talkmagic.co.uk

This is a little bit long, but if your planny on going to watch a live magic show , it might be worth a read...

I get a sense from reading this section that people are looking for the chance to go and see magic performed by somebody other than them selves in the mirror. I am always on the look out for live shows, and wanted to let everyone know about two that i have been to recently in London.

Magic Night : Soho Revue Bar
http://www.sohorevuebar.com/events/friday.htm

I was tipped off about this night by the guys at the magic stall in covent garden, who also can be seen prefroming table magic there on the night ( 'Magic Lee' was particularly good on the night that i went, great card magic and an excellent cups and balls routine). The show takes place on the first friday of every month, with different acts in each show. Last month i saw Danny Buckler, Christian Lee, The Grey Man and Jonathin Goodwin.
While this had the potential to be a great night out there was something generally dissapointing about the evening. I dont want to be too negative here, becasue i admire them for putting the night on in the first place, but i'll try to explain my feelings on the matter. The seemed to be a generally apologetic tone by the performers for the magic, Danny Buckler for example, who was the headlining magician, only performed two tricks a six card repeat, and that trick with a tiny chain and padlock, where the performer keeps freeing his hands tp scratch his head or waving to the audience, whilst 'escaping'. I dont want to sound like a misery guts, but if i wanted stand up comedy i would have gone to the comedy club, and probaly laughed 10x as much as watching magicians basically do stand-up sets with a few uninspiered tricks thrown in to qualify them for the evening. But it wasnt all bad, the highlight of the evening was The Grey Man, http://www.thegreyman.com, He performed a great mentalism set, including a great effect where asked to gentlemen to go and purchase a porno dvd, which he had acuratly predicted!
The host for this evening was awful, a female comedian whos name i forget, and there was also another female comedian on the bill who didnt perform any magic, and just wasnt very funny. Im not even going to talk about Jonathan Goodwins failed escape attempt.
Maybe it will be better next month...


The End Of The World Show
http://www.theendoftheworld.co.uk

The premise for this show is that it is 2 hours from the end of the world, and so rather than sit around waiting for our impending doom, we can have a great time, and watch an amazing show.

This was honestly one of the best nights out that i can remember. Better than any trip to the theatre, any comedy night, or any other show that i can think of. It is styled on an old fashioned variety show, with a line up including dancing girls, singers, magicians, jugglers, strippers- what more could you want?!

Everything has been planned with a great eye for detail, they have special vaudville cider to drink, and you can order delicous pizzas to your tables during the show, which is impressive considering it is held in a church hall. But the venue is perfect, they dress it up so you really feel like you've stepped back in time, with red velvet curtians, and waitresses wearing corsets. It is all very well done. And so on the the line up.

The Magic was provided by Barry and Stewart aka The Magicians, and they were fantastic. They performed two sets during the eveving, in the first Stewart remained silent, Teller style, while Barry narrated the tale of a nervous magician letting us hear poor stewarts thoughts. This worked so so well, it was hilarious, and a very modern style of presentation. Their secend set was longer and also amazing, with barry performing the razor blade swallowing stunt, and a great bit called 20 ways to know if your insane, where they perform loads of different tricks to a backing track of music and sound effects. Absoloutely amazing stuff, and very funny. And i know they will be at the Soho Revue bar on friday the 1st, so that should be a great night too, i strongly reccomend to try and see them.

The other acts where all also very well chosen, including the lovely Lady Greys, a group of old stlye dancing girls and Matt Hennem who stole the show with his crystal ball manipulation act. This was the highlight for me, during Matt performance i looked around the room, to see everyone mouths agape, in stunned silence. He makes it looks like the crstal ball has a life of its own, it was f***ing incredible!
The music troughout the night was great and very varied, and when its all over there is a DJ.

If you can get tickets, then go to this night!!!!!! i promise you a good time!

wow that turned out longer than i thought, time for a cup of tea.

Atomo out

I don't venture into the city as much as I used to but thanks for the reviews; I'll try to remember them for when I am next down that way.

i found some great live magic in london, check it out http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic18875.php

I was the guy that bought that porno at the soho revue bar, Iron Rons photographich mammaries, volume 5 if i remember correctly The Greyman wasn't as good as he made out, but I won't ruin it for you

yeah it was a disappointing night, danny buckler, well I don't rate him much at all, he just annoys me. Tiffany the host is lovely though. And so is jonathan, I spoke to him after and he said he did the same escape only a couple of hours earlier elsewhere, so it was just bad luck that he didn't manage it then.

I'm going again tomorrow night to see barry and stuart, I'm not sure who else is playing though. Should be a good night, the only problem is the crowd is usually quite rowdy and hard to control in the soho revue. Looking forward to it nonetheless, as it's the last magic night they're doing for a while I believe

if you thought Lee's cups and balls routine was good, ask him to see his ambitious card routine!

now THAT is good methinks...he gives a use for the "long distance spinner" that I have certainly nicked off of him!

Thought I would give a quick review of the magic night at the soho revue bar last Friday.

It was the best one I had been to yet by quite a way. First of all they had a comic on, which I find always mixes well with magic, and this guy (though I can't remember his name) was really quite good and had me laughing a lot. HE was very close to the mark on decency a lot of the time, but managed to keep it on the side of funny and never resorted to outright shock actics to get a laugh. Not everyones cup of tea, but I thoroughly enjoyed him.

Second up they had Mandy Muden, an apparently acclaimed female comic magician. When she first came on to the stage I though "oh christ, here we go" but she turned out to be really funny, and oddly attractive (in a middle aged slghtly overweight kind of way" She did a good mix of magic and comedy, with a couple of mentalism tricks, a couple of impressive card tricks including sword through the card, and a few other little bits. It was thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining, and for a woman comedian (no offence meant here) she was surprisingly funny.

Next up were Barry and Stuart, and I might be biased here cos I think they're great, and they were exactly that... great. Most of their routine I have seen before, but it didn't make it any less amazing. They have added quite a few new bits into their routine which caught me off guard and often had me crying with laughter (more than a cancer joke should really). They are incredibly funny guys and their on stage personas are fantastic. They even managed to deal with an extremely chavvy guy, who some might refer to as an idiot (or something a bit stronger) who they called up on stage to do a trick. He was the usual bad spectator, kept chatitng over all their dialogue, started looking through all their props and just would not shut up. That was until, barry punched through stuarts stomach in the middle of the stage (not visible equipment, no props, stuart was just wearing a shirt) and pulled the guys mobile phone out of stuarts stomach, albeit covered in a bit of blood and some guts. This is probably their most powerful trick and it really seems like magic when you see it performed live with no setup.

And last up was jonathan goodwin, the escapologist (dirty tricks, 7 most stupid things to escape from). We was doing his version of the water torture escape, which I had seen him try and fail to do on the same stage a month earlier. Again, he is an incredibly funny guy, and must have huge balls. IT was a nail biting 3 minutes, and it looked like he was going to fail to do it again, but then, just as he must have been near passing out, he escaped, to an absolute cocophany of noise of people cheering and clapping. Escapologists never tend to excite me too much, but the tension was incredibly high whilst he was trying to escape, you could have heard a pin drop (which is unusual for the soho revue, the crowd is pretty rowdy). Anyway, he escaped, everyone was amazed and he was obviously elated. Fair play to him, it was an excellent way to end the night. The man is a genius (of sorts) and the only escapologist I really like. A friend was speaking to him upstairs and apparently the plan for his next trick is "human kerplunk". I don't know much more than the plan is to drop a bowling ball on his head? Stuart said "but that will kill you" to which jonathan replied "nah, it'll probably just hurt a bit"

Anyway, a good night was had by all with some great comedy, some fantastic magic, an amazing escape and lots of jack daniels (mainly by me)

next stop, the barge in battersea with barry and stuart, jonathan and pete firman on june 19th

Well, I seem to have come off quite well in this post

Chris - what is the long distance spinner you refer to?

Thanks,

Lee