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To give this book it's full title, The Magic of Pants – A Conjuror’s Compendium of Underpants Tricks to Delight All Ages (and Sizes) As exposed by Kjartan Poskitt & Philip Reeve

Published by Scholastic (scholastic.co.uk/zone)
ISBN 439 96860 7
Price £5.99 (paperback)


One of my firends told me that his young son (6 or 7 years) was reading a book called The Magic of Pants and knowing my interest in Magic he asked if I would like to see it. Thinking that he was kidding me I said ‘yes’ only to find that he wasn’t kidding at all.

On thumbing through the book (222 pages) I immediately noted that it was well written and easy to understand with a high number of illustrations and cartoons scattered throughout the book. Most, if not all of the content is based on well known and easy sleights, tricks etc. but having obviously been changed to incorporate a pair of either men’s underpants and ladies knickers or thongs. The last two got me thinking but alas, all tricks begin with the items having already been removed – a great shame!

There are seven chapters in total. The first is a preface that includes the origins of pants magic, warnings, how to use the book and what you need to perform the tricks contained within (in addition to the pants). Thereafter the chapters are:

2. Intimate tricks
3. Party tricks
4. Street tricks
5. Theatre tricks
6. Designer tricks and finally,
7. Showstoppers.

A total of 41 routines are included and they use everything from cards, rope, paperclips and rubber bands, up to and including a coffin sized cardboard box and much more! Each trick is broken down into five sections as below.

1. The first section starts with a few paragraphs that includes the history of the original trick (pre underpants version) as well as an outline of the routine from the spectators viewpoint.

2. Pantscadabra reveals the outcome of the trick.

3. What you need, well, tells you what you need

4. Preparation tells you how to set up (obviously).

5. Last but not least, the performance tells you how to perform (again, stating the obvious).

With some of the tricks but not all, there is a further section called pants patter, which gives a suggested patter to accompany the routine.

This is a very amusing book and is potentially the best £6 you will spend, bringing a new slant on the classic tricks that are included within (and I’m sure that there will be even cheaper second hand versions on ebay). Many of the routines contained within have been marketed in different and more traditional forms and you'd pay around the cost of the book for just one of them.

For the money I can't fault this book in anyway and can't give anything less the 10/10 to be fair.

Er, this was already reviewed at http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic3980.php!

Oops - sorry Mandrake, hand't realised.

Please remove my review if you so wish.

Nah - it's always good to get a second take on something like this. Completely daft stuff but hidden in there is a lot of excellent basic magic which the professionals are using. Not with pants, obviously. If I can figure out how to do it, I might merge the two threads so all the info is in one location.