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You are fairly friendly on stage and smile a bit. That is a good thing. However that awful interminable rope trick that goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on is a bad thing. Don't just cut the rope in half. Cut the bloody routine in half. Or perhaps quarters. I thought I was going to pass out with boredom before it ended. In fact I got so fed up waiting for it to finish I left the video early.

Has the bloody trick finished yet? I know Canadians are slow but there is a limit, you know.

Thank you for your comments Mr. Lewis. I agree the rope routine was a little drawn out. My normal routine is much shorter but I thought I should have lengthened it as I was required to do 20 minutes on stage. I will, however, keep it the way it is now... short and sweet.

mark lewis wrote:You are fairly friendly on stage and smile a bit. That is a good thing. However that awful interminable rope trick that goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on is a bad thing. Don't just cut the rope in half. Cut the bloody routine in half. Or perhaps quarters. I thought I was going to pass out with boredom before it ended. In fact I got so fed up waiting for it to finish I left the video early.

Has the bloody trick finished yet? I know Canadians are slow but there is a limit, you know.

Can you please try to give advice without insulting people? I refer you to http://talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic3632.php

They apply to everyone.

JellyBaby wrote:

mark lewis wrote:You are fairly friendly on stage and smile a bit. That is a good thing. However that awful interminable rope trick that goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on is a bad thing. Don't just cut the rope in half. Cut the bloody routine in half. Or perhaps quarters. I thought I was going to pass out with boredom before it ended. In fact I got so fed up waiting for it to finish I left the video early.

Has the bloody trick finished yet? I know Canadians are slow but there is a limit, you know.

Can you please try to give advice without insulting people? I refer you to http://talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic3632.php

They apply to everyone.

That was positively glowing praise by The Reverend Lewis's standard. I read it and started to wonder if the Lewis had a "thing" for the Kras

JellyBaby clearly isn't familiar with Mr. Lewis . Thank you though!

As for this rather dreadful rope routine I do understand that you were required to perform for 20 minutes but I got the impression that the rope trick lasted around 90 minutes. Of course I may have gotten a bit confused over the time.

You should remember what Malini said. "Cut the rope once and restore it-that's enough!" I personally cut it twice because I am an unmitigated genius and can hold the attention longer. Besides Canadians are a bit slow and the effect takes a while to register so you probably have to do it a second time for it to sink in. When I worked in Yorkshire I had to repeat it three times.

Another thing I didn't comment on since it seems to be all the rage in Canada. This silly habit performers of all kinds have in North America of coming on and beaming with the awful words, "How are you guys all doing tonight?" When I see it I feel like saying, "Mind your own business!" It really is very irritating and not the British way of doing things. Since Canada is supposed to be part of the British Empire I expect it to adhere to British standards.

I know perfectly well that the performer doesn't give a toss how I am doing and I equate it with that equally silly habit they have here of saying, "Have a nice day!" When they say that to me I always reply, "I am sorry. I have other plans"

I might have a look at the rest of the clip and complain about that too. I thought about the salt criticism and there may be some validity to it but it probably isn't too big a deal. Eating DVDs is. Normally I have no objection to children choking themselves but Canada is a trifle underpopulated. And if you lived here in this awful winter you would know why.

I have now watched the first clip. There seems to be a lot less salt than I expected. I thought you were going to do the usual spectacular salt pour. I now don't think you will encourage Canadian children to poison themselves with salt after all. A great pity if I may say so.

You need to edit the patter a bit. Get the shears out and cut it down. Too much yap when you are not doing much. All talk and no action makes for a dull magician. And you probably have to figure out some way of making it funnier but God alone knows how you are going to do that. Comedy can be a difficult thing. Forget I mentioned it.

Thank you, Mr. Lewis. I appreciate your honest and informative advice. I will work on trimming down patter or at least adding more entertainment factor.

My two pennies worth, perhaps in some detail.

You've got a lot going for you as a young magician, and I'm going to try to be positive where I can, but I'm also going to make some suggestions for improvements I think you might like to make. I'll try and always make my criticism constructive.

You're clearly very confident with your magic, you've rehearsed your moves and your lines and everything well, I really got the feeling that you knew your material. I just felt the whole piece needed a little more thought.

I appreciate this is just a 20 minute stage slot and not your own show in your own space or whatever, but it still felt a little "talent contest" (an impression only aided by the young audience, which was obviously not your fault. In fact, you dealt with a fairly young audience well I thought.)

I have to agree that your opening was a little weak. It would've been great to see you bound onto the stage and really take charge of the audience. I know it's hard in that setting with lots of other acts, but things like a strong opening and closer will really set you apart from the other people there.

I think a key problem with the whole routine was that you didn't seem to make your mind up about what you were doing. It felt like watching a kids entertainer at a party in someones front room, there was no narrative to the piece, and the strange conversational style of patter you used led itself to lots of strange silences where the audience didn't know whether to answer or not.

It's a telling sign that nothing you presented would have felt out of place in a performance for about ten people. Stage magic is not close up/parlour magic just in a bigger space, it's a whole different entity. A couple of examples:

The salt trick. This fell flat with me for two reasons. Firstly, if you're going to give a false explanation to a trick, give one that is OBVIOUSLY not how it's done. Even with the "across the shoulders" bit, it did kinda feel like you could've done it by sleeving, and that killed the trick a bit. Secondly, you didn't use anywhere near enough salt. The amount you use could easily have dissolved in the sweat on your hands. You need to use TONS of the stuff, it should be practically snowing with Sodium Chloride on that stage, because salt is very small, and the audience is far away, so for it to be magical, their needs to be so much salt it'd be impossible for it to disappear.

The mind reading card trick was similar. The rope thing (which I'm assuming is a gimmick) was weird, and there wasn't *really* a reason for it to be there. The whole process of clipping the cards on was clunky, and didn't seem to have a point, and slowed the whole thing down hugely. Also, playing cards are small, even when hung on a rope. The audience cannot see them at the best of times, least of all when they are clipped side on to the seating.

I'm not having a go, I'm really not, the audience seemed to enjoy themselves and you did too, which was great. You're clearly a nice guy and that comes across on stage, but I'm aware that you've been doing magic for a long time, and you're obviously passionate about it, so now is a great time to stop, take stock of everything you know, and really focus on making your magic INCREDIBLE.

I say this to everyone, but it's especially applicable here. If you haven't already, read everything you can about showmanship. Get "Magic and Showmanship" by Henning Nelms, "Strong Magic" by Darwin Ortiz, read pretty much anything Eugene Burger has put out. It'll totally change the way you think about magic.

Sorry this post has been so long, I hope it's helped. Well done on the show, it's a tough thing to do.

Wow, thank you so much for your incredibly thoughtful advice. Also, thank you for taking the time to type such a long post for me, it is extremely helpful.

I agree the opening was weak... honestly, that was my first time using it in front of a public audience, it was more testing ground than anything. However, a friend of mine has really shown me its true comedic potential and has given me some excellent ideas. I also have many of my own. Perhaps it could make for a nice short "break" between effects but I agree, my opener should be short, flashy, powerful, and grab attention right away.

The mentalism thing is a Stewart James effect and I agree, I played it for too long. 7 minute devoted, almost, which is quite excessive, I understand. Perhaps instead of shortening the routine (I like to make my routines long), I will simply make it more entertaining. I noticed a lot of lagging and "nothing" moments during it. I will work on that. And as a side note.... it wasn't gimmicked .

As for The Salt Trick.... in my defense, it doesn't show the same way on video than it does live. The salt was too small to be seen by my camera and therefore a lot of it wasn't visible. In reality, I did pour quite a bit, but admittedly I could have done more. I'm just afraid of my TT overflowing making me unable to comfortably steal it. I will work on getting my levels right.

I also have to disagree with the "Salt Across The Sleeves" bit. For starters, nobody in the audience believed that the Salt was in my sleever anyway... that's how I play it, I tend to make my character a bit shaky to hint that I may be lying. So the salt traveling into my other sleeve comes as a surprise, partly because it is physically impossible to move salt through a jacket like that. I feel it's a neat, effective, unexpected finish.

However, I thank you for taking the time to give your advice, it is very helpful to me.

Canada has not been part of the British Empire since the 70's.

I'm not really going to comment much on the video because I'm probably more jaded then Mr. Lewis. If I have trouble sleeping I put in a magic tape, the instructional ones are usually the best at resolving the insomnia problem.

I'm sorry I could not watch the entire video. But that is not because of you but because I have lost all patience years ago.

Cut and restored is one of those that I throw in with the linking rings, dancing cane, any dove work, Ambitious card and the dreaded zombie. Please figure out where the miracle is and then stop! You cut it, you restore it and it is plenty. If I see a magi walk on the stage with 8 rings I usually have to leave. I've only seen two really good linking ring routines, one was by Paul Daniels. The other was by a Russian Lady who I can't remember her name, but she used two rings and herself as the third, the rings would penetrate through her body, really is hard to explain and really was incredible.

Over all Mr. Kras I've seen your perfomances and I think you will make it in this business if you keep at it. I've seen a lot worse that have managed to eek out a living and I honestly think you can do more then eek out a living. You seem to have an easy going manner about you and your audience as far as I can tell respond well. As far as technique goes You are very good, and performance wise is simply a learning curve and you are young yet.

My advice, never get so caught up in your performance that you forget your audience. Keep an eye on them and they will tell you what to cut.

I am well aware that Canada is not part of the British Empire but there really is no need to tell them that. They might think they are part of the United States instead and then they will really be in trouble. They talk all yankified here enough as it is.

It is part of the British Commonwealth and Her Britannic Majesty is on the money to show who is really in charge. And if it wasn't for Her Majesty's representative here there would have been a change in Government here in the last couple of weeks.

No. This place is still under the British Crown and should be expected to adhere to British standards and that includes deleting inane comments about "How are you guys all doing?" and insincerely wishing people to have a nice day.

Hi everyone! I'm doing another small act tonight at the OTHER magic club that will also be filmed. Hopefully I will take your advice into consideration. By the way, most of the act will not be the same as in the first videos.

Michael Kras wrote:Hi everyone! I'm doing another small act tonight at the OTHER magic club that will also be filmed. Hopefully I will take your advice into consideration. By the way, most of the act will not be the same as in the first videos.

Let us know when it's available online

There are mutterings afoot of an invitation to join an exclusive group of magicians that he has never heard of. I have voted in favour of it. If he hears about it then it will mean that he has been invited. If he doesn't then that will mean that he hasn't.

There. That should give him something to puzzle over.