talkmagic.co.uk

I have been watching the advertising blurb for The Art Of Presenting Magic To Children by Danny Orleans (£59.99 at Saturm Magic). On the face of it this looks like just what I have been looking for as a tool for moving properly in to the children's entertainment business. However, over the years I have been involved in magic if I have learned one thing very clearly it is that taking ads at face value is a sure fire way to end up with a drawer full of stuff I am ashamed I ever bought! So, does anyone out there know anything about this DVD set or about Danny Orleans. I apologise for my ignorance if he is the greatest thing in children's magic and I should already know all about him.

I can't tell you anything about the DVD, however Danny Orleans is a successful magician and business man, has been around a long time, well respected in the community.

There are several freebies on his website so you can see what his work is like. He gave a great lecture at FISM last year using clips of his acts over the past 30 years or so. OK, his style is very much American but is still valid for other countries. One superb tip he gave was how to make sure that any children on stage as volunteers stay still on the spot allocated to them - pure genius and very simple!

I've seen both his lecture and Silly Billy's. I don't own Danny's DVD but Silly Billy's book "Seriously Silly" is an excellent starting point as he has lots to say about transitioning from adult to children's magic. Very good sections on how to retool the same effect for different age groups of children. It is padded out with a slew of name-dropping anecdotes, but the book is gold - I refer back to it whenever I get a gig outside the age-range I've been stuck in for a while. His lecture was better than Danny's in my opinion (mileage varies of course - Danny's was good too)

https://www.amazekids.com/magic/birthda ... sly-silly/

I have his DVD set on kid show entertainment. It is full of information and very comprehensive. I had to reserve judgement on it as it is a different school of thought to my own. I did notice that it got a lot of negativity from UK kid show workers and a lot of positive feedback from American performers. Because of this I did not want to base my opinion on a knee jerk reaction. It seemed to be a cultural difference or something so I thought I had better shut up and try and analyse things a bit better. On balance I think it is certainly worth the money even if you are not keen on the American style of working. He works very scripted, very polished and very smartly dressed. It is actually a good show although I have certain nit picking reservations about certain aspects of it.

However, it is the wealth of information contained in the interviews and other parts of the set which make it worth studying. It has to be a good thing to hear this type of work being discussed in an intelligent manner and you can give it a lot of thought as to whether you agree with it or not.

The main problem I have is that I find DVDs a very inconvenient method of studying theory of working and books are a far better medium to do it. I haven't seen the latest book but I am sure it is very good based on the DVDS and a more convenient method of study.

I first met Danny some years ago working for Quebecor at a trade show. He was very good indeed. Slick and professional and I have seen him at other trade shows since. He is one of the top trade show magicians and is very expert in this field. His main business nowadays is trade show work although I do know he has considerable experience working with kids. If he ever wrote a book on this aspect of entertainment it would be worth a lot of money.

You can see Danny's range of offerings on his website at http://www.dannyorleansmagic.com/ - and see a few freebies!