Desert Island Tricks
Each week we invite one of the biggest guests in the world of magic to maroon themselves on a desert island. They are allowed to take with them 8 tricks, 1 book, 1 banishment and 1 non magic item that they use for magic! We discuss their 'can't live without' lists and why those items were chosen.
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To find out more about the team behind Desert Island Tricks, please visit: www.alakazam.co.uk
Desert Island Tricks
Stranded with a Stranger: William Poliet
William Poliet takes us on a magical journey spanning two decades of professional performance across France and the UK. As President of the Coventry Magic Circle and Warwickshire’s regional representative for The Magic Circle, William's carefully curated repertoire reflects both technical excellence and genuine audience connection.
His magical origin story begins with a profound childhood moment at his 11th birthday party, William's uncle performed a card effect that left him utterly spellbound. So captivated was young William that his only wish for his 12th birthday was to witness this miracle again. Years later, his uncle gifted him The Royal Road to Card Magic, revealing the method behind what William now affectionately calls "My Uncle's Trick" in his professional shows.
The eight effects William would take to a desert island showcase his performing philosophy. From Nick Einhorn's Signature Triumph to Michael Hout's "Priceless," William selects routines that establish rapport, generate laughter, and create memorable moments. His thoughtful commentary on sponge balls reminds us of magic's primal appeal: "When the audience member opens their hand and finds two or three sponge balls when they were convinced they only had one, the reaction is priceless."
Perhaps most insightful is William's perspective on his bent coin routine: "For us it's a bent coin, but for them it's a strange experience they'll remember forever." This profound understanding of how laypeople experience magic elevates William's selections beyond mere tricks to meaningful theatrical experiences.
Want to share your own desert island list? Send your eight tricks, one banishment, one book, and one non-magical item to sales@alakazam.co.uk with "my desert island list" in the subject line, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode!
Find out more about the creators of this Podcast at www.alakazam.co.uk
Thank you for watching. Welcome to this week's episode of Stranded with a Stranger. I know we haven't had one of these for a few weeks. We're still waiting for you guys to send in your list, so don't forget, if you want one of these recorded for you, send in your list of eight tricks, one book, one banishment, one non-magic item to sales at alakazamcouk, with the subject line my desert island list. That way it comes to me and I can get one of these recorded for you. But we do have another stranded stranger and I have had the privilege of meeting this chap twice now, so let's get into his list. He has, of course, given us a little bio. Here's what he says. I wanted to submit my desert island tricks list a while ago and it's been postponed for different reasons. So when I met Jamie face to face at the Blackpool magic convention 2025 on the Alakazam stand, I gave him my word that I would submit my list on my return from Blackpool. So, convention 2025 on the Alakazam stand, I gave him my word that I would submit my list on my return from Blackpool. So here we are. During my Magic Circle audition, jamie and Sarah Stott helped me with my act. So it's truly special to send my list to Jamie.
Speaker 1:My name is William Pallet and I have been a professional magician for 20 years in France and the UK. Alongside my daytime job as an automotive engineer, I'm also currently the president of the Coventry Magic Circle and the regional representative for Warwickshire for the Magic Circle. My first experience with magic was at my 11th birthday when my uncle performed a trick which is part of my set now. More details on the list below. At the same time on French TV there was a program where people with uncommon jobs described them. One of them was a magician who mentioned the shop he used to work for, maillet Magie Moderne. I hope I said that right. The following week I went there with my dad and brought my first trick, a coin through glass called Magic Gum. I still have it in my magical cupboard. My performances are mainly close-up and parlour shows for corporate events, weddings and private parties.
Speaker 1:My following list, which isn't in any particular order, is the reflection of my set which has been refined and polished over the years. Yes, so I have had the opportunity to meet William. It was so nice to see you again at the Blackpool Magic Convention and thank you so much for sending in your list. It's always really nice meeting some of our listeners from overseas and, of course, the Alakavam all around the world. It's always great to meet all of you.
Speaker 1:So let's find out what William's list is. I'm sure it's going to be a really exciting list. Let's find out what trick he's put in position one. So he says I will start the list with my go-to effect that I perform either during drinks receptions or at the table. It's called Signature Triumph by Nick Einhorn from his at the table lecture, which can be found approximately 27 minutes in.
Speaker 1:I like this routine so much as the audience will witness an in the hands triumph routine, known table needed, with two extra kickers at the end. You start the routine by showing your prediction in your wallet. The participant selects a card, signs it and it's shuffled back into the deck. With a magic wave. All the cards turn to face the same way, except for the signed card. That's the first surprise. You then reveal your prediction, which happens to match the chosen card. That's the second surprise. And when you turn this card over, it's the card signed by the spectator which is the final surprise. Well, nick Einhorn is an absolute legend. He's created some truly incredible tricks and really we should try and get Nick on the podcast. So maybe we'll try and get him on for a future episode, but this is excellent. The fact that you have even given us the timest stamp there for us to go and check out really is a great help. So thank you, william. So let's find out what he's put in his second spot.
Speaker 1:William says the second effect is one of my openers in my parlor show, priceless by Michael Huat. I like this effect as it is quick and visual, but also it sets the scene for the audience. My act will be funny, they will laugh and have a good time, which for me is the most important thing. Basically, for the ones who don't know this effect, the audience try to guess the price of your jacket. You mentioned that in fact you didn't pay for it. You remove your jacket to show a security tag with a price tag attached hanging, which is always a surprise for the spectators. You then turn the price tag to reveal that the price given is in fact written in permanent ink on the price tag.
Speaker 1:The first honorable mention is to paul martin with his mind yours and the mystery ultimate bank night routine, which I use as my second opener. A great choice and I think we're getting an idea of your character here. So we know that you've just said that you want your spectators to know that your act's going to be funny and that they're going to laugh. So I'm guessing you have quite a tongue and cheek, cheeky, fun persona, which is great. And this is such a wonderful trick. It really does take the security tag gag and turns it into something that makes so much sense. So it's a great, great choice.
Speaker 1:So in your third position, you've put a set of sponge balls between two and four, according to the routine I perform. Trust me, when the audience member opens their hand and finds two or three sponge balls, when they were convinced they only had one, the reaction is priceless and this is a great time for the money shot. Any magic trick that happens in the participants hands is a great moment for them. The routine is quite simple. I put one ball in my hand and one in the spectator's hand. I mind giving them my ball and open my hand to show that it's now empty. When they open their hand, they now have two balls. For info, I use the one and a half inch super soft sponge balls in red. Yeah, I think you know we've said so much about sponge balls. In fact, I've just finished editing an episode of the main podcast where Spongeballs is in that set as well. So it's a classic. It's going to be around for forever and I think, again, it's great that you've been so specific that you put one and a half inch there.
Speaker 1:So William's doing all of our hard work for us in this list. He's given us all of the info we really need. And this brings us to number four. He says this list would not be complete without at least one wallet. Let's be honest between us. We do love wallets, and especially a peak wallet. I recently picked up the latest version of the Stealth Assassin wallet by Peter Nardi, the Crazy Horse Edition, which has a lovely dark brown leather. The previous version I have was the original Stealth wallet and this is a huge improvement in terms of features. I can't wait to use it at my next gig.
Speaker 1:Being only at the beginning of my Stealth Assassin journey, I used the routine from Graham David Fishwick, where you take the participant on an imaginary shopping trip to their favorite shop and ask them to commit on their preferred item. You mention that it's incredible, as you have a photo of your favorite item in your wallet and that it would be amazing wouldn't it be an amazing coincidence if these two items matched. When you remove the picture, it is a picture of a barcode. You can clearly see that the participant isn't buying it and think it's just a gag. But the climax is when you mention that by scanning this barcode at their favorite shop, it will come up with the selected item on the till. Another honorable mention would be for the Razor Wallet by the 1914. I like the slim design, which looks just like a cardholder wallet. A great choice. I have had every version of the stealth assassin wallet as well, um, william, so I'm in the same boat with you. The new crazy horse brown one, though, really is such a gorgeous wallet and I think we spoke about it before that the advancements in technology mean that the features of this wallet are much better hidden for those who used to find that a concern not that it really ever was because of the way the wallet functions. So it's an absolutely excellent, excellent choice, and thank you for putting your preferred routine in there, which means mr devil's advocate doesn't have to show up, and that that leads us to number five.
Speaker 1:He says when I perform mind reading. I often get asked where my accent is from or directly where I am from. I like to reply Coventry, and pause, look at their face and see if they will be brave enough to reply that it's not a Coventry accent. And then, as is always interesting to meet people from other cultures, the audience members want to know a little bit more about me and how I learned English. This is when I perform Omnitool by Julien Loza, a French magician. I explained that in my school years, when we had no internet yes, I know I don't look that old I learnt English using flashcards.
Speaker 1:Each card had a picture on it with a word in French and the English translation underneath. In fact, I always have this deck on me as it brings back memories of my English classes. I use these cards to perform mind reading and drawing duplications. The good thing is that it could be used by French people to explain how they learnt English, but vice versa for English people and French. For the effect, you ask three participants to cut the deck of flashcards and memorize which one they cut to. They can shuffle the cards and, one by one, you reveal the word or the picture on their card. For the last reveal. You are completely hands off as you don't come near their cards, but are still able to reveal the info. Well, that sounds like such a great routine. What I love there is it feels quite specific to you in that you use it to explain how you learn English and, like you said, vice versa. That's a really really clever little get into that routine, a nice little hook. So I think that's really really cool and really that could end up being a little everyday carry. If you had some of these in your wallet and then you pulled them out and said, oh, this is how I learned English, I think that would be absolutely great. So great, great choice. And leads us us nicely onto number six.
Speaker 1:Talking about my childhood, I still remember the magic trick. I first saw Picture the scene At my 11th birthday party. My uncle asked to borrow a deck of cards, and what he did next was beyond my imagination. It started with a pick a card trick from a borrowed shuffled deck. The card I had selected was replaced into the deck and the deck was shuffled again by myself. Four cards were placed on the table, but none of these were mine. I then had a free choice of touching any of these four cards and when I turned the card I touched over, it was my selected card. From that moment I was hooked. My only wish for my 12th birthday party was that my uncle would come and perform the same trick again, which he did. It was wish for my 12th birthday party was that my uncle would come and perform the same trick again, which he did. It was only at my 18th birthday party that my uncle gave me the book that he used to learn this trick. What a gift. This trick is now called my uncle's trick and is always part of my repertoire. Without giving away the method, it's not a magician fooler, but it will freak your audience out.
Speaker 1:We sometimes forget how strong magic can be for laypeople as we see it with our magician's eyes, and for me, this is the perfect example. The real name of this trick is Now you Can See it from a book called the Royal Road to Card Magic. Wow, what a lovely story, william. That's so nice, and it's really nice that he gave you that book as well that you learned from and I guess that's still in your collection now the exact book. So what a great choice, and I'm sure a lot of us have Royal Road to Card Magic, so we can go and check out the exact trick you were talking about. So thank you for that. Check out the exact trick you were talking about. So thank you for that. And this takes us to number seven.
Speaker 1:I've always been intrigued by Uri Geller and his effect of psychokinesis and telepathy. In order to avoid having bulky pockets full of spoons, I decided to use coins, a 2p coin, because this is the main question 2p or not 2p? Yes, I know, I'm also a comedian. Back to reality. I like performing a bent coin routine and I like watching the audience's reaction when they open their hand and a bent coin is found Once again. For us it's a bent coin, but for them it's a strange experience they'll remember forever and the fact that they can keep this signed coin is a perfect memento they will cherish. I used to use coin vex the generation by david penn, honorable mention but I now use a one-handed, brilliant ox bender by many lindenfeld and some easy bend 2p coins from prop dog that I still have. The routine I perform is the one taught by john morton during his lecture absolutely great choice. Anyone that's done any form of metal bending knows the impact it gets, and specifically coin bending. Even though coins are becoming increasingly more difficult at gigs to find now, lots of people used to keep those coins for many, many years. So it's a great, great choice, william.
Speaker 1:And that brings us to your last item. He says last but not least is a card to impossible location. A signed card is lost in the deck and found inside an item that the participant was holding from the very start. But right in these lines, I can already hear Jamie asking the following. I will play devil's advocate. Which cards or impossible location are you using? So I'll reply to Jamie's question by another question. It depends on the performance.
Speaker 1:Would you like to know for close up or parlor? In fact, I'll give you both. For parlor performances, I like the destination box by John Allen. The box is really well made and looks beautiful. It's also a great callback at the end of my show. Due to the size, I prefer to use it for parlor, even if it could be used for close-up as well. For close-up gigs, however, I use Cell by David Stone.
Speaker 1:Long story short, I used to perform it all of the time when I lived in France, but with the evolution of the mobile phone into smartphones, where the battery compartment can't be removed. I stopped using it A few years ago when I was gigging with Etienne Pradier. He reintroduced me to it and I straight away understood the comedy side you can have with an old phone. The audience members don't see the climax coming and think it's just a gag until the end. My card to impossible location, honorable mention, will be the Light by Chris Congreve. It's a very practical and much smaller routine than an old phone, so much better if we're talking about pocket management.
Speaker 1:Great choices. I remember when Cell came out years ago and it's so nice that people have found a way to reintroduce that routine because it was so clever, um, and it's so, so baffling. So it's great that you are using this version and thank you for not bringing out devil's advocate and, uh, giving me both options there. Destination box I have seen har Harry has one of these and I've seen him do it. He does it absolutely phenomenally well and it really made me fall in love with that routine as well. So both great choices. Now this brings us into your curveball items, and you were the first person on Stranded with a Stranger to give us a banishment. So here we go. Let's find out what William's banishment is.
Speaker 1:If there's one thing I could banish from magic but not only from magic it would be people that lie on mailing lists. What I don't like is when a magician says that you can subscribe to his or her mailing list and adds don't worry, I won't spam you with tons of emails, just two or three a year. So what do they do? You subscribe and less than three hours after you're ready to receive two emails. For me it's a no go. Interesting. So that's almost like the marketing side of magic there that we're cutting down. So that's really interesting indeed. I know that when I wake up in the morning not just magic, like you rightfully said there, william I do have lots of spam emails. I have lots and lots of them. So I completely understand where you're coming from. And that leads us nicely onto your book.
Speaker 1:For the book, I'm going to take one that I haven't read yet so I can learn something new. I'm deliberating between two books that recently brought and I haven't had the chance to read. These are setting the stage by eric samuels, and the magic menu, issues 31 to 60 by jim sisti. Due to the variety of content, my choice for the desert island would be the magic menu. Excellent choice. I think we may have had that once before, but I can't be entirely sure off the top of my head. But both great, great choices. You continue. Both books are quite big and the thinking is outside the box, and I'm already picturing myself on the desert island. I can clearly see the advantages with these books as they have many pages. Firstly, it will keep me busy reading and secondly, once I will have finished, I'll be able to use the pages to help light a fire. So the more pages, the better. Excellent, excellent choice.
Speaker 1:And that leads us on to your final item, which is your non-magical item that you use for magic. You said, my top everyday non-magical object that I use for my magic is my ray-ban meta glasses. For the non-geeky ones, the meta glasses have a camera belt in that, built in that allow you to film point of view during your gigs. You can then use the video footage to make content for your social media. These glasses were introduced to me by my friend Kev G final honorable mention of my list who did show me the amazing reaction footage you can have with them, which is a powerful selling point for your social media platforms. Absolutely, I have seen so many performers with these. I think they're so, so clever. The only slight strange thing that I've had is at a lot of gigs now people are using these glasses as an explanation for the magic. So it'll be interesting to see if anyone else has had this happen to them. But people say is there a camera in your glasses? Is that how you're seeing it? So you know, maybe that is a sign of what's to come in our future.
Speaker 1:But let's go back over williams list. So he started off with signature triumph, priceless sponge balls, stealth assassin, wallet, omni tool, um. He then went for my uncle's trick, which is now you can see it, and he went for the ox bender. Finally, he went for the destination box and sell technically two, but we'll let you have it for his banishment. It was spamming mailing lists. His book was the magic menu, issues 31 to 60, and his non-magic item was the Ray-Ban Meta Glasses. What a great, great list, william. Thank you so much for sending that in and for taking the time to write all of that out.
Speaker 1:Now, of course, william is a stranger to us at NoMore. We know everything we need to know about him. Now we want to get to know about you. So, like I said at the beginning of this podcast, please send in your list of eight tricks, one banishment, one book, one non-magic item to sales at alakazamcouk. In the subject line put my desert island list. That way it comes through to me, of course. Please put a bio in and the reasons for your trick. We actually had another list come in and on that list there was no bio and there was no reason for those tricks. So we haven't used that list, sadly. So do make sure you remember those things.
Speaker 1:Now we're going to be back later on this week with another episode. We've got some incredible guests coming up. Depending on the order that you're listening these in I don't know if you're dipping in and out of them or if you're following along systematically Next week's episode was a phenomenal episode. It's going to be a slightly longer episode, but as soon as you see the name, you'll understand why. That being said, I think I've teased enough and I will see you next time on another episode of Stranded with a Stranger. Goodbye. See you next time on another episode of stranded with a stranger goodbye, hello, guys.
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