talkmagic.co.uk

I may have whored this around the place a bit, but if you like magic, and comedy, then you should really check out, The Dirty Secrets Club

http://www.myspace.com/dirtysecretclub

Taking place tomorrow night on The Battersea Barge, close to vauxhall Tube Station. It's a lovely venue, small and intimate, cheap drinks (for London) nice food, good service.

Barry & Stuart, most of you know them, some of you like them. I like them and they are alway entertaining and good at what they do. Alway impressed by these guy, and secretly hoping that they do their smoking routine. Fantatically lovely guys, willing to give advice to me, even if I was drunk and rambling on at them.

Pete Firman, known probably most for appearing in monkey magic and his TV show with Ali Cook. A great entertainer and a great magician, and if you are lucky he may even pull his trousers down at one point (there is some "exposure" involved in this trick.... in more ways than one) A lot of comedy in his stuff, with some good old standards of magic being thrown in, usually finishing on an impressive linking rings routine that is far from boring (no offence to advocaters of this illusion). Once managed to give me a botle of stella, a pork pie and a party popper during the course of a single routine.

Jonathan Goodwin, extreme escapologist. Very funny again, alway entertaining, and a real nice guy to boot. If any of you have seen his tv stuff (death wish live, 7 stupidest things to escape from) you will know his escapes do not always go to plan. This is why his act usually steals the show, especially in his version of the water torture. There is so much tension built up that if/when he does escape the room erupts into cheering and applause.

There may also be a special guest (I cannot confirm this) and there will most likely be a couple of stand up comedians.

come, enjoy it, drink a bit and have fun. I can thoroughly recommend it as a fantastically entertaining night, and you get a pound off entry if you have a moustache.

How did this go?

I so wish it was tonight as I'm in London for work and the office is right next to Vauxhaul Bridge.

Would have given me something to do for the evening.

I have performed on (at?) the Battersea Barge a few times and it's a lovely venue. Is this a regular night?
The monthly Cheese 'n' Crackers variety show is great night too and one that's fun to perform on.

I'm still quite hungover but I can remember most of the night. It was a hell of a lot of fun. It probably wasn't as good as last months one, but purely because the boat was only half full and the atmosphere was a bit lacking. Some of it was a bit rough round the edges this time round as well, probably because of the atmosphere, but this didn't detract from the ngiht for me as it just provided for some excellent comedy moments.

My favourite moment had to be when jonathan the escape artist brought up a lady onto the stage and went into his spiel "are you now, or have you ever been an escapologist?" whch always brings a laugh, but not as big as the laugh when it turned out she was! He went ahead with the escape though, which consisted of a softball bat attached to a ribon, attached to a ring attached to his nipple. Jonathan was handcuffed and had to pick the lock on the handcuffs and cut the ribbon as he counted down from 30, at which point, the blindfolded lady would hit a rat on the floor (hence the name splat the rat) and unknowingly rip his nipple off. After a quick fumble and some tense moments he did escape, much to everyones delight.

Pete Firman was very good, and was also mc-ing the night and was extremely funny as usual. He did his linking rings, cut and restored string, he blended a mouse only to have it reappear from his mouth, and almost set me alight with a flying sparkler (for which he did apologise after) overall a very funny act with some great magic. I highly recommend anyone going to Edinburgh to go catch his show, which is playing pretty much every night of the festival.

They then had a mentalist on (not even sure he told us his name) who did a 10 minute act, which was, to be honest, pretty boring. The tricks were good, picking 6 people in the audience to pick a random number between 1 & 49, and lo and behold, the lottery ticket he had in his zipped up wallet in his pocket, had all the same numbers on. Unfortunately, the guy was just very boring, had no presentational skills whatsoever and failed to impress anyone I think. Very dry.

Barry & Stuart were very good as usual, managing to put my phone into stuarts stomach, and then barry proceeded to punch through stuarts stomach and retrieve the phone. They did the routine which has been posted on here a few times (from youtube entitled "funny magic trick") and several other bits. Overall, very funy and entertaining and some awesome magic, with a lot of stuff I still cannot work out how they do.

Then jonathan finished with his water torture escape, in which he is hung upside down with his head sealed in a tub of water and a strait jacket on. This one always gets me nervous as I have seen him fail before, and due to the smoking ban i managed to chew all my nails off in the 2 and a bit minutes he was trapped for. He did escape though, to the biggest reaction of the night.

Overall, although lacking in atmosphere due to the lack of people, it was a very good night. Not one for magic purists by any means, but there was a lot of magic, a lot of comedy, some excellent escapology and a lot of fun to be had by all. There was some mistakes, and a flash or two, but nothing to be noticed by the layman (except for one complete c**k up by barry and stuart, that was handled petty well considering it was in the midle of a song and music routine). I stayed behind again and had a chat with them as they tend to recognise me and my friend as we go to quite a few of their gigs (we're not stalkers, despite what they'd tell you) and they are all thoroughly lovely people.

Lord Freddie, this is indeed a regular show, held on a monthly basis, this is only the second one so far. The premise of the night is you write down your dirty secrets on paper provided, then at the end of the night they take them all and burn them and you are absolved of your sin. Not before reading a few out on stage obviously, which proves hugely entertaining The next one will be in about a months time, I am guessing, although I am not sure because of the Edinburgh week. Best to keep an eye on the myspace.

I must agree with the venue being lovely as well, it's very quaint and small and provides for a nice "warm" atmosphere. And on a nice summers eve you can go up on deck (to smoke most likely) and enjoy the views of the thames at sunset.

In all seriousness if you can, can you give plenty of warning of the next night?

I'll try and arrange a meeting in London to co-incide with the date and see if I can get to it

Sounds like you had a great time!

As soon as I know the next date, I shall find and bump this thread for you guys As I said, not for the magic purist whatsoever, but definitely a great night out, and I wanna support these guys as they have put on this night by themselves and it deserves to be successful and get a little exposure.

I'm up for going. The Barge is a nice venue and this sounds like a good show.

For those interested, the next date for this looks to be Thursday the 27th September.

Hope to see some of you there

This is 2 days after my birthday so I think I may be going this time.

greedoniz wrote:This is 2 days after my birthday so I think I may be going this time.

:O

Too many inter-twined birthdays... Mine's Sep 26th....

Some say the fact I'm fat and jolly has nothing to do what-so-ever with my birthday date being 9 months to the day after christmas.

that's the preliminary date at the moment, hopefully it should stay the same cos it's a good date for me, plus if it's your birthday that's more than enough reason to get trolleyed on a week day

seige wrote:Too many inter-twined birthdays... Mine's Sep 26th....

24th!

Er.. mine's 16th March. That doesn't really count does it? No. Didn't think so.

Cheers for the update,

Now to organise a meeting in London for friday AM - obviously not an important one so I can just raise the papers in front of my eyes

See you guys there