talkmagic.co.uk

Hello again one and all.

I've been meaning to write this up since its first test run before a live audience, to see if anyone has any suggestions on the structuring of it or anything that I may have overlooked. Im looking to make this as strong as possible as parlour work, seated and a small (10 or so people) audience is my main area of interest when it comes to non-bizzarre magic. Here is a relatively brief summery of the show, I hope to hear what you think are its strong points/weak points.

The gambler's hand

This is a trick I adapted from something in RRTCM which involves a stack, which is really the only reason it goes first. It talks about gambling sleights, cheating etc. I invite the audience to watch me cheat them. I deal two hands of three cards, one hand has three queens. I put them fairly back on top of the deck and deal two hands again, the same hand has the three queens once more. This is repeated one or maybe two more times. I then deal out two final hands of four cards and turn the hand nearest to me over. It is the four kings. After some patter saying I wouldn't cheat to win, just for the thrill of getting away with it, so somebody else must win, I turn over the other hand and lo and behold, it is the four aces.

A little Opener (but not used as an opener!)
Before I begin this trick, I take a few minutes to go around and chat to the people around me a little more and firmly establish a bit more atmosphere with them. I also lay an anchor on someone using the word amazing (if possible), you will see why later.

This trick is, as far as I know, relatively my own. I've posted the method up here before to share it, so I won't go in to it again. Basically two cards selected, go into the deck, snap my wrist and produce the two cards. Gets the audience back involved with the cards.

Coin through cardbox and multiplying money

Just a little coin routine using PK. Coin comes out, goes onto the card box, I ask an audience member to time me to see how fast I can get it into the box. Obviously, it is instant. The volunteer takes the coin out, returns it to me and I show my left hand as empty before putting the coin in. With a shake of my hand, there is a pound coin as well as the 2p in my left hand.

Ambitious card

This is a straight out simple ambitious card, but I dress it up as the volunteer's "connection" to their card. Its bog standard ACR really, but with as much done in the volunteer's hands as possible thanks to a p**m near the end. The opening part of it uses a reverse method I got from Lee Smith's lecture notes, as used in The Switch Trick. This gives an instant reversal of the card, very handy. So thanks Lee!

A stronger Connection

I find a person in the audience who has either played more cards than the rest (I performed this for a bridge club, and used the most experienced member) claiming that their experience with the cards will give them the strongest connection of all.

The volunteer selects a card and I get them to stand up. This trick is as simple to do as they come. Its barely a trick. The performance is what I really ham up here. I go into an extensive (sorry mentalists) "Mind Reading" routine. I use my anchor here, if it has worked (it did) to get the volunteer hyped up as I detirmine the colour, the suit, and finally the name of the card. I really sell this one, even though it is my simplest trick, it is by far the strongest because of how much I get into the act and enjoy performing it. To a lay person, it seems like mind reading. It would never fool a magician though.

And thats it! As a sort of closer I cut the deck four times, each time bringing out an ace and handing them to each of the four volunteers with a thankyou.
I say my goodbyes, and voila! Im free to ride into the sunset, or go home and thank god it went ok.

It lasted a little more than fifteen minutes with patter and everything. I could easily add more effects, more patter, but I was comfortable with this set up when I did the gig (my first real gig!).

Sorry its an absolute mountain of a text, but as its my first real structured show, I'd love to get some magicians feedback. So let me know what you think, good or bad as long as its constructive!

And thanks for reading, if you got all the way through.

(I deliberately didn't put the methods, because I wanted it on the open forums. If the mods spot anything exposurish, then give me a clip around the ear.)

I guess the first thing you should remember that your show should be more than just the sum of your tricks, which it looks like right now. In your spectator's minds, it is :

Trick #1 -> Trick #2 -> Trick #3 .. and so on.. It will be a soon to forget experience for your spectators..

But, an effective show always has a theme threading all the effects, and that's what makes your show memorable.. I apologize if you already have a theme but I couldn't figure it out from your description ( which looks like it - probably a connection between people and cards - you could pop in a cartomancy routine - fortune telling via playing cards )

Whether the theme be comedy, bizarre, a murder mystery, gambling or anything that relates with your personality, it helps thread your show together. On your blog you say that you had picked up the guitar - well it might as well be a musical theme, or about your favorite band and so on..

Some other thoughts :

-> Your opener should establish your whole performance. For most people, the first impression is the last impression. At least in my experience of watching performance videos, many successful magicians perform one of their best tricks as an opener to capture the audience's attention.

-> You say that before your second trick you go around an establish an atmosphere of friendliness. Suppose I was in the audience, I would look at you perform the gambler's opener and then start walking around ? I would expect you to go on with your second effect.. To understand more, read this post recently put up on TM :

themagicwand wrote:The first trick that I start with when approaching a table is me! Sweet, smiling, happy, friendly, unassuming, cheerful, lowly little me. Once that little routine has won them over, I'll then move onto some more run-of-the-mill "magic". But that opening routine can last up to 10 minutes. Hey, sometimes we won't even get to the actual "magic". But we'll always laugh, hug, cry, shake hands, swap phone numbers, and depart as equals; ships that passed in the night and who knows, maybe our bows will meet again as we pass an ice bank in the dark of the mid-Atlantic night.

IMO you should first establish the theme of your show and setting the atmosphere before your tricks come out of your pocket.. That's where your audience will know what to expect from your show - whether it is an evening of comedy or bizarre magic and so on..

-> If you're interested in having a closer involving cutting cards, a great purchase would be "On the Loose" by Bill Malone - a 4 DVD set with a huge number of effects for the intermediate level performer including a number of great cutting to the whatever effects - a lot of them done by spectators - which in my opinion makes it stronger. If I'm not mistaken even David Solomon's Cutting the Tens effect comes on this set..


This is all I can think of right now. Will pitch in later if I get something. Feel free to disagree with me because all this is just my opinion

Thanks for the reply.

Sorry though, my description doesn't put across the patter used. The theme is (or was for when I performed the show) card games, gambling. Its more reflected in the patter. It sort of moves into how people are "connected" to cards, with the last two effects. Though there is a coin routine in there, I just talked about increasing money by cheating.

I see your point though. A stronger theme needed?

Second, again, my writing is sleightly dodgy there, I didnt mean I got up and walked around to talk to the spectators, I just went back and made sure I had people's names right, got talking a little bit. It was no more than two minutes or so, mainly just to give me a hint at who would get a strong reaction to the final routine.

I will think about my opener though. I wanted something to do with gambling, and that one is a good trick. To the spectator it looks like great skill has been employed (it hasn't really) but you're right, I need something stronger for it.

Finally I see what you mean about the trick 1, trick 2 sort of structure. I try to blend it with the patter, but the last two tricks are definately seperate. The tricks do work well together in that order, getting steadily better reactions, but they dont all seem to mix into one.

Thanks for the input hardik, you have given me food for thought!

Gambling sounds like a strong enough theme ! Forgive me for not interpreting your post correctly..

Anyway, you say that the gambling theme morphs into the 'connection' theme. If you have a suitable and easy bridge in between these two, then it's alright. But if not, then look for one ( You could probably go into how spectators can be just as good as gamblers without sleight of hand -> and then run into Spectator Cutting the aces routine, which makes perfect sense ).. The more time you spend brainstorming and performing, everything will start falling into place..

All the best for your future shows ! I'm sure experienced performers can pitch in too..

Thanks man. I was actually thinking of a spectator cutting the aces routine, but it wasn't ready when I did the show. That'll work nicely

Malone also has a nice effect where he asks everyone to try to cut 10 cards and shows he does not have 22 cards, but the top persons card is a ten.
You could perhaps use this.
How about invisible palm to a royal flush effect?

finneyfollower wrote:Malone also has a nice effect where he asks everyone to try to cut 10 cards and shows he does not have 22 cards, but the top persons card is a ten.
You could perhaps use this.
How about invisible palm to a royal flush effect?

I think you're talking about the same effect I mentioned in my post above - it's David Solomon's Cutting Ten, it's one On the Loose Vol 3 if I'm not mistaken, a truly great effect..

Yes invisible palm sounds wonderful as an effect in a gambling routine.. Another of my favorites from Art of Astonishment.. It's like the list never ends !

So may great gambling effects out there!
Ever hear of this one?
Four aces shown face up, 1 by 1 then have a card cut to by the spectator.
You then patter how you were playing poker and the guy on your left was looking over your shoulder so you decided to have some fun.
You then make the cards turn facedown one at a time.
The guy then told me the guy on his right had a full house, 3 aces and a pair of 2's so I had to think fast.
You change 3 of the aces into J-K of spades.
He then asked me why I did not just change to four of a kind so I replied that would be cheating. People ask me if I would cheat in game and I would not, but I would use magic and count on lady luck!
And luckily for me, the one card you cut to is the 10!

Hardik wrote:

finneyfollower wrote:Malone also has a nice effect where he asks everyone to try to cut 10 cards and shows he does not have 22 cards, but the top persons card is a ten.
You could perhaps use this.
How about invisible palm to a royal flush effect?

I think you're talking about the same effect I mentioned in my post above - it's David Solomon's Cutting Ten, it's one On the Loose Vol 3 if I'm not mistaken, a truly great effect..

Yes invisible palm sounds wonderful as an effect in a gambling routine.. Another of my favorites from Art of Astonishment.. It's like the list never ends !

I've been thinking about buying On the Loose for a while, I'm a big fan of Bill Malone and some of his stuff is perfect for what I want to do. Might be worth the purchase of Volume 3 for this effect then?

I can do the invisible palm routine, but I sometimes use it as the finale to Ambitious Card as an "explaination" on how I did it. Malone does the invisible palm routine doesn't he? On the Loose is looking like a must-buy for me. Anyone know where its available from?

I have the whole set and I can say that it is the material I use most of the time - whether it be a formal or informal setting. Plus getting Bill to perform all these effects is just great - especially his legendary Sam the Bellhop routine, I've picked up so many performance tips from him- as sometimes I perform comedy magic too...

And, it's available off most magic dealers in the US but I wouldn't be too sure on the UK market.. Maybe you could check out the sponsors on TM or your online magic shop of preference. This DVD set has attained bestseller status, I hear.. But also, wait for confirmation of the effect being on Vol. 3 I'll get back to you on that...

The routines - a little opener sounds similar to an ambitions card in that you find two cards instead of one.

I would think of starting with the ambitious card and finding one and then increase the perception of skill by then finding two cards.

Also, I'd script all of the card tricks together before moving onto the coin routine and would avoid doing a copule of card routines, a coin routine and then returning to cards so quickly.

Gambling is a strong theme and a popular one too and sets your stall out nicely to expand into card skills, perception etc.

Hardik wrote:

I guess the first thing you should remember that your show should be more than just the sum of your tricks, which it looks like right now. In your spectator's minds, it is :

Trick #1 -> Trick #2 -> Trick #3 .. and so on.. It will be a soon to forget experience for your spectators..

I agree - it's the whole performance that people will remember.

Take a look at Lennart Greens performance on TED. Jam packed with tricks and sleights that would stand up on their own but when Lennart puts them all together it's a performance and you barely notice the tricks.