I saw this last night after someone recommended I watch it.

The guy is from Bradford and goes by the name of Dynamo.

He's a street magician but on a whole different level to anything I have seen before.

I'm almost certain that some of them MUST be camera trick stuff (especially the "big" end of show tricks that he does) but it's the close-up work that's just mind blowing.

He does the whole mind-reading thing but I have never seen anyone do it like he does. Normally I expect the whole "say it over and over in your mind" etc... and they begin to pick out letters or whatever. This guy just asks them to think of something, looks at them for around 5-10 seconds and then just says it.

Some of the coin and card tricks aswell are awesome. He seems to be able to put coins into the closed (untouched) fists of members of the public. Or throwing mobile phone into glass bottles so that they are actually inside the bottle. (I've seen that done with plastic bottles with a cut down one side but this is something else.

::EDIT:: Don't know why I said Manchester?!

I saw this guy on tv some months ago.

You're right Ollie.... he's pretty awesome !

Edit... He's also so damned young !!!!!

His act is baffling....much more so than any other magician I've seen. Sure, there obviously must be some very skilful sleight-of-hand involved (he has a very cool 4 way card shuffle, for example) but it is very difficult to see how and when it's used. How did he get the guy's own phone inside that bottle? Bend the wine glass? Change that other man's debit card? Rub the zero off a £10 note and apply it to a £20? All in front of an (apparently) impromptu gathering of people.

He's very impressive.

That’s the key for a lot of this street magic you see on TV. I’d say that pretty much everyone you see on camera is a stooge. There’s more going on off picture too. It’s all clever stuff and makes for intriguing programming, but the frame of the picture will be being used to great advantage.

In many cases I think you're correct, but those FHM attendees (for example) came across as too stupid to be anyone's stooge.

Indeed. The first rule to remember when watching a TV magician is that nothing is as it seems. After all, misdirection and subterfuge are at the core of every magic trick ever invented.

Jon

That’s why I like it. I know I’m being tricked and that everything is not what it seems. I like to try to work out how it’s all done.