We’ve seen a number of Danny Weiser creations over the last 6 months or so and I’ll confess I didn’t have high hopes for this – but at the same time I was really hoping to be able to be more positive this time round. Let’s see what we made of it in this Switch Up review.
Switch Up promises to be an extremely visual transformation of some writing on the back of your card case – in most of the examples revealing a thought of card or prediction in a very magical way. And, with a few reservations, we have to say it delivers.
The common factor in the Danny Weiser routines we’ve seen have been somewhat fiddly gimmicks and very visual effects. The way in which this particular gimmick works certainly gives the great visual, and to my mind is just a little less fiddly than some of the others.
You are supplied with a gimmick ready-made (though you will need to customise it with a sharpie) and some materials to help you make a new one (or repair it). As with a number of recent releases distributed by Murphys you get no physical teaching media – only a link to an online video (which you can download). Given the widespread availability of high speed internet this shouldn’t be a problem for most people – but depending on where you want to learn it you should bear that in mind.
The gimmick is well made and should be fooling at quite close distances. As with all these kinds of things, I have some concerns about how long it would last if you were performing with it day in and day out, but what you receive has been well made.
The teaching (by Chris Webb) is clear and easy to follow. It covers all you need to know (even teaching a basic card force) with a number of variations and ideas given. For me, one of the strongest points of the routine is the clever clean up at the end which effectively leaves you clean making the visual magic even more baffling.
I don’t know whether I like this enough to do it all the time, but it would look great on a showreel, and once I’ve sampled the real-world reactions I might find it becomes more regular. Especially if I can get over my slight concerns over the long-term resilience of the gimmick.
Available direct from Merchant of Magic (with thanks to MagicTao who kindly supplied the review copy) – £24.99 at the time of writing. Also available in Red.
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