Array
Taylor, Baz
Alakazam UK
Baz Taylors Array has taken John Bannon's now classic "Play It Straight Triumph" Plot to new heights with his beautiful custom printed gaffs & incredible sleight free handling.
Effect
After shuffling a deck of cards two spectators are requested to select a card and leave them face down on the table sight unseen. You now explain you are going to find the value of the cards in a weird and very unusual way. Splitting the deck into 4 piles you turn two of the piles face up and leave two face-down. The piles are shuffled together face up into face down until you are left with a haphazard collection of face up and face down cards.
This is where the magic begins... After making a magical pass over the cards, every card apart from one suit corrects itself into the face down position. Leaving the suit in perfect order (minus one card) the card that is missing from the face up suit is proved to be selection number 1. The deck is now squared and instantly re-spread to show a different suit is now face up and once again, it's in perfect order with only one card missing. Could it be the second selection? Watch their jaws drop as they turn over their card and realise it's the one missing from the spread!!
Baz's Array is visual card magic at its best. It makes you look like a master of sleight of hand BUT the best bit is there is NONE! Not one little bit.
Array Comes with the custom printed cards (add to your own deck). These cards have been design by Baz Taylor and printed by the USPCC to ensure they are a perfect match to a standard red Bicycle deck. Array also includes a full instructional DVD starring Peter Nardi and Andy Smith.
Routines explained on the DVD:
Baz's Taylors original 2 card Array (A Lovely take on John Bannon's Play It Straight)
Peter Nardi's 3 card Array routine (Peter took Baz's original idea and added a great 3rd phase)
Peter Nardi's In the hands handling of Array (Ideal for when there is no table)
Andy Smith's Out Of Order Triumph (An Eye-Popping Rearrangement Of The Cards)
Andy Smith's Pack Transpo. (A visual Transposition between Two Packets Of Cards)
Reviews
(Top ▲)
Ahhhh . . . Triumph . . . A classic . . . Also one of the best albums ever . . . Triumph: Classics. Those 3 man Canadian bands just know how to rock it!
Anyway, Array is a highly gaffed version of John Bannon's The Bannon Triumph (aka Play it Straight Triumph). Bannon's version requires no gaffs. This version requires 13 gaffs. I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not. I'm not here to judge the effect - if you don't like the effect in the demo, you won't buy it and won't do it. I am, however here to judge the following:
- Advertisement Copy
- Method
- Product/Production Quality
- Teaching Effectiveness
Advertisement Copy
The written ad copy has some minor hyperbole (e.g., eye-popping rearrangement, etc.). However, that aside, it's very accurate. The only issue I have is with the video trailer. In the trailer you see a three phase routine that starts with a standard Vernon-esque handling followed by 2 Bannon-esque phases. During the trailer it claims that there is an in the hands version.
The DVD teaches an in the hands version, but not for the first phase shown in the trailer. You only get an in the hands version for the 2 Bannon-ish phases. That's a little misleading, so be warned if you were hoping to learn an in the hands version for all three phases.
As far as the effect you see on the trailer, what you see is what you get. There are no tricky cuts or camera funniness. The effect is that clean.
Method
The first phase is a non-gimmicked standard Vernon-ish handling. It's pretty much the same method Vernon used. The 2 other phases are the Baz Taylor handling that require the 13 gimmicks. These gimmicks give you the ability to spread the deck and show all of the "chosen" card's suit to be face up in order. Then instantly you can close up the spread and re-spread showing the other "chosen" card's suit to be face up.
Though a stack is required, the handling is very simple and very effective. I can't say the same for the alternate version taught by Andy Smith. His version overly complicates things and adds some heavy duty culling and doesn't really gain much in effect. Smith's small packet effect is a two packet transpo that utilizes a few of the gimmicked cards in a different way. The handlings a little fishy and includes one of those discrepancy moves that magicians claim won't be noticed by the audience even though they are noticed by the audience.
For my money, the best method is the straight-forward two phased handling created by Baz Taylor and/or the three phase version with Peter Nardi's addition of the Vernonian handling. However, you must also consider the fact that the deck is gaffed and can only do this one trick. If you're ok with that (I'm not), then you'll be happy with the method.
Product/Production Quality
The DVD, like pretty much all of Alakazam's DVDs, is top notch and well produced. It's simple to navigate, well lit, well mic'd and well shot. The product (i.e., the gimmicked cards) are standard Rider Back Bicycle cards that look great. The overall quality of everything is excellent.
Teaching Effectiveness
The effects are taught well and explained in depth by Peter Nardi and Andy Smith. My only real complaint is that these two need to loosen up a bit. They are extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemly boring and monotonous and very tedious to listen to. They're both nice guys from what I can tell, and I have nothing personal against them.
Maybe they're just nervous in front of the camera. I'm not sure, but whatever it is, it makes for some very dry viewing. If you make it through the dry viewing, you'll learn everything you need to know to perform the effects.
Final Thoughts
This comes up in almost every DVD I review, but just in case you haven't heard me rant about it before, I'll bring it up again. If you perform this effect, please, please, please, write a script for it; come up with some lines, and points of interest. The video demo of Peter Nardi "performing" is terrible. It's dry and lifeless. Please do not emulate that. As always, his performance, as bad it was, does not influence the final star rating. I rate the product itself not Nardi's performance of it.
Final Verdict:
4 Stars with a Stone Status of Gem
(Top ▲)
I’ve done the original Bannon effect for many years, and it always goes over extremely well. In my opinion, this tells me that this effect doesn’t NEED another phase. Also, doing the effect AGAIN takes all the surprise out of the ending. To me, this is a huge disadvantage. The beauty of the original routine is that the audience just doesn’t see the end coming.
The original effect takes only a few seconds of preparation, uses a normal deck, and the deck can be used in other routines afterwards.
Paying thirty two dollars for a deck that starts gaffed, and ends gaffed, for one ‘kicker’ ending that has no surprise element, seems like a foolish thing to me.
Get Bannon’s booklet, “Six. Impossible. Things.” for fifteen dollars. Not only will you learn this brilliant effect from it’s creator, but you will get tons of other GREAT effects with a regular deck.
One Star because the packaging and DVD were nicely produced.