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Chris Rayman

An evening of magic at the Flim Flam Theatre, April 26,1997

Review by Steve Callahan for KDHX

You'll be amazed! You'll not believe your eyes! You'll swallow your gum!! Chris Rayman presents an evening of astounding magic at the Flim Flam Theatre in U.City. The Flim Flam is one of our best-kept secrets. I've strolled by there a hundred times! I noticed their sign, and told myself "sometime I ought to check that out. Last Saturday I finally went, and I assure you I'm going to go again!

The theatre is on Delmar, just west of Skinker. The premises look small and unprepossessing. Inside it's a VERY intimate, comfortable cabaret seating twenty-five or thirty people at the most. There are small tables, and you can order drinks or espresso. The rear tables and chairs are taller, so literally everyone has a first-rate view of the remarkable feats that appear before them.

Chris Rayman is surely one of the most accomplished, polished magicians I've ever seen, working at a simple table so close to the audience that they can almost touch it. He presents his amazing prestidigitation with the simplest of props--a deck of cards, a Chinese coin, a silk handkerchief, a pocket watch, a small notebook. Yet Rayman is so skilled and so charming that he fills the evening with fascinating variety, all the while maintaining a delicious sense of humor.

Once or twice he purports to "explain" a trick to the audience, as when he "palms" an invisible card. It's hilarious, but in the end we are again stunned when the spoof turns into real magic. The most impressive palming of the evening is the way in which Rayman keeps the audience firmly in the palm of his skillful hand. Such hands! I've never seen a deck of cards shuffled more deftly, fanned more silkily, spread with such a slick grace.

In a pure comic Interlude Chris introduces a furry colleague, Rocky the psychic raccoon. You'll love him. And you may even get to feed him after the show.

Throughout the evening the master causes cards to be magically transported, to change colors, to rise mysteriously from the deck. All amazing. But with his final feats you truly will not believe your eyes. The trick is so simple, so clear, so close. And it is simply impossible for the cards to do what they do!

It is Magic at its best, done with utter warmth and grace. Chris Rayman at the Flim Flam Theater. Other magicians also take their turn at the theater. If they are half as good as Rayman, they are good indeed.