Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: The Gambler By Kenny Rogers
David was a king in the bible, and 'Regal' is another name for 'king.' So David Regal's name is really 'King King.' What a perfect name for a magi.
On to Volume III
Production quality - As with pretty much all L&L DVDs the quality, lighting, menu navigation, etc are all top notch. No complaints here.
DVD Concept - The concept of Premise, Power & Participation is that once you've reached a certain level of competence in your technical abilities, what will separate you from all the other magicians who are also good technicians? Answer . . . How well you present the magic.
We learn from David Regal how to figure out how to present magic. He suggests that we start by analyzing three basic areas (premise, power and participation). Volume III Focuses on Participation.
Teaching - How good of a teacher is David Regal? Excellent. Putting aside the quality of the effect for moment, if there's anything you like on this DVD, you will learn it very well while being entertained and engaged by a very smart, funny and clever guy.
The Effects - Below is a list of each effect with a rating (1 star = lowest; 5 stars = highest) along with brief commentary on each one.
Lucky Seven (3.5 stars)
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This is one of those deals where you rely on luck, but have a good back up plan if luck fails. In the performance, David got lucky. But it was funny. It was almost like he wasn't expecting it and it seemed to fluster him a little. Putting that aside, the effect in itself is decent, and the 'non-lucky' out is solid.
Control Yourself (3 stars)
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An effect that's 'OK.' I'm not a fan of the count down to the number of cards matching the face of that card kind of tricks, and I don't think most audiences are either.
Clandestine Collectors (4 stars)
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If you're a collectors fan, you'll like this one. It's one of the cleanest handlings I've seen. There was a part or two in the explanation that was a little unclear, but not so much so that you can't learn this.
Not This (4.5 stars)
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A very strong piece of mentalism where you predict not only what they will do, but also what they almost did. You just need some business cards or scraps of paper and a pen, and you've got a heck of an effect that gets a lot of people involved.
Coincidence Deck (3.5 stars)
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This is a straight-forward sort of do-as-I-do effect where you always go first and pretty much everything is a free choice. You end up with two piles of cards (yours and the spectators) that match each other perfectly.
A Simple Woodcutter (3 stars)
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An overly hyped revelation of a card. It has a decent hook/story, but in the end it's just a force and a card revelation. The force is actually very clever and worthy of consideration for other uses as well.
Off-Color Thought (3 stars)
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This is similar in feeling to Not This above, but a weaker effect, in my opinion, because of a part of the method that requires two little funky 'things' during the presentation. Not enough to rubble the effect, but enough that I'd skip past it.
Mystic Poker (4.5 stars)
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Lots of fun, participation, and humor. Essentially a spectators names any card from a any royal flush and you cause the remaining cards of the royal flush to magically appear (e.g. she names Ace of Hearts; You magically cause 4 blank cards to become the King, Queen, Jack and Ten of Hearts). Lots of byplay and fun while the spectator has to draw an entire playing card on a blank card.
Mucilaginous Monte (4 stars)
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If you're a fan of 3 card monte - I'm not - this is a tough one to beat. It's about as clean as you can get. However, though the cards are not gimmicked, per se, or misprinted, they cannot be handled by the spectator
Again we have David Regal the brilliant thinker and teacher over reacting to his own effects during performance. It's mostly fun, but sometimes annoying. However, I also recognize that it's his performance character, so I'm not docking any points for that.
The Average rating of each effect is 3.67. Considering that you're learning at feet of a master with that average, it's easy to give this DVD a . . .
Final Verdict:
4 star rating with a Stone Status of GEM.