talkmagic.co.uk

Alakazam – Dealer Dem (Part 1)
Ipswich Magic Society


The review.

I went to my first local Magic Society Meeting last night – and found it extremely enthralling. The people were very friendly and of course we all had one common interest. Magic. After last night I would thoroughly recommend to anyone interested in Magic to at least visit their local magic society.

The event last night was a “dealer dem”, specifically “Close up Magic” from Alakazam. http://www.alakazam.co.uk/

I was especially looking forward to this as I have already made more than a few purchases from Alakazam, and have always found Peter Nardi to be an extremely helpful guy.

I know from reading the messages here that some of you have already met Peter Nardi, and I can easily see why you were so impressed with him. I learnt a lot from the demonstrations he gave, and not just the new tricks (which I will get to later), I also learnt a lot about performance. He readily admitted that one of the tricks he was demming went a little wrong in the middle, but he just made up a new ending on the spot, and to be honest I never even suspected that the trick wasn’t anything but the original script. Is this guy cool or what!

The theme of the demo was close up magic, but Peter’s obviously very fond of packet card tricks and mentalism.

These are the main tricks he demonstrated, although I hasten to add he was quite happy to show anyone any of the many tricks and effects he brought with him.

The Hidden: Andy Nyman
Triple Impact: Matt Ellison
Runaway Joker.
The Stealth Wallet. Peter Nardi
ESPerfect:
Knock Em Dead
Entrapment Gold
Project X: Matt Ellison
DiceMan
BIPS (Book of ? Paranorma ?l)

I am not going to give a full review of them at the moment as some of them have already been reviewed in this forum, and although I bought many of them last night (too many, so much for a cheap night out!), I feel I shouldn’t give a full review until I have at least performed it for a while.

The Hidden. Andy Nyman. £12.99
I won’t say much about this as it has already had a great review in this forum. In fact so much so that I bought it back in May. When Peter Nardi demonstrated it last night it had only just been packaged up for selling, so I felt quite honoured to already have owned it (Thanks Seige).

Simply speaking, the effect is that whilst the spectator(s) think they are being taught the art of dead cutting (the ability to cut an exact number of cards from the top of a deck), they are in fact wonderfully misdirected into cutting to a specific place in the deck. One spectator cuts the deck and places the pile in front of a coin, the next cuts the deck and places the pile in front of a Wallet, and the last cuts the deck and places the pile in front of a watch. When the top card of all three piles are turned over – they are found to have writing on them (Coin, Wallet and Watch – respectively). The other cards can all be examined. Last night it was just an ordinary deck, although the version I have all the remaining cards are blank.

This is truly brilliant. See the review…
http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=1348

Triple Impact. Matt Ellison. £12.99
This trick has been briefly mentioned already by Seige, but as far as I can tell it hasn’t been reviewed in detail yet. The main reason for this is that it has only just be put on general release (exclusive to Alkazam), although I would like to confess that this is also another trick I bought way back in May and so I have no excuse for not giving it a full review. It certainly deserved one.

It is no secret the Peter Nardi is a great fan of mentalism and card tricks, and this manages to successfully combine the two. Effectively the spectator cuts a deck of cards and takes the top three cards from the cut position. No cross cut force or anything fancy, just the top three cards. After being asked whether they wish Aces to be considered high or low, the spectator is told to place the highest card of the three into their top pocket and then any of the other cards into their right pocket, and the last card into their left pocket.

The magician can then explain that before the show he had a premonition and had placed three cards (with a different colour back) into his own top, left and right pocket. The magician then takes the card from his top pocket and asks the spec. to do the same. The cards are the same. The magician then does the same with the card in the right pocket, and again, the cards are the same. Ditto for the last card in the left pocket.

Another very strong trick that went down very well last night.

Runaway Joker. £8.50
This is a rather clever trick whereby a deck is spread face up and so is shown to be absolutely normal. The joker is removed from the deck and is placed on the table, and then the spectator is asked to select any card. This is a totally free choice, and in fact the spectator is ask to sign the face of the card.

The card is then replaced in the deck which is then cut a few times just to ensure that it is totally lost in the pack.

The magician then takes the joker (a king on a bike) and whirls it once around the deck. In that very short time the joker (king and bike) is seen to have instantly disappeared from the face of the card leaving just the surrounding detail and the word Joker. Peter showed a couple of alternatives to this, and in my opinion, it is worth the price of the trick just for this effect. At this point the incomplete card can be fully inspected. Further more the cards can be dealt one by one to prove that the joker has indeed 100% disappeared from the deck.

However (oh I do love this trick, it is a whole routine by itself), the cards are then spread face down and lo and behold, the missing details from the joker are found to be printed on one card (and one card only). And guess what. When the card is turned over – it is found to be the signed card!!!!!

Ok. So this isn’t enough?

After spectator has verified that the Joker is really on the back of their card the magician takes the selection and gives it a quick flick, causing the Joker to vanish off the back of the signed card.

The deck is handed out for examination and the signed card as a souvenir!

Now I admit that the end of the trick shown last night was slightly different to this, but to be honest was no less strong, and all credit to Peter Nardi for coming up with his own impromptu ending whilst actually performing the trick.

He did show us afterwards why it went wrong, which could easily have been avoided if the cards had been checked first (another lesson learnt).

This is a fiendishly effective trick that is sold at an extremely reasonable price.

The Stealth Wallet. £24.95
http://www.emagictricks.co.uk/product_i ... ts_id=4568

This wonderful device has been fully reviewed already by Yankee Tom.
http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=6613#6613 but it was an absolute delight to see it demonstrated by the man himself. This is the one wallet I carry around with me everywhere. This is the one trick that I can do at a moments notice to anyone, and don’t think there is just one routine that can be done with it either – there are many.

Ok, that’s enough for now, I will continue with part two later on (and don’t call me Ron!), apart from anything else I really need to do some work right now, but I was so impressed with last night, both the Magic Society themselves and the demo by Peter Nardi that I felt compelled to share it with you.

I would also mention that a special thanks is needed to Laurence for giving me permission to post this review here.

wow - cheers for this review / insite into what the dealer dem was like - at our magic club (the Sussex Magic Circle) we have Alakazam doing a dealer dem tomorrow - Thursday 24th April, so I'll let you know what thats like too

Dan