How To Win at Stand-Up Magic
A review of Jon Armstrong's book
My first introduction to Jon Armstrong was back in 2010, where I got to see him lecture on his close up card magic creations and now over 10 years later he's moved into and flourished in the stand up magic space.
Along the way he kept notes on what he has learned on his journey from close up to stand up and while he has had a number of lectures talking about his journey he recently released a book entitled How to Win - Essays and Routines For The Stand Up Magician. This book is a culmination of everything he has discovered in the last 10 years during his focus on stand up and while largely theoretical, is extremely practical. And of course, there are magic routines taught as well but as we look at this book, you'll see there is more to magic than just tricks.
The book is broken up into three parts, and upon reading through it you'll realise it's like a sandwich, with a very tasty filling between two high quality pieces of bread.
Part 1 - Close Up to Stand Up
Jon Armstrong is most known for his Tiny Plunger routine, which has also been performed on Penn and Teller’s Fool Us and also turned into a Tenyo product.
This fact is poked fun at in his foreword when you consider the man once known for his close up is now somehow an expert in stand up magic. But in the first part of the book a foundation is laid of what stand up magic is, how to easily go from close up to stand up with your existing routines and other concepts we'll touch on briefly here.
If you haven't tried stand up magic before this section is gold, you'll have a framework to work with and you'll also be introduced to what is required for stand up, from the importance of scripting and blocking to considerations of how you interact with your audience and the effects you choose to include in your show. Concepts like “In One” which I've talked about previously (I got it from Jon) are detailed here and the real secret of winning is given, which I don't think he'll mind if I give it away because everyone should be doing it - Record every show and review it so you improve for the next show!
I particularly enjoyed his essays on Things to Avoid and How to Make the Magic You Buy Your Own, because there's a lot to learn from other people's mistakes and we should always strive to make things our own and not be carbon copies of other magicians.
My favourite sentence which would help magicians and others understand the difference between close up and stand up is:
“Close up is conversational while stand up is presentational”
Once you understand that idea then it will be easier to approach and structure your stand-up magic.
Part 2 - Five Techniques To Apply To Your Audience
When I first read this section it felt like my mind was opened up and a dump truck of secrets was poured into my brain.
A magic show is only good if the audience you perform for enjoys it, otherwise you'd be better off performing for a camera hoping for likes and follows. In this section Jon shares five techniques he uses with his crowds, often multiple at the same time to win with his shows. The techniques are
Unite
Engage
Respect
Impress
Train
While reading the titles make sense when you think about it, it’s the details that Jon provides as he does a deep dive into each technique that help you level up your stand-up shows.
The first technique, about uniting your audience as one is not something I had ever thought of previously. You take this for granted coming from a close-up background where your small group that you perform for is automatically united already since they’re friends, family or just part of the same table but with a large audience consisting of people from all walks of life, you need to make sure they’re one cohesive crowd so they can better enjoy your show. Jon goes into the details of what you first say to get a united audience to other techniques to sprinkle throughout your show.
Each technique is different but are all needed and is a section you’ll come back to over and over again as you revise your own stand-up show.
Part 3 - Routines
The final part is four routines straight out of Jon’s professional repertoire for you to learn and perform, although if you have been reading his book from the start, you’ll know not to perform his routines verbatim but make those changes to make them you.
The routines are:
Paper Ball
This is one of Jon’s closers is a great routine using cards, the Invisible Deck and predictions to tie everything together. It uses three participants which allows the routine to play big, especially when using something as small as cards.
Uno Voodoo
A fun cards across effect using Uno cards, focusing on the colour of the cards themselves rather than their values with a very visual and comedic way to show the cards going across. This is something I would add to my own family shows.
Thought-Of Card To Wallet
This was one of Jon’s signature close up effects taught on his 3 DVD set, but here we see it evolve and re-routined for a stand-up setting. If you’ve seen the close-up version it’s a great exercise in seeing the changes made in how he took it and made it a strong stand-up effect.
The Cup and Ball and Shot Glass Trick
If the name wasn’t descriptive enough already, this effect follows the structure of the Silk and Egg routine, where you seemingly give the audience a look behind the curtain before hitting them in the head (magically) one last time. The only hurdle is finding the complicated prop necessary to show how the effect supposedly works!
Final Thoughts
This is a short book, coming in at 103 pages, which I thought was very little, but I was quickly proved wrong since each essay was thought provoking and very inspiring (especially page 61!).
If you’re new to stand-up magic, you’ll be pouring over this book many times and if you’re a seasoned professional, I’m sure you’ll find the second part about audience techniques illuminating, even if you’ve done of the techniques before, perhaps unconsciously.
You can get his book from his website or any other magic retailer.
If you want to read more about going from Close Up to Stand-Up, I wrote a two-part series on it which you can read here and here.
If you ever have any magic items you want me to review please get in contact with me via social media and I’ll do my best to give an unbiased review.
Thanks for the review...based upon it, I have ordered the book and will see if I see what you see when I see it! First time seeing your stuff...by way of Charlotte Pendragon...looking forward to reading more! Thanks.