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Roddy McGhie/Danny Weiser – Attire – review

Phil Sweeting — Mon, 26 Jun 2017 20:58:15 +0000

Attire is at the same time a great and an infuriating release – and I will try to explain my double-mindedness on this one as we go through this Attire review.

In case you haven’t watched the trailer, the effect is simple to describe. The magician is wearing a tee-shirt with a drawing of a pocket and two Sharpie markers poking out of it. He then visually ‘plucks’ one of the sharpies from the tee-shirt – so the drawing only has a single pen on it, and the magician is holding a real solid sharpie in their hands.

That’s a perfectly accurate description and the trailer is an accurate depiction of a very visual effect. The method, like all the best methods, is simple and the technique is pretty straightforward – though you will need a little handling practise to get it really good.

So far so good. So what’s the problem?

A collection of cumulatively annoying niggles

I have to admit I didn’t get off to an auspicious start with Attire since I couldn’t watch the video online – so I had to download it. I had no problems streaming the explanation on a subsequent attempt in a different location – so it would be unfair to judge the effect on this.

However, I found the (almost 40 minutes) of explanation really annoying. It was chopped up into far too many segments – with three different people explaining different things. The reason given was that some of the ideas came later and were filmed later – but that, to me, is already a bit of a red flag in a world where too many magic releases are put out without a decent amount of ‘road testing’ and as a result come to market far too soon.

Some of the explanation was also slightly patronising (I think he was trying to be humorous) and some of the ‘banter’ was simply cringeworthy. Maybe I’m getting too old to review these ‘modern’ effects?

You’ll have to do a little bit of work to prepare your gimmick – but in this instance that move is entirely justified since you’ll want to add the gimmick to your garment of choice. Be warned that (depending on how you attach it) the gimmick will have a limited lifespan.

As you can see, none of these things are deal-breakers, and I do think it is a good effect. It’s great to have some decent live performances and I’m pretty sure you’ll get some decent reactions from this. Given that so many of us use Sharpies in our magic anyway – what could be better than producing one magically?

The question of attire…

The deciding factor for me, personally, is that I would be extremely unlikely to perform in a tee-shirt. Whilst you could attach the gimmick to a more formal shirt, I think this is really an effect for the (young) street magician. Whilst that is enough to put me off performing, it is not enough to stop me recommending you take a look at Attire – especially if it fits your performing style/dress! For me, it is the best of Danny Weiser’s effects we have looked at so far.

Attire is available from MagicShop.co.uk for £23.99 (at the time of writing).

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

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