talkmagic.co.uk

Ok you are performing and you totally mess up and everyone saw it. You need some joke to help the audience to laugh it off (I don't know about you but I like to keep em laughing). So what joke would you use?

Love to hear your responses!

Brandon

Sorry I'm human. *said with a big smile*

Then bring out the sponge balls.

Or a funnier line would be: Oh that wasn't what the instructions said would happen!

I remember quite recently seeing a magician performing in a pub near where I live. He sat at his table in the corner, so everyone had a good view, mic on and everything - appeared quite professional.

On with the very first trick - a simple torn and restored card trick. About 1/3 of the way through he paused, looked up at someone (I think he knew them, but that's irrelevant) and said something along the lines of, "I've been doing this trick for 20 years or so now and get it right everytime with no problem. Well, guess what folks, I just looked down for the next piece and it's not there". With this he just threw the remaining bits into the air and said something like, "well, at least from here, things can only get better".

One of the things that won me (and prob the rest of the audience) over was his sincerity. He was grinning when he was saying this - but it wasn't a nervous grin - he seemed very genuine like he really didn't care. Kinda like, "hey look at me - I just messed up, but what the heck - on with the show".

If he'd have tried to stumble his way around it, I think his nerves would prob have shown through and the audience would have possibly felt uneasy. Instead he simply showed that to err is human.

The rest of the show went without a hitch. If I remember rightly, once or twice, later on in the show, he would sigh and mutter to himself, "I still can't figure out where I went wrong in that first trick", chuckling to himself as he was speaking. This invariably got a few giggles from the audience.

"Hey, what's that card in your hand?!"
"Err...what card? There is no card It's all an in your mind..." attempt to hide it blatantly and continue with a different trick comedically in such a way that the first trick isn't ruined

Or have a comedic safety device on you always just in case
"Hey, I saw that!"
"Oh yeah, well did you see this?! Ha!" *throws smoke-maker (e.g. exploding golf ball on the ground) as if attempting to disappear* ".....damn, that didn't work either..."

But generally be honest about it

phoenixv wrote:Sorry I'm human. *said with a big smile*

Then bring out the balls.

I know, I erased the word "sponge"... But that would definitively distract the moment of messing up.

I could help more in french on this topic but anyway ill give it a shot.

(The coin drop on floor) Oups the coin melt trough my hand. I use a simple hand switch behind the leg while taking it back i can then make it vanish and reapear or have it melt trough my hand a second time but controlled this time!

I remember daryl using this line wich i do use when performing in english for either a sucker effect or if i happen to do a TL when i wanted a DL!

"Your card come back up... cleverly disguising itself on the way!" Then erdnase card change may come handy again!

If id tottaly fail i guess id just admit it and pass to something else but most of the times i have a second plan in case something goes wrong.

I find if you mess up and cannot recover then it is best to be straight up about, apologise briefly and move on.
I find if you don't make a big thing about it or make light of it then so will the audience. I think Ortiz covers this in Strong magic.
Most audiences want you to succeed and therefore if you mess up and make too big a deal of it they will feel either guilty or awkward and that's when you will lose them.
I just say " Do you know what? I've completely messed up but do you know what? This next one is my favourite anyway!"

....actually it's kind of weird that the next effect is always my favourite

I usually try to recover cleanly if I can, I've got outs for quite a few of my routines if they do go wrong. But sometimes there's just no way to recover and if that happens the best thing to do, I find is to just shrug your shoulders and move on to something else.

Don't try to fumble about, you just end up making it all look alot worse than it is.

greedoniz wrote:....actually it's kind of weird that the next effect is always my favourite

Then again, every single tricky Sankey has shown me seems to be his single most absolute all time favorite trick he does all the time in every bar, restaurant or waiting for cinema tickets.

On topic, dealing with fluffing it up comes with experience. A bit of a paradox as the better you get, the less likely you are to fluff it up in the first place, but everyone gets it wrong from time to time. As mentioned above, just make light of it and battle on.

Having a few fun lines ready in case of simple things like dropping cards and the like is useful too.

magicmonkey wrote: Then again, every single tricky Sankey has shown me seems to be his single most absolute all time favorite trick he does all the time in every bar, restaurant or waiting for cinema tickets.

so true!

out_slide wrote:

magicmonkey wrote: Then again, every single tricky Sankey has shown me seems to be his single most absolute all time favorite trick he does all the time in every bar, restaurant or waiting for cinema tickets.

so true!

....and dont forget these other Sankey Classics

Everything is examinable (even if you have to switch it out)

and he often hesitates on releasing this as it's so good

This is where Mentalism has the advantage - if it goes wrong - it is your fault...

When performing my very limited repertoire of magic, if I go wrong I just laugh at myself and, as mentioned earlier, comment about it during the next routine. I actually find that is a good source of misdirection too.

I'm new to magic and have very quickly discovered that if I want to perform my tricks to people I definitely need to be able to improvise when things inevitably go awry.

I've gotten a lot better at double lifts lately but I'm still getting it wrong sometimes. About one out of five times I will triple lift (or even quad lift ) but the good thing is that I know when I have done this.

Anyway, I was performing an ACR routine to a couple of friends and got to the stage where a DL would be used. "Uh oh" I thought; I just triple lifted... I carried on regardless pushing the 'ace of hearts' into the middle of the deck. "This trick is fool proof" I said; I then asked my friend to pull on the invisible string in order to pull the card back to the top of the deck.
Then I 'cut the invisible string' and the card jumped up into my hand. Showing him the two of clubs or something I give him a dry look and say "Then again maybe not." I then executed the trick properly, showing that I'm the magician here.

Not a bad cover up I thought.

I also once dropped most of my deck on the floor; concerned but unruffled I allowed the rest of the cards fall as well. I then asked if anyone had seen that movie 'Rainman' and I then pointed at the cards on the floor and said "fifty two!". It got a laugh.

EDIT

All of which has made me think of my favourite comedian/'magician' from my childhood, Tommy Cooper. I wonder if he ever had a trick go astonishingly well and had to cover for it.

Out of interest, I know it's been posted before, and I know it's a real act (which he does exceedingly well), but Elliot "The Hawk" at the Magic Castlereally is funny!

So, maybe there's scope for going a bit "Tommy Cooper" if things go wrong.

One which I use when something intentionally goes wrong in my act:

"Thats the first time thats happened again..."