Whacked by Mark Elsdon
Posted: Nov 4th, '09, 14:35The Effect
The blurb on the tin says...
Designed for the serious working performer, ‘Whacked!’ is a 10 minute mind-reading routine which revolves around Dave Gorman’s best-selling comedy book Googlewhack Adventure. If you’ve no idea what that is, you can bring yourself up to speed by heading over to http://www.davegorman.com
This Second Limited Edition manuscript gives full details of Mark’s script and psychological approach – which is one of the things that lifts ‘Whacked!’ head and shoulders above so many other book-tests. The presentation has been honed over many, many performances for a wide variety of audiences, which ensures that the routine plays as well for a group of top professionals at a business luncheon as it does for a crowd of hip college students at a birthday party. The presentation is funny, sophisticated and guaranteed to deliver a great audience reaction every time it is performed.
Cost
£30 from http://www.magictao.co.uk
Difficulty 2 The working is as easy as it comes but it's the performance that is going to make or break this.
(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)
Review
I really enjoy performing book tests and I love Dave Gorman so this was always going to attract my attention.
There are a couple of things that you're going to need before you can start performing this but it's nothing that you can't pickup easily and isn't going to cost you more than £10 in total. One of these things being a copy of Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, Amazon and Play both stock this for around £6.
What you do get is a nice little booklet containing a fully scripted book test routine and a CD-ROM with a little something that you're going to need (and it's a very nice little something).
My first thought when I read the method was how very clever it was. The routine involves handing out a totally normal and un-gaffed copy of Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure to a member of the audience. Five random numbers are chosen by other members of the audience, with the member holding the book deciding on which to use, this is a total free choice with no forces. The usual book test plot follows on from here, the randomly chosen page is turned to and the 'Googlewhack' on that page is revealed to the audience. The really lovely thing is that there really are no forces, magicians choice or anything else that's going to appear funny. It's totally hands off, you're never going to need to touch the book at all.
There are a couple of really lovely subtlties in the book and methods which makes the effect appear totally impossible to the audience but in fact makes your job much simpler. The little something that's on the CD is a fantastic idea and with the handling that's suggested in the routine it's something that I can see myself adapting for many other routines. It certainly gives a much easier method for something that I do often wonder about.
The script isn't going to suit everyone's style, there are a few areas that I'll have to tweek slightly but the method is very clever and there is more than enough room to adapt the routine to fit you.
The only slightly misleading thing in the advertising blurb is that it implies that you can use any book. While you could use a book other then Googlewhack Adventure I think that you'd be very hard pressed to find one that was practical and didn't tip off one of the nicest subtlties of the effect.
Overall 9/10
I was very impressed with this and it's something that I'm going to be looking into using as soon as my copy of Googlewhack Adventure arrives. The method is very nice and could easily be taken away and used for many different purposes, not just a book test. I started thinking up uses for it as soon as I read it.
