Keith Barry

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Keith Barry

Postby Mandrake » Jul 11th, '05, 15:21



I've been watching Close Encounters with Keith Barry (Saturday and Sunday evenings, 9PM on Living TV 2) which seem to be a mix of very old and established ideas mixed with stunningly new perplexing routines. The US Consultant on the show is Kenton Knepper so it has some good pedigree! The one which I particularly noticed last night was where he had a guest snooker player on the show, gave the guy a red backed deck of bikes to put in his pocket, took a blue backed deck, spread them face up over the table then let the guy bang the black ball all round the table. Whichever one the ball came to rest nearest was the selected card. Of course, the red back deck was then retrieved, fanned and shown as having just one face down card - the card selected by the random black ball. OK, all well and good and a standard ID routine so far - Paul Zenon used this routine once on one of his TV shows. However, in this case, the selected card had a large black cross solidly printed across it's face and the face up ones shown during the card spread didn't have any such crosses. No idea how this was achieved but it showed yet another way of using a tried and tested item with a subtle twist to it at the end. Last week's show included a performance of the original Paul Curry version of Out of this World - complete with marker cards and changeover in the middle.

He did a nice variation of the torn and restored card - usual start whereby spec 'freely selected' a card , the card was folded, the corner torn off and handed to the spec as a receipt. The folded card was wrapped in paper which was ignited and everything disappeared in a flash. Keith then drew everyone's attention to the empty card box and asked the spec if they could see what the brand of cards was. The answer came quickly, 'Bicycle' brand and Keith said that was almost right - in face it should read ' Icicle' brand (it sounds better verbally rather than written!), he opened the box and out slid a rectangular block of ice, just about the size of the whole card box, and frozen in the ice was the selected card with missing corner which, after breaking the ice off, was found to match the corner which was held by the spec all along. Not hard to figure out how to do this but I rather liked the Bicycle versus Icicle part - nice touch.

Other effects so far have included driving a high speed sports car blindfolded whilst a terrified young lady Irish TV Reporter sat in the passenger seat trying to see the route and send/scream the directions mentally and verbally so he could brake and turn at the right times. As the shows were taped in 2003 some things have moved on - last night featured Kerry Catona lending Keith her wedding ring (which vanished and reappeared in a salt cellar) which she treasured because Brian McFadden had given it to her. Perhaps she wouldn't say the same these days (see http://www.malefirst.co.uk/20462004-ent.html )! Most scary one this weekend was where there are four wooden bases, one with a spike and four plastic cups covering them. Keith was blindfolded whilst a spec placed the cups over the bases then mixed them up. Keith then added to the confusion by getting the spec to look away whilst he mixed them up a bit more so nobody knew which cup had the spike. The twist here is that Keith didn't place his hand over the cups and squash them as anticipated, he used the spec's hand instead and got the guy to say (scream!) whether he thought the spike was under that cup or not. If there was no spike guessed then Keith crushed the cup with the spec's hand - nice touch, I know a few people I'd like to do that to! Have a look at www.magicweek.co.uk under TV Magic and, for the next few days, you'll see a photo of exactly how all that appeared.

If anyone hasn't seen Keith Barry yet, he's a skilled and confident young chap from Southern Ireland so many guests, locations and so on are from Eire and the shows have some similarities with the Derren Brown Mind Control style of programme with a bit of David Blaine thrown in and a whole bucket load of pure Celtic charm and blarney. Once you've become accustomed to his fast talking style, you can settle back and watch a talented magish at work - all great fun!

(Check out http://www.keithbarry.com/ for all the info)

Last edited by Mandrake on Jul 11th, '05, 21:42, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby ouch-kabibble » Jul 11th, '05, 16:23

Youll find the ID idea (with the X on the face) is found on sankeys greatest hits, or secret files, under the title- 'X'.
Very clever idea.

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Postby dfitz1000 » Jul 11th, '05, 18:40

I quite like Keith Barry. He hasn't had a show out in a few years though,
I wonder if he will do any more. He is from Waterford, close enough to where I'm from.

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Postby Midas Kid » Jul 11th, '05, 19:08

I watched the show some time ago when it was aired on bravo. I will agree with Mandrake the show is enjoyable with some twists on old ideas. Also for once I can watch a magic show and pretty much get everything that is getting on (unlike a DB show which is so heavily edited you cannot follow any of the routines)

I have one problem with the show, it's Keith himself. Now I only have this show to go on so I don't know what his real character is like. But I don't like the David Blaine Mystic Guru thing that he does. I didn't really think much of it when Mr. Blaine did the old stare into my eyes nonsense. And it works much less when KB does it. It just not believeable. Also the constant going over with the spectator "only you had that in your mind" - The person has only picked a card for heavens sake.

One other thing. Now I am not one for being against mixing different types of magic. But you don't perform an unbelievable piece of minding reading followed by a good old TT and vanishing salt routine. It just doesn't work.

There was enough material in that series to break it up for each show to have a theme.

Maybe it is just. What do ithers think.

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Postby Mandrake » Jul 11th, '05, 21:22

According to his website there's a new series in production so should be broadcast soon in Eire. I know what you mean about his persona, it took me a while to get used to it but I just concentrate on the effect he's doing and get the general drift of the patter. IMHO he's actually a very good performer and I guess he has a good deal going with MTV and the US Distributors so he won't need to go for terrestrial broadcasts in the UK just yet. Unfortunately!

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Postby dfitz1000 » Jul 11th, '05, 21:36

Looking forward to his new series.
I will keep you posted once it airs here in Ireland.

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Postby Mandrake » Jul 18th, '05, 11:21

Saturday and Sunday's programmes were good, even though one contained a repeat of the spec's hand over the hidden spike from a week or so back. Lots of mentalism interwoven with well known items as usual. Last weekend he did the most blatant cross cut force I've ever seen and I had to rewind the tape to convince myself that he'd actually done it because it was so skilfully done! If one of the terrestrial channels would pick up this series I'm sure it would attract a large following.

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Postby Mandrake » Feb 18th, '07, 23:48

19 months ago Mandrake wrote:If one of the terrestrial channels would pick up this series I'm sure it would attract a large following.
It took them a while but at long last:
Ireland's Keith Barry is set to appear on prime time UK television having signed a deal with ITV1 to appear in his own one hour special on Saturday 19th May at 9pm. The show will see him perform some routines that Irish and American TV viewers have already seen - including his version of the classic "Cheating the Gallows."
Don’t miss him!

(Details courtesy of www.magicweek.co.uk)

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Postby dat8962 » Feb 19th, '07, 00:01

I'll also have a look for this one.

The card with the X marked on it could also be a use of the X-deck which is a nice effect which has ben reviewed on TM.

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Postby Mandrake » Mar 1st, '07, 01:41

Keith will be doing 6 shows in this series, more details in http://www.irishpost.co.uk/news/story.a ... ertainment

Last edited by Mandrake on Mar 5th, '07, 16:27, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby missed it » Mar 2nd, '07, 21:02

Keith is a really nice guy i met him in nov last year

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Postby Mandrake » Mar 5th, '07, 16:30

Apparently the news that Keith is doing 6 shows was false and it would have been just a one off show,.. I say 'would have' because Keith was involved in a car accident recently and the whole project will need to be rescheduled - see the separate thread at http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic17094.php&highlight=

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Postby Strawbs » Mar 21st, '07, 23:57

Anyone see his show last Monday? Maybe that was the one off show!?! :?

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Postby Ian McCarthy » Mar 22nd, '07, 11:06

Strawbs wrote:Anyone see his show last Monday? Maybe that was the one off show!?! :?


I dunno if that was on UK channels, but the one that was shown on NET2 (The Irish Channel) at 6.30 was a one off from what I know.

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Postby Dean Sexton » Mar 23rd, '07, 14:51

I sat up late last night to see Mr Barry on the Ellen DeGeneres Show on FiveLife. I have to say that it is the absolute worst television show I have ever seen. After what seemed like an eternity of pointless, embarassingly long sequences of Ellen dancing with the audience, non-stop whooping on a par with that bit with the monkeys at the start of 2001 and an unfeasably sycophantic interview with rubber-faced funny man Gwen Stefani, I rubbed my hands in eager anticipation of some decent quality entertainment.

Then they rolled the end credits.

I checked the digital guide, sure enough Keith was billed as being on the same show as Gwen.

And still the credits rolled.

#!@$~#%!!!!!!!!!! Stupid misleading televisual advertising combined with unfortunate coincidental editing!!!!!! That's an hour I won't be getting back.
On the bright side, I can honestly say that I've stared into the cavernous expanses of hell and lived to tell the tale.

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