Spotlight On Carey by John Carey

Price: £15 postpaid in the UK ($25 postpaid for the rest of the world)
Available direct from John via PayPal at johncareymagic@googlemail.com

John Carey is one of the UK's top "underground" magicians who, after some cajoling from his friends, has popped his head out into the open to share some of his material. This DVD contains a number of effects previously published in his "Carey's Cards" lecture notes and some previously unpublished items.

The DVD is a low-budget, one-camera affair with John performing, essentially, direct to camera with "Paul" being the off-camera spectator. In fact, at one point you can hear someone in the background sneezing during one of the explanations. There is also, at a couple of points during the DVD, a high pitched noise that might bug some people but not this viewer. It is, however, not the budget behind the making of the DVD that is important here but the material taught on it.

The material covers both cards and coins and although the material is not really, really easy, there is nothing on here that will break your knuckles. Everything on this DVD is attainable with a little handling practice.

Personal highlights include "Summer of '76", "Six Card Oil And Water", "Whispering Queen", "Counting On You" and "Slow Motion Collectors". These are all very nice effects that are more than worthy of your attention. He also gives some good advice on the Hofzinser Spread Cull.

I do have a couple of wee criticisms about the DVD, though. The performances of a couple of effects - most notably for me was "Simple Copper-Silver" - were spoiled by a bad camera angle. This should have been picked up during editing as it spoils the performance of a very nice routine. Possibly, it should have been filmed from the angle that the explanation was filmed from. Another wee criticism is that the lighting washes out the identity of the selected cards during performances.

Those criticisms aside, the material on this DVD is excellent and Carey, while not quite at ease in front of the camera (you really should see him performing this material live - you can book him to lecture at your magic club by contacting him at the e-mail address at the top of this post) gives some very good performances. I would easily recommend this disk to anyone interested in top quality card and coin handling.

To see what I've been talking about, you can see a trailer for John's DVD here.

Speak soon.

The Cardman :-)