Issue 25 - March 09
Whiplash DVD
Stephen Tucker
Available from: www.full52.com
Price: £19.99
Dave Forrest's Full 52 Productions company is currently releasing a number of effects from a select band of close up creators and the DVD featured in this review contains 10 effects from well known English performer Stephen Tucker. The ten effects on the DVD break down into 7 card routines and 3 non-card ideas. Let's take a quick look at them all.
The DVD starts with Jumping Jack Flash and for me this was probably the stand out item on the disc. It's a sort of haunted deck in that the deck cuts itself in a weird looking way to find one selected card, and then a second selected card actually shoots itself out of the deck. Absolutely brilliant thinking has meant he has come up with a small and easy to use gimmick (which is supplied with the DVD) which you simply add to your regular deck and I can see a lot of people doing this trick.
Avalanche is next and it fooled me completely. It uses a double blank deck in an effect in which the performer names a card that a spectator literally merely thinks of. Easy to do, this is the sort of trick that will appeal to magicians as much as lay people because the mathematical principle behind it (which you don't need to understand to do the trick) is well disguised.
Paragon Monte I would class in many ways as more of a puzzle than a trick although there is a visual element to it. Three cards have been stuck together in a spread and are used in a bizarre version of the 3 Card Monte in which attempts to 'mark' the centre card by slipping a large paper clip on it fail each time as the paper clips appear to keep jumping to one of the other cards in the spread. Not a particularly commercial trick, in my opinion, as I feel spectators might want to look at the cards as they look suspicious and obviously they can't be examined, but a clever novelty nonetheless.
Signed Coin In Bottle I found a bit disappointing as I was not particularly convinced by the handling. The core premise of the method has been used by several others in recent times and they have created more visual magic than I feel Steve does here with this. Great that no folding coin is needed, but otherwise maybe not the best.
Incredible is a sort of amazing 'counting' trick in which you reveal two cards from a pile of about 10. Again, I think this is a magician fooler trick and great for down the magic club, but I'm not sure that a lay audience would be particularly entertained by it even though they will definitely be fooled!
Stroll On is the old chestnut of the Ball Vase but done with a roll on deodorant bottle! The roller ball from the top of the deodorant essentially is removed and appears back under the cap on the deodorant three times. Top marks for novelty but it needs a more developed routine to really make this strong. Smells nice though!
Revelations 3 looks totally impossible. Three signed cards are pushed back into the pack at different places by a spectator while the deck is in the card box. The box is dropped into an inside pocket and within seconds the three cards are produced out of the pocketed box. Learn this and you will have a really strong multiple selection revelation effect.
Heart Attack is the sort of trick that will work well if you are up very close to the spectators. It involves heart shaped holes appearing in cards that are seen to be completely normal moments before. As long as you can do an Elmsley Count you are basically set to do this neat effect.
Quintet is another card fooler in which a routine that appears to be using a number of KS cards ends with the cards all changing into a Royal Flush in Spades. Again, this is the sort of effect that magicians will love to do down the magic club and when sessioning with other guys at a convention because I think it might catch them out!
3 Fly Fo Fum is Steve's routine for the ever popular 3 Fly coins across effect. A clever use of special coin gimmicks (which you can easily make yourself from regular coins) provides you with the necessary props to create a wonderful visual piece of coin magic. Nicely routined, this is the most challenging thing to learn from this DVD in terms of technique, but anyone who handles coins already will soon be able to master it. Worth the effort to learn as it's really good.
The DVD is nicely produced (thankfully without an over abundance of distracting gimmicky editing or filming - hoorah!), and includes an interview with Stephen and a performance only of his outstanding Omega card routine. There's a lot of interesting magic on this disc which anyone who likes close up will undoubtedly enjoy, so I can't imagine any purchaser feeling this wasn't money well spent. ML
What's Hot: Steve's practical methods and good plots
What's Not: Some of the effects seem designed to fool magicians rather than
entertain lay people
Star Rating: ****
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