Best Of British
Various
Magicseen Publishing
You will find magi from: Ian Adair, Jasper Blakeley, Paul Brook, Chris Congreave, Wayne Dobson, Matthew J. Dowden, Peter Duffie, Chris Dugdale, Geoffrey Durham, Wayne Fox, Paul Gordon, Paul Hallas, Gary Jones, Mark Leveridge, Simon Lovell, Shaun McCree, Marc Paul, Scott Penrose, Harry Robson, Alan Rorrison, Tim Shoesmith, Mark Shortland, Lee Smith and Paul Stockman.
The material they have provided is as diverse as it is interesting. Virtually all of the effects require no more than average handling ability, so everyone who buys this book will find the contents both enjoyable and useful. Magicseen is proud to be able to offer so much talent in one place!
Pages: 140 - 9" x 6" - Softcover Perfect bound - Black and white photos and illustrations
Reviews
(Top ▲)
It’s a collection of many different effects each by a different creator from the UK. They pretty much all require intermediate technical ability, so they are all within reach of the average magician. The illustrations are clear, and the overall quality of the booklet is extremely high. Everyone will have a different set of favorite effects for different reasons, that said, here are a few of my personal favorites.
Marc Paul has a fabulous “Psychic Rock, Paper, Scissors” routine that looks like real mind control. You display each ‘prediction’ to the audience without the spectator seeing them and then they carry out the exact prediction you made! At the end, you display a photo prediction proving you really did influence every step of the game.
Lee Smith has a cool card effect that has a kind of Jay Sankey feel that seemingly warps time and space.
No matter where you are from, you have a collection of the best material from the best performers and creators in the UK. I think $40 is a bit steep for just 140 pages so it loses a half star for that reason alone, but this material is not lacking in quality or quantity.
Overall, if you are a close up magician, a stage mentalist, or anything in between, this book is a worthwhile read.
(Top ▲)
For $40 bucks you get a butt load of cool ideas and tricks from some of the top British magi.
There are too many effects to go over each one, so let me just give some general comments and a few highlights. First, the only complaint I really have is a minor one. There is a so called "sleights section" in the book that briefly covers three major sleights. What they are is unimportant because, for the most part, they are poorly explained and not given enough details for the reader to properly learn them. However, that aside, the rest of the content is primo material.
You're treated to 24 British performers . . . a trick from most of them and an essay or two from a few of them. Because everyone has a different personality and performance style, it's hard to say who will like what. But I can pretty much guarantee that everyone will like something from this book. There are things ranging from racy mentalism to fun children's effects to impossible mind reading effects and more. If you're a card guy (or girl), you'll likely enjoy the thinking behind Chris Congreave's effect, You've Got to Be Joking.
Included is an in depth explanation of Geoffrey Durham's effect, The Sliding Knot. This is a fascinating read on an effect that only a tenth of a percent of the people who read the book will even consider doing - It's way to much freakin' work to construct the gimmick, but the effect is powerful.
There are a ton of card effects in the book, and I'd say that over 75% of them excellent and clever effects. The other 25% are still good or "pretty good."
. . . and now, something completely different . . . I really enjoyed the thinking behind Paul Hallas's effect, Name Power 2. This is a powerful effect that uses elegant props and a small bit of theatre to produce a beautifully magical moment of pure mind-reading with a hint of the supernatural . . . one of my favorites in the book.
Mark Leveridge has some interesting work on ye olde ring and string . . .
Scott Penrose has a brilliant effect, presentation and method for Card to Wallet. This is so different and so much better than any card to wallet I've ever seen. Basically, the spectator's signed card ends up in the middle of a huge acordian folded wallet photo holder . . . it's found amongst all the other autographed playing cards he's "kept over the years." The presentation, reasoning, method, everything is brilliant.
Lee Smith's TNT is a killer take on the torn and restored card effect with some Ortiz and Sankey influence (always a good thing).
Finally (although there is so much more excellent material in this book) Paul Stockman's Sounds Colourful is a powerful effect that plays as big or small as you want it, and it uses a method that nobody is using these days. It's a stage mentalism effect where you make 3 predictions -impossible predictions- about the behaviour of your on-stage spectator. This one alone is almost worth the price of the book.
There is a nice spread of texture and material in this book that is extremely powerful and definitely worthy of your time and your money.
Final Verdict:
4.5 Stars with a Stone Status of GEM!