OK - confession time. Thom Peterson’s was the first magic lecture I saw and I loved it. I went to the ATM and bought everything he had. That said I have never regretted the purchases and along with a very few other DVD's and lecture notes his remain in the "keep" pile. I find his performances amusing without putting down the audience and the magic strong. With one exception, in all of his DVD’s there has never been the need to buy expensive extras. However given that I had a lot of Thom Peterson material already I was uncertain whether to buy this, particularly since Alakazam did not respond to my query regarding how much of the material was "new". However I emailed Thom, I bought the DVD and am very glad I did so.

First the not so good: The DVD is frankly a little weird. It does not follow the usual performance then explanation, or even a run of performances followed by explanations... It does a bit of both. The first DVD has a lot of performance in it, and for those of you who hate the L&L cheerleaders in this Alakazam production they are noticeably absent though the audience is clearly having a ball.


Surprise:
A ring is borrowed from an audience member is vanished and is found inside the toy container of a kinder egg. This first appeared in his lecture notes, though this time you get the patter is nice.

Lovely lovely effect, but kinder eggs are not available in the US.

Spooning:
A spoon is held in one hand between 2 finger and thumb and is bent by heat rising from a lighter. The spoon can be handed out for examination afterwards.

Nice effect I saw performed at a gig I went to recently (as a punter) and there were audible gasps. BUT you need some skill with tools in your hands (I don't mean magic, or guns) - also in the lecture notes.

Revenge of the spoon:
A signed drawing of a spoon is seen to bend.

Great patter and a good effect. I have to say that Thom's set up the method is in-detectable, would that I could say the same for mine. The trick is easy but an ability to draw is helpful....sadly my drawing is rubbish. Appeared in the lecture notes

Barbecue Buddies:
I really really enjoyed this, it is not on his other material. Who would you like to have come to your bbq? Brad pitt, angelina jolie, einstein? A series of photos are shown of Thom Peterson's wanna have BBQ buddies, some nice patter. and the magician explains that if he picks a bbq buddy at random, and the person he picks someone from the audience at random will pick the same person. Thom Peterson shows a card for the spec to pick.....audience sees all of the pictures are of Thom Peterson, spec picks a card "at random".....lots of patter, many jokes. To everyone's surprise the magicians picture card and that one of the spec are both Homer Simpson. Absolutely brilliant. There is loads of fun to be had with this


My Card Stab!:
The routine climax is a card in paper bag, card stabbed routine......so far so nice, but seen it before. Why then do I think it more thought provoking and the one I will likely use. The answer is the routine; it stretches out a simple card stab into a three phase routine “I will find your card by the sleight of hand method”....he fails, “I will find your card by the psychic method” - he fails, I will find your card by the random chance method - he succeeds and adds a ton of humour.

Bowling Ball of Death
The effect –take a “bowling ball” from bag and it is revealed that the ball is actually a balloon. A card is taken at random and appears to penetrate the balloon. Thom Peterson offers to show the audience how it is done….and of course doesn’t but performs signed card into balloon.
A well known effect with some nice additional touches (like the real life bowling ball that appears out of an empty paper bag).

Pitboss:
Not my favourite effect. The premise is walking through a casino the magician predicts the number the spectator is thinking of at a dice table, a roulette table and then the card they thought of. I quite like the thinking behind the finding of the card but the original premise, though logical, doesn’t rock my boat….no great opportunities for laughs and who, except for mathematicians is driven wild by numbers (large numbers in my bank account that would be good).

Owned [b]
An OK effect. In performance it might be better than Ok – I would have to try it.…..but it is a bit of fun and again, not a card trick. The magician says he has made an agreement with his wife to clear out some stuff, 50 items and he is getting rid of one item per week. Magician asks spec to pick one of several sealed envelopes, each of which has a photo of a prized possession.
Spectator picks an envelope, and they can change their mind if they like the other envelopes have desirable items the one the spectator picks has tat.

[b]Don’s Card Stab originally on the amazing guy dvd
Simply awesome mindboggler, instant reset, lovely premise gorgeous routine.
The premise: when a magician asks someone to pick a card that card chosen by the person is fated to be theirs and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

The deck is shown to have different cards. Spec picks a card at random. .spec 2 is encouraged to think of spec 1’s card. Magician deals cards onto table and spec 2 says stop….the card is shown to be spec 1’s card. Cards are then put into 3 piles and the magician tries to influence the spec (lots of fun byplay here), each pile is turned over and shown to be a random card not the chosen card. Final pile (spec’s choice) shows the spec’s card.

Cards are magician proofed by wrapping them in a napkin and a knife thrust in. The card next to the knife is the spectators card. Brilliantly crafted routine. Worth the price of the DVD.

pmd
A borrowed £2 coin is shown to penetrate through a pack of cards into a wine glass and a second time ending up next to a spectator’s card. US coins could be used too. The effect of having the cards on a wine glass and slamming the coin onto the glass causes the coin to fall through the cards and into the glass. Uses a gimmick of the same denomination as the borrowed coin….which is limiting.

fish tale appeared in the lecture notes
paraphrasing from the notes: “The performer brings out a small red cellophane “fortune teller fish”. He explains that these things can be really accurate in terms of telling fortunes. A group of cards are displayed each having a possible action that the fish could take. The mystical fish is placed in the spectator’s open palm. As per normal the fish performs some sort of distinct freaky gyration in the spectator’s open palm. Amazingly the card that matches it’s movement is turned over to reveal a very accurate prediction – like “your name is David and you’re wearing a blue striped shirt!” (or you are buying the next round). The fish is provided and the effect plays well. Again lots of laughs.

parting shot appeared in the lecture notes and also in the amazing guy video as “the known”:
Through a process under the spectators control all of the cards are eliminated except one…..a black 8. By strange coincidence the performer explains that there is another black 8 in the card box….shakes the box and out comes a black 8 ball. Followed by an applause cue (white cue ball). Very simple, very effective plays really well. Recommended.

Rock, paper, rabbit
I don’t know about you but I feel I have done a LOT of reviewing. Just buy the darn thing…amazing value.
This effect has the performer scrunching post it’s in faux origami…..and then produces an origami rabbit. Not the strongest effect but raises some giggles.

Bitch slap
This quick easy effect fooled me big time. Loved it. Spectator picks a card, loses it in the deck and the magician finds….the wrong card. Slaps the face of the deck and the card appears. No shape shifter, no twirly whirly colour changes, bye bye erdnase your services are not required. Yes one could do one of the other colour changes….the effect would be nowhere near as strong. Simply beautiful.

Lemonade racket originally on Sucker Punch DVD.
Stage effect. The magician explains that he used to run a lemonade business…he shows his lemonade sign, waves his wand over it and produces a lemon….close but no cigar. He rolls the sign up and produces a glass of lemonade, ice, liquid (no cap) from within the sign. Optional follow up – beer bottle from shoe. Blew me away when I saw it.

This is beyond any doubt whatsoever a fantastic value DVD with something for everyone and is a masterclass in performance with the spectator as partner as opposed to spectator as victim. Where gimmicks are required you likely have them already and full instructions on how to make things are included. The teaching is first class. If you have sucker punch or the amazing guy or any of Thom’s products I would still recommend this DVD. If you don’t have “The amzing guy “ or “sucker punch” I would recommend those too.

Danny

I also love Thom's work and have his previous dvds and notes. There is a lot of great material on these dvds..Highly Recommended!!!