Puzzled by Roddy McGhie combines a well-known puzzle illusion with card magic and ends with an impossible object that your audience can investigate for themselves.

You take a number of loose puzzle pieces out of an envelope and give them to a spectator to examine. When the pieces are put together, they turn out to form a playing card cut into pieces.

Next, you introduce the principle of the well-known chocolate bar puzzle. In this case, it seems possible to remove a piece, rearrange the remaining parts, and still maintain the same size.

The same thing happens now with the playing card. You remove one puzzle piece and rearrange the remaining parts. Despite the missing piece, the puzzle is still exactly the size of a normal playing card.

Then follows the surprising finale. The removed piece is placed in the center of the puzzle. You press the card, and all the loose puzzle pieces suddenly seem to merge together. Where multiple separate parts once lay, there is now one complete, uncut playing card.

The map can be given directly to the audience to examine. As a result, a tangible impossible object remains after the visual finale.

With Puzzled refill packs available separately, you can even give the final card to a spectator as a souvenir. This way, the routine not only ends with a strong reveal, but your audience also has something special to keep and show to others.

Puzzled is an original close-up routine with a clear narrative, multiple impossible moments, and an open-ended finale.