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Manufacturer's Description
From world-renowned master of pickpocketing and star of the #1 selling Mastering the Art of Watch Stealing DVD comes this exclusive step-by-step guide to pickpocketing! This DVD will reveal for the first time anywhere the real secrets of street pickpockets and how they can be used to entertain.

James Coats is joined by Criminologist/Illusionist Nicholas Byrd to personally guide you through the closely guarded secrets of misdirection, magic, put-pocketing, and pickpocket techniques for use in removing belts, ties, wallets, watches, and much more! Removing anything will be possible once you master these techniques. You, too can learn how to be a master pickpocket entertainer!

Cost
£15 at Kernow Magic
£21 at Alakazam

Difficulty
(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)

I'd say the stuff on here ranges from about a 3-5. Some of the steals are pretty audacious and you will need to think of your own reasons for getting into some of these positions, as the ones offered on the tape are so flimsy it's comical. But we'll get to that.

Tricks and performance:
The tricks are the standard pickpocketing ruses - nicking watches, phones, wallets, belts, ties, that sort of thing. Technically it's absolutely fine and the steals do appear invisible to the subjects, but the performances were excruciating. The steals - to their credit, performed on real members of the public - were, without exception, masked with rushed, nervous "patter" and hidden behind really weak card tricks. That's the only real criticism I have of the performances, but it's a huge problem - the audience never seem that impressed, it's just "oh... no, I didn't feel it". Considering how inherently unnerving pickpocketing is, I found these reactions rather curious, especially when compared to Chappy Brazil's tape.

Explanations:
The explanations are fine - the details are all covered and I wasn't left with any ambiguity as far as the actual mechanics of the steals were concerned.

However, I will say that their tips for misdirection are very, very poor. This is an area they clearly haven't thought through properly. Take for instance this gem:

James: "If I'm taking a tie, I say "that's a nice tie", and I begin the yank... then I can leave it, get on with the card trick, then I come back, 'oh that really is a nice tie', pull a little bit more out, get on with the trick..."

He must have had five or six goes at this tie, and this was on a dummy. Then came this:

James: "Verbal misdirection is important. I'll often say things like 'oh, is it your birthday' - and then they'll be confused, and as they think '...birthday?' I've already taken the tie."
Nick: "When I've been taking ties, I've gone one step further and said 'is that a canoeist?'."

Is that a canoeist. I appreciate the psychology of confusing people as you take their stuff but if the best you can think of is "is that a canoeist", you need to sit yourself down and have a serious talk with yourself.

Overall:
Technically it's solid, and if you don't mind that very touchy-feely style that comes from this sort of all-over pickpocketing then this could be the tape for you - personally I find this approach to be completely inappropriate for me, but it could be of use to somebody more comfortable than I with the idea of slapping men's asses to steal wallets or practically cupping somebody when you're stealing their belt - but if you want a reference point for how pickpocketing should be conducted and a good way to mask it, refer to Derren Brown's thoughts in Absolute Magic and Chappy Brazil's "The Watch Steal" video. Brazil doesn't show you how to take ties and belts and whatnot but if you look at the reactions he got - surprise, audible gasps, applause - as opposed the deflated "oh..." that became a recurring theme on this tape, you appreciate the difference that pacing can make.

In a few words:
Technically solid, poorly structured, and requires a very tactile nature in performance.

Score: 5/10 (because it gets you halfway there)

Thanks for that Review, good to see honest opinion written so well!

Unfortunately I can never for the life of me appreciate pickpocketing, watch stealing and similar routines. They all seem to portray the punter as a complete mug, the misdirection, patter and confusion employed are far too smart-@rse and I truly believe if I found myself involved with an exponent of those arts trying it on I'd barely be able to withhold giving them a well deserved smack in the gob .

What gets me is where do you practice? Any other form of magic, from ACR to metal bending to palm reading you can get away by practising on friends, family and even strangers - but picking pockets? That's just going to get you into a world of trouble surely? I can't see your local law enforcement agency buying the "I was just practising my magic routine and fully intended to give the wallet back" alibi.

There's a few ways - people seriously interested in pickpocketing may pick up a tailor's dummy just to work with, or decide to test a friendship to breaking point by having a friend stand there while the trainee picks their pocket all day then asks for feedback. Stealing watches is easy to practice, you just put it on upside-down and inside-out on your left hand.

As far as the portrayal of the spectator as a mug with pickpocketing, that is the perception of it - and this isn't helped by the standard "reveal" in pickpocketing which is to hold the stolen item up behind the spec's head, which I find repulsive on so many levels. Some people do it better than others - Chappy Brazil carried it off very well and treated it like a magic trick, which I think was probably a good approach.

Like themagicwand says, practise is a struggle in this one.

I've seen some nice looking pickpocketing-routines, and I bought a DVD of Mark Raffles a 1.5 years ago or so. His routine looked nice but I also wondered how to practise. On this DVD Mark had a section on this: F.e. he hung up a jacket with a clothhanger (if thats the right word) and for the watchsteal he just put the watch around an object that fitted.
For some reason that blocked me from practising it though.

Yeah, Chappy Brazil's practice dummy was a broom handle with a tea towel wrapped around it. Makes sense I guess.

I keep seeing images of Ron Moody as Fagin in Oliver - You gotta pick a pocket or two-hoo boys, you gotta pick a pocket or two!

Yeah, anyone wanting to see master pickpockets at work, just walk down Oxford Street in the afternoon with a rucksack on your back.

I have to agree with the majority.

Although we sell the DVD set due to "popular demand" I personally think that general pickpocketing is a grey area.

The set is covered over 4 DVDs (£15 each) and one of them is on watch stealing which I think is a little bit different than just the "dipping" which features on the other discs. A few years back we used to stock a brilliant book on the subject which featured Chappy Brazil...... quality

Mind you Mark Raffles made a name for himself as a theatre pickpocket and he doesn't look like Fagin does he

Straight forward pickpocketing for entertainment in this day and age is actually more of an invasion of privacy than it might have been a couple of decades ago.

The thing I also found strange about this tape is that although the Brazil video is clearly aimed at magicians, it's almost as if they started as pickpockets and tacked the magic on at the end. Which is fine if you're a pickpocket, not so good if you're presenting it as an avenue of magic. You see them handling decks of cards and you wonder where the guide dog went.
If you're going to use the information on this recording - and you'll only be able to use about half of it, I don't care what anyone says, you can't steal somebody's belt in the way they describe without somebody feeling or noticing something - you will need to just take the raw mechanics and ditch the rest.

FYI, some previous threads on the same topic/authors:

http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic1823.php
http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic6871.php
http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic17862.php
http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic28197.php
http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic29768.php

Didn't those two do a fork or spoon bending DVD a while ago?

Oh, is there already a review of this? I do apologize, I did a search and didn't find one.

It seems that their style seems to suit some people... I just found it a bit flustered and slapdash. My interest in this is as an alternative to pre-show work, so I think I got what I needed from this, but if I'd been looking to set up a pickpocketing routine that is openly so, I would still have a lot of work to do after seeing this.

Thanks for your review.
I had half a mind on venturing into this (art ?) but now I'm in two minds.
OK that didn't sound right

If you're interested in pickpocketing then this shouldn't put you off, you just have to present it better than these two do. Which, frankly, would not be at all difficult.

Well, pickpocketing doesn't appeal much to me.. I just wanted to try it for the heck of it. But I'm too involved into Anneman's Practical Mental Effects right now.
Does it really require a lot of guts to do it ??