talkmagic.co.uk

Hmmmm...the lure of the instant download! It cannot be resisted forever, not in my case anyway! There is downloadable magic appearing all over the web. I'm not sure it's a great idea since anyone with only the vaguest interest and a few quid in their Paypal account can get access to some fairly fundamental information but that's another story.

In this case I was quite pleasantly surprised. For your money you get a 14 page PDF e-book describing the routine and pictorals of the moves required, 2 movies of the guy doing genuine professional restaurant performances and 1 high resolution video lesson of about 4 minutes or so. The combination allows you to see the effect from the audiences point of view, read about it in detail and get video lessons including multiple slow-mo shots of the moves. I still think the written notes could have been better in terms of the precise finger positions but I worked it out watching the vids a few times. They have certainly made an effort to provide a decent learning product.

The actual routine is quite nice. You thread a string through a normal finger-ring and show it attached but then magically pull it off the string, you re-thread it, pull it off and then throw it back onto the string. Finally you have the ring threaded and put it into your closed fist, your specs hold each end of the string – you bang the table and the ring has gone through the table and appears in your other hand under the table. Bear in mind that this description is what the audience is supposed to think happens rather than what does happen.

I found the first threading move a tad obvious, you can't see it as such but it looks like SOMETHING suspicious happens when you are threading the ring and I think the some of the real audience does too. But it doesn't really matter – it’s still surprising and looks magical. And it sets you up nicely for the 2nd phase. The other moves look nice. They require you to play it fast and light – it’s not an earth-shatteringly intense performance piece but a bit of magical fun and would play well for a walkaround bit.

So you get a workable 3-phase routine that builds entertainingly. You get tips on how to sell it, videos of it working, the patter, the moves, everything you need. For the money it isn’t bad.

They also do some package deals where you can d/l their entire website for not a huge amount and you would get a LOT of stuff for that.

I used TPMGEnc to translate the Quicktime .mov files into MPEGs and burned them to VCD so I can watch on my DVD player.
[edited by mods]


Ease - 2/5

Hi Neil,

could you please post a price and more elaborate rating as opposed to just "Ease". What does ease mean?

Have a look at the Reviews template and you'll see what I mean.

Cheers,

Fish

Goldfish I would say ease 2/5 means that on a scale of 1-5, 1 being easy 5 being difficult, then it is a 2.

Nice review Neil.

Yep - nice review. I've also been quite impressed with the stuff www.youdomagic.com has been putting out. I think they're on to a good thing. The routine also sounds like something i could use. Thanks for the review

I had the opportunity to try the routine out for some kids over the weekend. They really liked it. I think it's perfect for children.

The routine involves getting the two kids up to check the strings and help you pull it off the string etc which they liked. The visual bit where the ring jumps back onto the string went down very well.

A nice review.

However, as suggested, could we try and adhere to the standard 'reviews' format please? It makes things a lot neater.

Glad to also hear you also performed it 'live'.

Sounds like a great instant service to me.