talkmagic.co.uk

While I was up at the Fringe I watched... no, hold on, it's I 'caught', isn't it? That's what the kids say nowadays. Right, second attempt: while I was up at the Fringe I caught Barry and Stuart's show, 'Show'. I didn't, as it happens, see its sibling, 'Tell'. For those who aren't aware, 'Show' is a show (perhaps a 'show') and 'Tell' is a separate 'show' that tells (perhaps 'tells') you how all the tricks in 'Show' were done.

As it was B&T, it's hardly going to surprise anyone to learn that 'Show' was funny and entertaining and benefited from thought being used to make it, rather than it being merely a bunch of tricks from the New Arrivals section at any magic shop - perfectly fine as they are for a lay audience, if one isn't really lay, those really evoke little more than an, "Oh, yeah - that," and a bit of frowning as you try to remember how much that tricks costs at World Magic Store.

Why I'm bothering your eyes, though, is to ask if anyone went to 'Tell'. I'm wondering if they did indeed reveal everything. And how that went down if they did. As we know, the secrets behind most tricks, to lay people's ways of judging, are woundingly disappointing. There's a little fun to be had with "Look! We did it like *this*! Can you believe we got away with that?", of course, but I'm not sure how that would play out repeatedly. At the other end of the spectrum, there's at least one effect that I didn't know exactly how it was done so (at the - very severe, I'm painfully aware) risk of sounding like an insufferable git who believes that any magic trick *he* can't instantly work out must be brilliant and known to only a handful of elite super magicians, I'm surprised if they cast this secret before any old lay person who turned up. It makes me think of - though I don't think 'Tell' *was* this - exposure of the kind that Derren Brown did when he 'revealed' how he did the lottery prediction.

So, did anyone here see 'Tell'? I'm not asking for any methods, obviously. I'm merely wondering if they did indeed reveal all the methods and how that went down with the audience.

i read a review of tell the other day.( cant remember where sorry) What it seemed to say was, you dont learn the secrets as such, because the "methods" explained were false methods a-la sucker effects.

If this is the case, it smacks of band waggonry. There have been many shows of this nature over the last few years.
it panders to the idea that laymen want to know how its all done.. they dont. They want to be puzzled, entertained, and yes... fooled. Explaining how stuff works, is a bit like going to a lecture.

It did say that the reviewer thought that overall their delivery was a bit stale, and flat, because they stick rigidly to the written script. if i remember rightly the word he used was wooden. But, he enjoyed it. which does say something about the boys, when you can say wooden, and enjoyable in the same review.

Thanks, Dale.

Lay people do not, indeed, want to know how tricks are done; but they really, really *think* they want to know. (Because they really, really think that the methods will be even more astonishing than the effects.) It's probably a lot tougher artistically and creatively, come to think of it, to write an entertaining and rewarding show exposing tricks to lay people than it is to write a show doing those tricks. So, that's the whole issue of exposure killed with logic, then. Someone please alert the Internet.

A couple of other tiny thoughts:
1) The reviewer who complained that B&S stuck to the script rigidly and were wooden. Well, B&T's delivery often features that alternating-sentence delivery style:
Barry: Stuart, ladies and gentlemen, is holding some shears.
Stuart: Some big shears.
Barry: Some big, sharp shears.
Stuart: Some big, sharp shears, ladies and gentlemen. While Barry is holding...
Barry: This hamster.
(Obv., I just made that up, but that's the kind of thing.)
That *has* to be scripted, and the script *has* to be stuck to, clearly. So, if the reviewer feels it's wooden, then it's more that he doesn't care for that style than that B&T are, themselves, wooden by nature. That doesn't invalidate the reviewer's opinion, of course, but it does put it in context.
2) If the reveals were actually fake reveals, I wonder if anyone fumed. 'Tell' was, I believe, £12 to see, and one could see it only if 'Show', also £12, had been seen. There was no indication that the methods revealed wouldn't be genuine - quite the reverse, in fact: that the actual methods would be revealed was stressed often both in the literature and during 'Show'. Therefore, as I say, I wonder if anyone said, "I've paid, in total, £24 quid because I was assured I'd be shown the methods, so I'm mightily incensed to have been lied to about that." And then maybe started a fight.

I know several people who have seen both shows (I have seen neither) and the feedback was that they did explain the methods used in the Show. These were magicians who had seen the show, and were somewhat familiar with the techniques before seeing the Tell part.

My understanding was that it was like a standard magic lecture, where the method is explained in such a way as to be completely forgettable.

Ian

IanKendall wrote:My understanding was that it was like a standard magic lecture, where the method is explained in such a way as to be completely forgettable.

Nyuk.

Pity I didn't have a chance to see you perform at Edinburgh, by the way. Maybe next year.

I have to agree with the reviewer. They are very wooden performers. If they have to stoop to deconstructing their tricks as a way of selling tickets, that says it all.

I saw both and was very entertained.

The 'Show' wasn't magician fooling but you could appreciate the showmanship and delivery. It wasn't boring nor delivered with bulk standard patter. They definitely have their own style and I've watched a quite a few other magicians at the Fringe who may claim that but really don't.

The 'Tell' was really good fun and not just a list of spoilers. It had additional content from the show, a fun video optical illusion and a cheeky ending. They explained their tricks in a factual way, rather than with descriptions of subtleties and patter. You could reproduce it but you'd never manage it with the same delivery or in the same context without replaying it a few times.

They were not revealing commercial methods and it felt like they selected their material careful, so that it was hardly ground breaking but could be dressed up to suit them and still be enjoyable.

They were not revealing commercial methods

though presumably they were revealing tried and tested principles.

DaveM wrote:They explained their tricks in a factual way, rather than with descriptions of subtleties and patter. You could reproduce it but you'd never manage it with the same delivery or in the same context without replaying it a few times.

I wouldn't want to reproduce it with the same delivery. I'd want to do it well.

This sound more and more like a cheap and tawdry effort. As those who know me will be aware, I have no issue with exposure. But to build a whole show around the concept is doing a disservice to us all.

Hmmm... I'm not sure you have enough info on the show to go on. I have seen a lot of magic over the last month at the Fringe and theirs was the most pleasing.

Yes, there is a little exposure in it but it was purposefully done to a smaller audience of people who bought the ticket to be there. Is that any different to buying a publicly available magic DVD which has far more on it. The "Tell" was still a show and they only damaged themselves with their exposure if anyone. I think that's their decision to make.

Just to add that I went along to both the Show and the Tell. Whilst I really enjoyed the Show, the Tell was absolutely brilliant! Some ingenious and very devious methods surrounding the Show were discussed, and a Q&A session was held at the end (just prior to the cheeky closer) - covering even more topics. Interesting for me and a very accessible way for a genuinely interested public to catch a glimpse "behind the scenes" - I'll guarantee you most lay-folk in attendance will now have a heightened appreciation and interest in magic. Andy Nyman was there that night too, so got to finally meet him... bonus!

Also, strongly disagree with every one of TonyB's posts in this thread. Their performance was slick, creative and very funny. The main Show "theatre" held somewhere from 300-400 folk (at a guess), and pretty much sold out every night for 3 weeks. The Tell was not on every night, and was in a much smaller venue of around 20-30 seats. Disservice? I've already commented on my views as to what purpose the Tell could serve.

I guess you had to be there to fully appreciate it all... so until your have been (along with all the other fantastic magic at this years Festival), I'm not sure you can really comment on doing things "well".

Sexton Blake wrote:Barry: Stuart, ladies and gentlemen, is holding some shears.
Stuart: Some big shears.
Barry: Some big, sharp shears.
Stuart: Some big, sharp shears, ladies and gentlemen. While Barry is holding...
Barry: This hamster.

I'm quite intrigued as to how this trick pans out...

grant_m23 wrote: The main Show "theatre" held somewhere from 300-400 folk (at a guess), and pretty much sold out every night for 3 weeks. The Tell was not on every night, and was in a much smaller venue of around 20-30 seats.

The point I was going to make. Additionally, of all the people they had as volunteers, only one came along to the Tell.

Of the stuff revealed, I think the only lay-repeatable stuff would have been the memory feat (sans pain), the Twitter prediction, and the card force, the last of which only came up because someone asked about it. Also it would be difficult to do well without the huge subtlety that B&S make use of in the show. I don't think the idly curious would be so armed with information as to reveal the mechanism of conjury in toto. As ever, the secret isn't the biggest part of the trick.

Before leaving Edinburgh I popped into Borders. On a shelf was a book entitled The Disappearing Spoon: and Other True Tales of Madness, Love and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements. I smiled.

It's probably worth mentioning, for those who think Tell is simply a cynical, grubby cash-in of a thing, that B&T didn't really push it the way the Masked Mag, say, would. That is, show a trick, then put lots of volume and tempt into "And after the break [in this case, 'If you come to Tell', natch] we'll reveal the closely guarded secret of how that was done - man, those old school magicians are going to be furious that we'll be showing that secret to you!' It was 'Do you prefer to know how a trick is done, or do you prefer to enjoy the mystery and awe of not knowing? Which you feel best is your choice.' Now, obv., you might say that this is nothing but a lure just as strong and determined, merely slightly more subtle - as one might casually ask, "Are you annoyed that you're deaf, or do you savour the contentment of not knowing all the bad things people are saying about you?" Yes, possibly. But the point is that, unlike 'Secrets! Revealed!' TV shows, YouTube bed-wetters, etc., showing the trick/s wasn't purely a way of selling the real product/content - which, of course, is the exposure. 'Show' was not essentially the hawking of 'Tell', not at all.

The "Tell" lay somewhere between the two concepts described above.

There were certainly some interesting explanations of HOW the tricks COULD have been done; but to suggest this is how they WERE done is perhaps a little fib.....