Issue 28 - Sept. 09
Killer
Closeup Magic
Cameron
Francis
Available from: www.bigblindmedia.com and your favourite dealer
Price: £22.99
Cameron Francis, an American actor-magician with a growing portfolio of
magical releases - including a number of both single-trick and compilation DVDs
produced by Big Blind Media - has recently hopped across the pond again to bring
us this collection of 12 routines, plus a sleight teach-in covering 18 of the
helpful little devils.
Killer Closeup
is remarkable and very welcome, with its device-free, likeable simplicity.
Francis reminds me a little of David Williamson, (no bad thing), as he burbles
self-consciously and self-deprecatingly through his routines, without of course
having ingested quite the quantities of Sunny Delight and blue Smarties. Killer
Closeup is card-centric, with eight of its routines being playing cards,
backed up with a coin trick, a bill trick, and two miscellaneous.
In Signed Out is a card warp effect, whereby a folded card visually reverses itself and turns inside out. Clearly inspired by Richard Osterlind’s Inside Out, though using an entirely different method, this is a disarmingly punchy trick, as it is performed with - as the title pun points to - a signed selection. T&R Bill, the prosaically named torn-and-restored bill effect, utilises a simple home-made gimmick, (about the only gimmick needed for the 12 routines), but as Francis concedes will only really work with different denomination bills of the same size, leaving the British notes inadequate by virtue of their expanding dimensions. Super Easy CAAN is a card at any number with a borrowed, shuffled deck that uses a real purists’ dodge. I like Space Saver – PDF artwork supplied – because it makes a change from playing cards and coins, and is also adaptable in its plot of making a selected object disappear from a photograph and having the real object then appear from a pocket or similar.
Killer Closeup Magic,
requiring basic to intermediate skills, is an enjoyable couple of hours spent in
the company of an amiable and down-to-earth performer. The routines lend
themselves to varying performance settings and remain engaging with a high
proportion of spectator involvement. The homicidal overtone of the title is the
only thing that somehow creates a slight discrepancy, (yes yes, I know it’s
meant to refer to the heart-stopping strength of the material), because
Cameron’s persona and this
What’s Hot – with
the
What’s Not – just the tiniest smidgen of inconsequential sloppiness; from
the mid-word spoonerism of “ATFUS,” to the ghastly
parade of labourers’ t-shirts.
Star Rating****
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