough, the four card trick. The genius of Alex Elmsley. Yes, it's another packet trick, but I couldn't not include this. It's such a magical trick, and the ending is mind-blowing and logical. Sometimes I feel like kicker endings don't always make sense or follow naturally after the rest of the trick, but this one does. The card that changes colour is the card the whole trick is about, and to me it's a logical and wonderful ending. It's a personal preference, but I don't do the second phase and prefer the trick without it. It's great for a wallet, great for a gig, and it also has the additional feature of starting with blank cards, so it doesn't look odd that you haven't just pulled them out of a pack of cards. Some packet tricks can look a bit odd if you carry the cards separately rather than removing them from the deck, because this trick starts with four blank cards and doesn't look unusual to have them separate. Another great choice, and I guess that's sort of the same with ambitious jazz, right? Because you're bringing out four duplicate cards and four jokers, so it doesn't feel strange that you're pulling those cards out. They have to be purposely put aside for that trick, if you get what I mean. And that's the same with this, and I remember seeing the four card trick again. I mean, I remember learning it when I was younger, but I saw it again last year when we put it on Unlimited. So if you want to learn this and you're an unlimited member, you can go on there now and see Alex Elmsley himself actually teach this trick. And I remember being so fooled all over again by it. It's such a clever, clever routine. And the fact that, you know, this is essentially what the Elmsley count was made for for this routine. He gets so much mileage out of one move, and that ending, the ending is absolutely baffling. I still think it's probably controversially, um, I'm sure, one of the best packet tricks ever put out because it just has everything in it. It's really easy to understand, it uses interesting cards. There are several phrase phases like uh Elliot said you can put in and take out if you want to. And then you get this kicker ending, which they just don't see it coming. And you know, there's no you're not putting in cards and taking out cards and all of that. It's literally just what you have in your hands. It's such a brilliant, brilliant choice, Elliot. So let's move on to number five, which is the triple A book test. As a hobbyist whose performances are mainly done when people request to see a trick, this effect has been invaluable to me. I've done it in so many people's houses and even once in a warehouse of books for a charity I was helping with. It's so practical and strong. Although Mark says you might not do it in a formal setting, I have done it as part of a stand-up show and found it effective there too. I'm convinced that knowledge is the best EDC, and knowing this method for a book test is great. Although the original handling is now quite old, there is a download with all of Mark's latest thinking and some of his ideas from Pete's Turner 2. Regardless of whether you know the original method or not, it's worth looking into. The combination of Mark's and Pete's ideas is excellent and takes this test to another level. Do you know what, Elliot? I'm completely with you there. When you said that you don't think that this um that Mark says maybe it's not good for a formal setting, I have also done this in countless times, uh, encounters environments. This really is the ultimate book test. You can literally borrow a book, have someone think of a word, and you can tell them what it is. There's no um going back to the book, if you know what I mean. There's it's not a particularly bold method, I would say. You know, when you look at previous methods, um ones where you're either, you know, without going too much into method, but we're not giving anything away here. Uh, this is a bit coded. If you're not a magician and you listen to this, this will not make sense. Um, but if uh there are missed calls and there are, you know, you're having to go back to the book, stuff like that. None of that. This is a real time method. It's absolutely brilliant, and I'm so glad that you highlighted it in your list, Elliot. So let's go to number six. We've got Tower of Dice. My friend Ian Bailey will be amazed that it's taken me this long to mention a Tenyo trick. I love Tenyo. As long as the method is baffling and the effect is strong, I have no problem running upstairs and grabbing a tenyo trick if someone's around my house and asked to see a magic trick. I have about 13 Tenyo tricks in total. Whether that's a collection or not, I don't know, but I love every one of them. Tower of Dice is hard to find nowadays, but it's a very strong effect that's simple and clear to understand. Four dice are poured out of a tube that can clearly only fit four dice inside. They're then stacked, covered with the tube, which is then lifted to reveal eight dice. It's so visual. I've tried many different patterlines over the years, but ultimately think it's best done silently and to let the magic speak for itself. It was a real toss-up between this and 4D surprise, a surprise appearance of the Statue of Liberty from a transparent box. Both are excellent tricks. Yeah, we've had quite a few Tenyo tricks, but not this one. And in my ignorance, I did not know this one either. So I did a bit of research with it, and I watched the video and was absolutely dumbfounded when they place the tube over the dice and they lift it up and the dice just carry on and on and on and on. It's such a brilliant, brilliant effect. Uh, I think it's such a good choice. Um, and it's great that you've got a tenyo trick in there. I mean, on my bookshelf I have two Tenyo tricks as well. Uh, I think that they are such brilliant talking pieces, they're so interesting, and like you said, it's great. If someone's over the house and they want to see a trick, it's just uh a no-brainer. Just go and grab it and yeah, perform it. They are great. So we're on the tail end of Elliot's 8 now with number seven, Fred Capps Manipulation Act. If Edward Hilsome could include an act in his list, then so can I. I love watching footage of older magicians, and for me, Fred Caps is the best of the best. If you're a youngster, you may never have heard of him, and if that's you, I seriously urge you to go on YouTube and check him out. He was an all-rounder. He performed close-up magic brilliantly, but also did tremendous silent manipulation to music. Everything about his manipulation was incredible. The impeccable sleight of hand, facial expressions, acting, and timing. In 1964, Fred had what was arguably one of the hardest TV spots ever for a magician. He had to follow the Beatles on a popular American talk show at the height of their fame. Few magicians could have done it, but Fred pulled it off. Treat yourself to a bit of Fred Caps today. Wow, I did not know that about Fred Caps that he had to follow the Beatles. My word, can you imagine what he was feeling though? Imagine what he was feeling, and how do you even choose what you're gonna perform or do after something like that? I I would love to have got inside his head and you know just be like, why? Why did you do that? How did you come to that decision? Yeah, brilliant choice. Uh, and taking an entire act, you know. I mean, we're skirting the rules a tiny bit there, but I'll allow it. I'll allow it just for you, Elliot. So we're gonna go to card warp at number eight. Roy Wharton seems to get a fair bit of mention on these podcasts. Clearly, he has a lot to answer for. I can't claim to be all that familiar with much of his work, but I do know some of his tricks were that he was most well known for. I love card warp and how magical it looks. I spent many years doing it too fast and making the routine too long. I now believe that the slower it's performed, the better, and that not pushing one card through the other too many times is more effective. I played with a number of different endings and subtleties and recently purchased Jeff Pierce's book with different versions and scripts. Over the years I've done card warp with playing cards, business cards, postcards, train tickets, and other things. Many thanks to the great magician Steve Price for introducing me to this trick back in 2008. Another heavy hitter. Uh, what a great choice. Again, this is uh earlier on in your list you mentioned you know that the best EDC is knowledge, and I think this absolutely falls under that because you can if if you're a restaurant worker, there are so many things within a restaurant that you can just grab and do this organic piece of magic with. Like you mentioned there, Elliot, you mentioned you know, doing it with train tickets and postcards and business cards. It's such a versatile routine and it's so baffling. Leaving those cards on the table and just watching them baffled at what just happened and looking at those. Cards is absolutely priceless. So I think that is a brilliant list. Let's quickly go over it before we go to your last items. We had Ambitious Jazz, Quadratic, Wonder Spot Paddles, 4 Card Trick, the Triple A Book Test, Tower of Dice, Fred Caps's whole manipulation act, and Card Warp. A great list. Now, obviously, we gave Elliot eight tricks, but we're only going to give him one each of these final choices. So we are going to dig a big sandy hole on your island. We're going to throw something inside. We're going to cover it over, never to be seen again by the wider world. Let's find out what you banished. Elliot said, This is a tricky one. I can't think of any tricks or effects I particularly hate. I think I would have it would have to be magicians who dismiss tricks as beginner effects. I personally love going through beginner books, looking for new ideas, presentation, and dodges for existing tricks. I recall a family Christmas gathering when I was a teenager. Christmas crackers were pulled and a pack of miniature cards were found in one of them. I performed a few tricks and suddenly noticed a pen from one of the other crackers. I asked if it was one of the flexible ones, picked it up and performed the bendy pen delusion. Yes, that one. I straightened it back out so it became solid again and put it down. On the way home, my dad informed me that he had seen my uncle surreptitiously pick up the pen and try to bend it with both hands to check if it was bendy. I'm unsure whether the colour of the pen strengthened the illusion or maybe the shape of it, but something made the retention of vision particularly strong. I learned that day never to dismiss so-called beginner tricks. Okay, I think that's a great banishment. I think that that's quite evident because um in your list, Elliot, there's quite a few tricks that would probably be considered beginner tricks. So if we were to look at maybe the Wonder Spot paddles, maybe Tower of Dice, because it's a tenure trick, certainly card warp, um, but they're all absolutely phenomenal tricks. And just because they are ones that maybe we start off with in our careers, it doesn't make them any less impactful. And I know lots of people have spoken about like dynamic coins, for example, on the podcast, and how many of us remember seeing the dynamic coins and being absolutely blown away by it. And just because we understand the method, we think that people in the future or people that we talk to now and perform to now won't like it. And I think it's because we overanalyse as magicians. I think the more you go on in your career, the more you think, quote unquote, like a magician. And I think we overthink things. So when we were younger and we saw the dynamic coins for the first time, none of us questioned the caps, none of us questioned the rings. We just took it at face value. It is what it is. And now that we're magicians, we're like, well, how am I gonna justify those brass props? How am I gonna justify that ring? We overthink it, and I think that's completely on us as performers and as magicians. So I'm with you there. I don't think that we should think of things as beginner tricks because one person's beginner trick is someone else's professional trick, you know. Uh I know that there's been a few shows recently that I've seen, large-scale shows, where there are tenyotricks as a part of the show. And I think that's wonderful. The idea that this tiny prop, and uh normally a self-working prop, if we're all being honest, can be the centerpiece of a large-scale show, I think is brilliant. So, you know what, that is banished onto your island. No one is going to think of beginner tricks anymore. So, we have a book, and the book we have here is Skarne on Card Tricks. While I appreciate some of the tricks are quite long and potentially tedious, there are some great pieces in here. The card tricks are self-working, but with a little knowledge and sleight of hand, many of them can be adapted and strengthened with a full shuffle or other convincers. It really does have a wide range of effects. Coincidence tricks, oil and water tricks, a cracking and direct version of follow the leader, card at any number tricks, and more besides. I've always felt that I knew the book well, but I also knew that someone would still be able to fool me with a trick from it. There's always more to discover. A couple of years ago, David Brittland showed me a trick in this excellent newsletter Cardopolis that baffled me completely. When I went to watch the explanation, where was it from? Skarne on tricks. A great choice there, and I think you raise a great point, and that's kind of why I love books now as well. Is within within a book you could have maybe let's say 30 tricks. You only need to have one trick in that book, one out of 30, that then you learn and you take on with you for the rest of your career. And again, a lot of the times it is knowledge in a book. It's not necessarily a prop or anything like that, it's just this method. And I know that magicians are method collectors anyway, that's what we are. Let's all be honest. We love a method, we love clever methods, we love discovering new methods and obviously discovering clever methods. Um, but that's why books are so phenomenal. All you need to do is to find that one trick within a book to make that book 100% worth the read. And I find very, very rarely do I find a book where there isn't at least one idea or one piece of patter or one trick or one plot line that doesn't make me go, wow, that's great. And I think that's how magic lives on. I think we read an idea, we come across an idea, and that idea we build on and strengthen and change for the better, and sometimes change for the environment. Like we don't have cigarette tricks nowadays, really. Um, so how can we adapt that to a new prop? All of these good things, and I think that always comes from books. Um, so the idea that you would still be fooled by a trick from a book that you know very, very well is a lovely, lovely idea. So that book is going with you, Elliot, but you do have a luxury item. So let's find out your luxury item. A boat. Now, Elliot, I don't mean to be mean here. You've skirted the rules already by taking an entire act. Okay. Not giving you a boat to get off the island. Oh, wait there. Let me read on. If that's not allowed. Okay. Okay, I jumped in too soon there, Elliot. I apologize. Um, a boat, and if that's not allowed, it would have to be a pen. Make it a multi-tool one for extra features. As discussed already, I love maths tricks and paper and pen mental tricks. I think my greatest EDC is a notes page on my phone with a list of impromptu tricks and I and what I need to perform them. Many of them just require a few business cards or slips of paper and a pen. And if I'm allowed one plug for a great paper and pen trick, check out Heads I Win Positively by Nick Holston. Okay, so we're gonna give you that pen. I like the idea that it's a multi-tool as well, it does a lot. Um, and I mean there are so many great tricks that use a pen not just as a writing implement, obviously. You know, you could push that pen through a note or maybe push it through a card, and then it comes back out. You can make the pen levitate or move off of the side of a table. You know, there are lots of different ways to use a pen, so I think that is a great choice, Elliot. And a great list overall. So, one more time. We've got Ambitious Jazz, Quadratic, uh, we've got Wonder Spot Paddles, four card trick, a triple A book test, Tower of Dice, Fred Cap's Manipulation Act, Card Warp, your banishment was uh people saying things of beginner effects. Your book was Scarnae on Tricks, and your luxury item is a multi-tool pen, although you try to sneak on a boat. Uh, that's a great list, Elliot. Thank you so much for taking the time to send that in. Uh, and of course, we want to keep doing these, so please send in your lists. The more lists that we have, the more of these we can do. I mean, what a brilliant list that was. So we want to hear your list as well. If you want to send in your list, it's eight tricks, one banishment, one book, one non-magic item that you use for magic. Send your list to sales at alakazam.co.uk. Please include a little bio about you so that we get to know you a little bit more, and then we can get one of these recorded for you. It would be lovely to at least do one of these a month, which is what we're gonna try and aim. We're gonna try and do a stranded with a stranger, um, maybe a couple of SOSs and the main podcast mixed in there as well, just to keep everything exciting and interesting. Thank you, of course, for all the feedback on the very first SOS, um, which is our new concept where we invite magicians back. If you haven't listened to it, it was Liam Montier's episode last week. It was absolutely brilliant. So please do go and check that out. So, thank you all for listening. I hope you have a wonderful week. We're gonna be back next week with a version of Desert Island Tricks. Goodbye.

SPEAKER_00: 29:41

The news is out. The 1914 has found a new home. We are proud to announce that Alakazam Magic are now the proud custodians of the 1914. What does this mean for you? Simply put, everything you love stays exactly where it belongs. The aesthetic, the quality, the philosophy. The website remains unchanged. Your instructional content is safe. The classics that defined the 1914 will be restocked and made available once again. And with our industry-leading infrastructure and customer service behind the scenes, the future is stronger than ever. But this isn't just about preservation. Work has already begun on a series of new 1914 releases. Projects that have been quietly evolving for years and are finally ready to see the light of day. This is the next chapter. Built on respect for the past, driven by belief in the future. Thank you for your continued support. Thank you for coming along with us on this journey. We are the new 1914.