Now that's magic

The Twins, magicians from Wareham, are celebrating the start of a year's contract in Spain with the launch of their own range of magic tricks, some of which people can practise themselves.

Paul and Gary Hardy Brown started their own careers when they were given a Paul Daniels magic set for Christmas as youngsters and now, at 27 years old, they are selling their own tricks and preparing for their biggest contract yet.

They have now left for Spain to appear at the Benidorm Palace, as part of its nightly spectacular -and they are set to wow audiences with their latest illusion of making a helicopter appear on stage within four seconds.

To kick-start the contract they came to Dorchester and amazed shoppers with a series of tricks, starting with 23-year-old planning officer Ann Coles from Charlton Down.

Ann was asked to pick a card from a pack while thinking of where she had been at noon on the previous Friday and picked the three of clubs. She was amazed when she saw the advert the Twins had placed in that day's Echo - 'The card you will pick will be the three of clubs'.

Paul said: "The card tricks and the smaller illusions are always popular, even though we are taking 25 tonnes of equipment over to Benidorm with us.

"Our illusions have got bigger and bigger, but it's good that we can still surprise people."

Alistair Dean, 18, from Crossways, was fascinated by one of the Twins' new magic tricks - the two elastic bands that miraculously become one.

But the major illusion of the day was when Waitrose assistant section manager Melanie Roberts pulled one of the lottery Thunderball slips Paul and Gary had asked shoppers to fill out from a sealed envelope.

The pair had sent a sealed box to the Echo two weeks before and told us not to open it and to make sure it was not tampered with.

When the box was opened it contained a Thunderball ticket bought on May 2 - and the numbers matched those on the slip filled out by one of the shoppers.