talkmagic.co.uk

Anyone bought this trick?

regards,
Valentino

Once Upon a Time


Cost
£24.99 from Alakazam:
http://www.alakazam.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000001.pl?REFPAGE=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2ealakazam%2eco%2euk%2facatalog%2fsearch%2ehtml&WD=hollingworth&PREVQUERY=RANDOM%3dNETQUOTEVAR%253ARANDOM%26PAGE%3dSEARCH%26SS%3dhollingworth%26TB%3dA%26PR%3d%2d1%26GB%3dA&PN=Alakazam_Magic_General_Magic_12_140%2ehtml%23a334#a334


Difficulty
Easy sleights but a lot of work needed



Review

I bought 'Once Upon a Time' last October and gave my first 'proper' performances to a couple of children this summer.

I think it's superb! Absolutely captivating not just for children but also adults. The three stories, 'The Three Bears', 'Jack and the Beanstalk' and 'Cinderella' are favourites for children but this is a new magical presentation of them that children won't have seen before, as the book pages come out of the book to form a pack of colourful cards.

The only slightly negative point I have to make about OUAT is the amount of work needed to learn the routines. Not only 3 stories, but over 200 moves have to be memorized! And getting a move wrong can take your story down some very strange paths! I think this aspect alone would put most people off.

The sleights are not difficult - double-lift is as hard as it gets. The cards themselves are high quality and beautifully illustrated by Hollingworth himself. Unfortunately they have square corners, not rounded, to resemble pages in a book, which means they sometime get caught on close-up pad surfaces, but this is a minor niggle. Also the 'book' cover is a little flimsy - I covered mine in protective film from the stationers.
Also, for practising (and you'll need to do a lot of it!), I used a blank-faced deck with the pictures roughly sketched on to practise with - saves wearing out the real cards.

All-in-all I wouldn't recommend OUAT unless you're prepared to put in some serious memorising work. If you do go to the trouble, you have, in a very small packet, half an hour of absolutely entrancing magic.
I've heard some complain that the magical content isn't high, but the children I entertained with it were gobsmacked at the way cards kept changing from one picture to another!


Overall
A great piece of childrens magic. All it requires is commitment, then you have a winner.

Thanks for your review.

This has definately saved my money. It really sounded like a great trick for children for table hopping at restaurants but the quality of the construction puts me off:

"what looks like a small, old, leather-bound book from its slip case"

That is how it was described and I thought the packaging would involve some sort of hardback book.

Also 200 moves!!!

Oh my. With all the distractions that go on where I perform this sounds like a nightmare to get to grips with.

regards,
Valentino

...OK...there ARE 200 moves but they are all fairly straight forward to remember when you are working through the individual stories..

...the only thing I have found is that younger children often don't get it! They like the stories but don't realise that the card that has just shown a full porridge bowl now has an empty porridge bowl on it...I would say that it is definately for the over 4's and even then you might want to really reinforce points where "magic" is going to happen..

It is nice though and if your patter is OK then it will serve you well....

I have been doing this a lot more recently and at times, especially in Cinderella and Jack that I actually fool myself..

...and my suspicions are correct. Adults definately love it more than kids.

....and YAYYYYY 50 posts!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (about time!)