talkmagic.co.uk

For me this effect was a victim of being too clean. I did not realise he was in disguise but it annoyed me hugely that he had sunglasses on inside.

The brochure bit I just assumed was an a** a n***** p** and when I thought about the randomly generated number I think it just became a bit too obvious. Revealing himself as the black guy actually lessened the overall effect for me as it detracted from anything that he had taken part with on stage, it also severely weakened the place prediction and telegraphed the n***** f**** which I was a little disappointed at how much Penn exposed.

Using the usual methods, two real volunteers and then revealing himself as the on stage helper would have been stronger for me (although would definitely not have fooled P&T) but then he's the one who actually had the balls to give it a shot, so who am I to criticise.

I like to try to watch magic with laypeople as they often see things completely differently to me.

Chris Dugdale's routine left everyone here bewildered and baffled, and not in a good way. They just didn't see anything magical, and the reveal at the end gave away everything there was to know about the trick.

The idea that the magician was seen on a screen so therefore could not see what was happening on stage was dismissed as nonsense by everyone - being backstage does not stop the magician seeing what was happening on stage. We have TV's and cameras these days.

The trick itself (before the reveal) had fooled everyone here, none of us knew how it was done, but it was boring and we didn't care. No-one had spotted the mask. We didn't think it was a great trick, but we didn't know how it was done either.

Then when Leroy took off he mask, everyone just went, "What?" in disbelief - they were suprised by the revelation, but not impressed because ANYONE can wear a mask, it's not an achievement to wear a disguise, that's easy. But if the magician himself was the spectator then the underwhelming trick suddenly went from boring to pointless.

The group I watched it with would have been fooled if he didn't reveal the disguise at the end. But it would have been a weak trick, and certainly it didn't impress anyone, even before the reveal spoilt it all.

I'm glad others agree about the Chris Dugdale thing. The ending was just pointless and completely removed any 'how did he do that?' moments.

I enjoyed the Shaun F and Ettiene P routines though.

On thing I've been wondering however, is who else were filmed, but didn't get shown? At the filming I went to see, Laura London and Marc Oberon performed but didn't get on the tv.

re E Pradier

i See Penn tried to flip the cap of the bottle that the card was in but it would not come off. Ive seen Pradier do this before and his attention to detail is brilliant.. sometimes its the small stuff that counts.

he usually uses a Normal beer bottle and so i guess he must of spent a hundred packs getting that spot on. Unless of course he has another ruse. maybe the entry hole was the same size but it looked a tighter fit in that small bottle


Brilliant

Shawn and Etienne were particularly good, very impressive and great performances. Chris Dugdale's routine was odd to say the least. It was suprising but insubstantial in the end, making all that had come before (the predictions) seem insignificant and unimpressive.

Leroy????? Surely he could have thought of a less stereotypical name than that !!!

Lord Freddie wrote:Leroy????? Surely he could have thought of a less stereotypical name than that !!!

Tyrone?

me_simon wrote:

Lord Freddie wrote:Leroy????? Surely he could have thought of a less stereotypical name than that !!!

Tyrone?

Or Winston? With a Jim Davidson "Chalky" voice?

(I'm giving him new ideas here, better stop!)

me_simon wrote:

daleshrimpton wrote:so, when exactly was blacking up on television acceptable again ?

To be fair to him, it wasn't 'blacking up'. It was just a disguise. Had he smeared boot polish on his face, painted on thick white white lips and said "mammy" in response to every question then yes, that would have raised some questions of taste.

that would of been much more entertaining though wouldnt it.

Well the thing is, the nature of the disguise was entirely motivated because he needed to wera the sunglasses in order for the mase to be wearable.

That is the only reason for the sunglasses, without them, the mask would need to be professionally glued around his eyes, and probably wouldn't stay stuck down after a while because of the heat.

So, if the sunglasses are an integral part of the disguise, why wasn't the disguise a bald headed white guy wearing sunglasses indoors? Am I the only one that sees it as racial stereotyping??

Arkesus wrote:So, if the sunglasses are an integral part of the disguise, why wasn't the disguise a bald headed white guy wearing sunglasses indoors? Am I the only one that sees it as racial stereotyping??

The change from bald white guy to white guy is not very visual.

From black guy to white guy is very visual. I do not think there was anything racially motivated at all, it just works better visually.

Lord Freddie wrote:Chris Dugdale's routine was odd to say the least. It was suprising but insubstantial in the end, making all that had come before (the predictions) seem insignificant and unimpressive.

I watched with a couple of laypeople and once the Leroy reveal was done they were unimpressed and none of them recalled the fact that there was a prediction effect in the middle of it all, the ridicliousness of the end totally overshadowed what went before.

Don't really see the reason for the Chris bashing. Yes the Nivarna music was a bit over dramatic. It seemed 70% of the audience didnt raise there hand when asked if they knew it was Chris in a costume.

What I loved about the act was at the start Chris said it was a new way of doing magic, throughout the routine I was thinking 'what by having you on screen instead of on stage'. But the people that didn't know Chris was Leroy thought they had been fooled by a prediction, then have the realization when Leroy takes of the costume that they were actually fooled in another way is a new type of magic.

Like penn said "Theres nothing more powerful in magic than a human being turning into another human being"

daleshrimpton wrote:

me_simon wrote:To be fair to him, it wasn't 'blacking up'. It was just a disguise. Had he smeared boot polish on his face, painted on thick white white lips and said "mammy" in response to every question then yes, that would have raised some questions of taste.

that would of been much more entertaining though wouldnt it.

As a form of misdirection it would have been amazing!

I think any disguise would have been very difficult to pull off. The only alternative I can think of to do away with sunglasses would be an old white guy with thick-lense glasses but that would rely heavily on the performer acting like an old man and not old-man acting.

just like Blaine did.

Oh did he? I know very little of David Blaine's stuff. He takes himself just a little too seriously for liking.