Issue 26 - May 09
Mentally Unstable
Matthew Shepherd
46 page E-Book
Available from: www.imentalism.com
Price: £12.95
This little E-Book features 6 mental style items designed
mainly for close up or parlour work. Matthew says that he uses all this material
and that he knows it works. Each of the six items is broken down into 'Effect',
where you get a run down of basically what happens, 'Method', in which he
explains everything you need to perform the routine, 'Hints and Tips', little
extras and variations which you may wish to consider, and finally 'Performance',
where Matthew provides a patter guide so that you can understand more about how
to present the effect. Matthew is good about crediting his sources and his
inspirations and this enables the keen reader to follow up on similar work from
other performers.
Most of the 6 routines are simple enough to work. Some will
require an element of skill in presentation in order to put the effect across to
best advantage, but even a beginner will find something that he can try out.
Matthew admits in his Introduction that his methods may not be groundbreaking or
original, and that is certainly true. But he has tried to convey how he puts the
routines over to lay people.
The contents are: Working Nine To Five For Gilbreath - a
relatively complex method to enable you to name every card contained in a
randomly shuffled pile of cards. I think you would need to be a very good
presenter to make calling out a load of card names one after the other
'entertaining', and the method, although actually in concept straightforward,
may put some readers off!
X-Ray Spectator - very spooky and weird! A spectator is put
in a trance (?) and is told he will be able to see through your arm and then
will be able to see his own brain. If you like Bizarre magic you might get
something out of this in the right circumstances.
TV Magazine Test - the magician sets a spectator's watch to
a random time and asks him to look up a TV programme that starts at that time
from a proffered TV guide. The magi then successfully describes the TV programme.
Sorry, but I just don't believe that this would genuinely fool anybody.
What's My Birthday? - to do this you have to know about,
understand and be proficient with Progressive Anagrams. If, like me, you are
not, you will not have any clue as to what Matthew is going on about here with
this. The good news is, you can get another E-Book free from him explaining what
it all means. I can't really understand why he didn't just include this with
Mentally Unstable as a matter of course - it's not like it would make the book
more expensive to produce and it would have been more helpful to the purchaser.
Mind Over Mobile - you name over the 'phone which card a
spectator has chosen after requiring him to deal endless piles of cards, read
out a whole list of card names, and after you have 'fished' around like a blind
man in a dark room. The spectator probably won't be fooled, but he may have lost
the will to live!
The strength and success of a lot of magic can be put down
to the skill and charisma of the presenter. A top performer can take relatively
simple and even mundane effects and turn them into a performing triumph. So,
having not seen Matthew present any of this material it is impossible to judge
how strongly it plays in his hands. However, I do feel that in the wrong hands
some of these items could be a bit of a disaster as they do need a good
performer to get the most out of them. I would also have liked Matthew to have
paid a bit more attention to the quality of the writing in the E-Book, but
unfortunately the ease with which an E-Book can be produced does not always
encourage a good literary standard. ML
What's Hot: those who dabble in mentalism will have some
material to play with
What's Not: the material needs a good performer to carry it off
Star Rating: *
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