talkmagic.co.uk

£14.00 from www.topsecretmagic.co.uk

What they say:

'Straight from the professional repertoire of Canada’s magicians, comes an astonishing rope routine, framed by the classic "Professor’s Nightmare", and developed over the years by regular use and refinement! Three Ropes and a Baby is extraordinary magic, featuring 6 stunning visual phases and the diabolical techniques you need to accomplish them! You will learn... •The See-Saw Switch •The Unhook Move •The End Exchange •Ends Across •Static Cling •Center Piece •The Loop Move •AND MUCH MORE!'

What is it really? Well, it is based on the Professor's Nightmare.

1 Starts with three ropes all different lengths that can be examined they are ungimmiked. These all become equal lengths.

2 The magician removes one rope and with a flick of the wrist the two remaining ropes become one long rope.

3 The ends travel around the rope in a bizzare manner

4 The magician then pulls the ends of the rope leving an endless loop.

5 Magician puts ends back on the rope.

6 The magician creates static on the rope once more creating an edless loop

7 The magician puts some spare ends he has back on the rope

8 The rope is 'cut' so there are three again which are once more made unequal.


Officially there are 6 phases but ive split them up a bit more accessable for the review. THere are no extra bits of rope and this trick can be done close up or on stage.

I saw a magician do this at the magic circle and ever since ive been practicing at least two hours a day probably nearer 4.

You can leave out most steps if you want personnally i leave out step 3 as i do not think it does the routine justice.

You get the booklet written by David Acer (i think, couldn't find it before) with some very helpfull photographs and 3 ropes of different sizes. At the end there is an alternative handling on the Professor's Nightmare

Difficulty is probably a 3/4 though to make it all llok natural it tales a lot of practice.

overall 9/10 It looses a mark because on one part i had to refine the handling to make it seem more natural. I love it though.

Cheers,

Pitto

Thanks for the review Pitto and a good one at that.

I've seen this routine mentionned a few times recently and was wondering what made this different from some of the other rope routines out there.

I now know.

From your descriptions this sounds remarkably similar to part of Richard Sander's Fibre Optics routine and also a number of the moves are included in Tabary's DVD such as two ropes into one, travelling ends and the endless loop. One of the things that I like about Tabary's routine is that he doesn't include the professors nightmare which sort of sets him apart from most (not all) of the other rope routines out these at the moment.

As a whole routine I would agree with your difficulty rating although some of the moves could be scored individually as a 2.

From what I read here I would say that this would be a good start for someone who wants to try out a rope magic routine and it seems well priced at £14 incuding rope

Having learned rope routines from both manuscript and from DVD I'd say that it's probably easier to learn from a DVD but not half as much fun

I agree individually some moves are a 2 but its making them look natural more than the actualmove that is hard.

I was wondering if it was the same/similar to fibreoptics as i have heard this mentioed before.

Pitto

From the description that you have provided, the moves are ALL included in Fibre Optics but not necessarily in the same order and there appears to be much more to Fibre Optics the in Three Ropes and a Baby.

There's a review of Fibre Optics here:

http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic4259.php&highlight=fibre+optics