Review: Cabaret Card Magic by Bill Abbott

Playing cards have the potential to pack small and play very big, and this is the premise behind Bill Abbott's Cabaret Card Magic. In this first rate book, Abbott shows how to entertain and mystify large audiences with card routines and provides themes and detailed scripts for some well known effects.

The first three pages offer an insightful discussion on selecting material and performing for large audiences. Here, Abbott offers some great advice that is the distillation of years of experience. The scripts provide built-in humor as well as applause cues. Note that the routines require altered decks.

The Princess & The Pea is a prediction effect that's been dressed around the well known fairy tale where a princess is identified because she can't sleep on top of ten mattresses that have been stacked on top of a single pea.

Abbott adapts a well known card trick that features lots of interaction and humor with an audience volunteer. Is she a princess or not? This effect will tell.

Based on another well known card trick, Pokerface is a mind reading effect that is based on the premise that you can read "tells" from several spectators that have been brought on stage.

Each spectator selects a card and you identify the cards. The routine has a question and answer segment that provides lots of laughs.

The Last Romance of Diamond Jack is Abbott's take on "Diamond Jack" from Hugard's "Encyclopedia of Card Tricks." In this routine, you tell a story while dealing cards. It's similar to Bill Malone's excellent "Sam the Bellhop" routine.

Abbott has done a great job of updating and refining the story for modern audiences. However, Abbott doesn't have you perform the cuts and shuffles as in Malone’s routine. He emphasizes the story telling which may or may not work for you. I'm not keen on this approach.

Entertaining a large crowd with a set of playing cards is a worthy goal. In this book, you may find a routine that you like and will work for you.

-Wayne N. Kawamoto

MSRP: (US) $25

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