The award winning team of tricksters, swindlers and cheats, Champions of Magic are back for an adventurous spring tour.

Champions Of Magic is the UK’s largest touring magic show, with five world class illusionists each performing in their own specialist style.

The production fuses a collection of classic and contemporary magic with stunning lighting, video and special effects to create a spectacular experience for all ages.

The Champions Of Magic cast have been seen on national and international TV including ITV’s ‘Penn & Teller: Fool Us’, BBC’s ‘History Of Magic’, CNN’s ‘Quest For Magic’, ITV’s ‘Good Morning Britain’, ITV’s ‘This Morning’ and BBC’s ‘Stuff The White Rabbit’.

The featured performers include grand illusionists Young & Strange, queen of close-up Fay Presto, visual magic expert Edward Hilsum and master mind reader Alex McAleer.

Aged just 23 Edward Hilsum is the International Brotherhood Of Magicians’ Stage Magician Of The Year while Fay Presto has also been awarded Close Up Magician Of The Year by the prestigious Magic Circle – the highest award attainable by a close up magician.

During rehearsals for the Champions Of Magic tour, proceedings were interrupted when two health and safety officers arrived and asked to inspect the giant fan used during the finale to Young & Strange’s performance.

This part of the show sees the performers attempt to walk through the spinning steel blades of the fan, a feat the officers had apparently seen in the show’s video trailer.

The blades are completely solid and turn at over 80 miles per hour.

Once the officers had inspected the fan and did indeed find it to be real they informed the production that the trick could not go ahead unless they received a full report on how the effect was achieved as they failed to understand how it could be done without serious harm to the performers.

A week later the officers received a package containing a desk fan, an Action Man doll and a note requesting they work it out for themselves. At the time of writing the production are yet to hear anything further from them.

It takes over 70 man hours to build the Champions Of Magic show at each venue on the tour.

Four of the performers are Magic Circle members, with two associates of the Inner Magic Circle and one member of the Inner Magic Circle.

The show’s crew includes a dedicated special effects technician due to the huge quantity of effects used in each performance. Over 50 individual pyrotechnic pieces, 6 air cannons, 10 industrial fans and 6 high output smoke machines create the stunning sequences seen in the show.

They will be at The Hexagon in Reading on Saturday, April 25. Call 01189 606 060 or visit www.readingarts.com