Alright, now that you've see the trick, watch this:
A copycat! His name: The Amazing Raven, a performer who's real name is Stephen Robert John Gaudet. He's a tour manager of a hypnotist called Reveen. So you would think that he knows about not taking other people's material. If you look at some other acts of his, you'll notice that nothing really is his own. You will see a lot of The (not so) Amazing Kreskin bleed through as well as some other well known mentalists.
Watch him fuck up the Magic Square by clicking here. In case you don't know what was supposed to happen. Within 60 seconds he was supposed to fill in the numbers in a grid. I do a Magic Square in my show. 23 seconds. So 60 seconds is more than enough not have an error. But he had an error. He was not able to subtract 20 from the target number. So naturally he fucks up. And needs another 60 seconds to get himself back on track. The only redeeming thing about that performance is his assistant Whitly holding the board that he's writing on. Man, she is a piece of eye candy,,,, Kudos! If you clicked the above link you can see the entire show. And I dare you to watch this in one go. You cannot.
These things happen if you don't practise and rehearse. Which is what I accuse Steve of!
His production quality is good. Too good actually as all the screen, the music and the light makes it appear that Steve Gaudet is a professional. He clearly is not... or should not be. He maybe a wonderful human being, he maybe a great tour manager, but an even decent mentalist he is not,
Here is another video. Him doing hypnosis. The guy is clearly a stooge.This is clear to even the most brain dead spectator. Steve Gaudet make is look like he is able to hypnotise a random guy into becoming a juggler. Which he does. Then the stooge juggles, way too good to be believable. With knives!
Is there any need to be that "false"? He does some routines that I cannot place. But I have a hard time believing that he came up with any presentation by himself. Except maybe that atrocity of a hybrid monster that is Svengali and Tossed Out Deck. Stealing material, sucking at basic performance skills and failing to understand mentalism, as the limits of believability were clearly broken, make me announce the following. Steve Gaudet, you are this weeks magic failure.
But in order to be more on the constructive side of things, here are some pointers.
Put your spin on the classic routines! Do not take other people's work and sell it as your own! There are a few simple steps to take in order to create you own presentation. Start with a premise on why you are able to do what you can do! If you solved that the rest should get worked out.
Rehearse your material! This means (among other things) going through the motions so often, that you can do it effortlessly.
If you wanna be a mentalist, make sure you are believable. If you cannot figure out what feels real and what clearly is not, then you should get the help of those who can differentiate. Those usually are other mentalists,
