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Special Feature: Beware of Irish hypno-magician Keith Barry’s sharp, steel spike at Planet Hollywood

Posted November 12, 2008 • 2:05 p.m.

Planet Hollywood magician Keith Barry.

Photo: Tom Donoghue

In a sense, one of the highlights of Keith Barry’s hypno-magic show at Planet Hollywood is when he “dies.” Yep, the Irish illusionist actually stops his pulse from beating and, hopefully, there’s a doctor, medic or nurse in the audience to confirm it. If that’s not enough for you, then Keith will blindfold you or himself and smash your hand down on four Styrofoam cups, one of which harbors a horrible, pointed, sharp, steel spike!

“Don’t try that at home,” he warned me. “You only need to go to YouTube and look at ‘Magic Gone Wrong.’ There are videos of magicians ripping my trick off and coming to a ghastly ending because they got it wrong.”

His fascination with magic, mindreading and hypnosis began when he bought a copy of Magic for Dummies as a teenager growing up in Waterford, Ireland. Now with a five-week tryout run at Planet Hollywood, he’s hoping it will lead to a full-time residency on the Strip. Coincidentally, it opened the night before Criss Angel’s Believe extravaganza just down the Strip.

Keith, at 32, is already on the fast-track to U.S. stardom, having appeared regularly on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. She’s booked him for her upcoming “Even Bigger Really Big Show” from Caesars Palace for the Comedy Festival getting underway in just eight days. She doesn’t even know what she’s getting herself into, as I discovered when Keith and I talked:

Robin Leach: How are you enjoying your very first run in Vegas?

Keith Barry: I’m really, really enjoying it. The reactions have been really positive. Vegas audiences and European audiences are pretty much the same; people here want to be entertained. I’m loving performing every night. I’ve never had the opportunity to perform night after night after night before. Back in Europe, I’ve done a bunch of different tours, but, you know, each tour I might do like four nights a week and then break for three nights and then do another four nights, where as this is a bit different, you know, night after night after night. But I’m loving it. You know, in magic, there’s television magic, there’s all different kinds of magic, but my favorite part of what I do is performing live on stage, so, yeah, I’m loving it.

RL: And how do you describe this magic, because it’s not big boxes? You combine magic with hypnosis, but yet the magic is not really hypnotic?

KB: Yeah, exactly. The only way I can describe it is a mixture of magic, psychology, comedy and hypnosis. My aim is to make people laugh first and then try to fool them with some good magic, as well. I want to bring magic back to where it started, which is not about the props and it’s not about me as a magician, it’s about the audience and playing with their minds and playing with their perception of magic and having fun with it. I think too many magic shows around the world, not even in Vegas, too many magicians, like if they were chocolate they would lick themselves to death. You know they love themselves (laughter). I want to make it fun again, I want people to laugh and just enjoy it for what it is, which is a form of entertainment and obviously to make it a little different than what’s already out here. I mixed hypnosis and magic together to try and create a new area. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel. I’m not going to pretend that I’m something that I’m not, but what I’m going to try to do is take the things that I’ve learned over the past 20 to 25 years and make them as original as me and then make them entertaining, which is my primary goal.

RL: Now none of this is in-your-face magic like Criss in Mindfreak or street magic with David Blaine. But there is an element that is -- I don’t know what the right word is -- so I’m going to ask you to describe it. When you get that member of the audience to choose that color envelope that has the money in it, or you make them choose the cup that you’re going to pound their fist down on, what is that magic called?

KB: Basically, the best term that I could use is psychological illusion -- both of those effects require me to psychologically influence the spectators to make them do what I want them to do. And what’s interesting is different, and some nights you’ll get a drunk guy on stage and sometimes you’ll get a stoned guy on stage and sometimes to psychologically influence those people is really, really difficult. They’re not magic tricks and they’re not hypnosis, but they are psychological illusions, and what I’m trying to do is with, for instance with the envelope thing, whichever envelope I decide to put the money in, obviously I know where the hundred dollar bill is starting off with. So I’ve got to influence people to stay away from the envelope containing it, and it’s a lot of covert eye play I use during the program, so I’m reading people’s eye movement, I’m reading their body language.

RL: Have you ever lost the money in the envelope?

KB: Twice I’ve lost it in the 31 times I’ve done it. Not yet in Vegas! It’s only a single $100 bill in the envelope, but if I lose, it becomes $10,000. So if they get the $100, they get the ten grand. I’m only here for five weeks this time around, so I can’t afford to lose.

RL: Do you carry extra insurance for the hand in the spike trick?

KB: No, we just had this person here yesterday, and some of the things that I do, some of the crazier things that I do, you can’t get extra insurance. Of course you’re covered by a blanket stage performer’s liability policy. We tried to get me specifically insured in case that trick went wrong, and of course no insurance company will touch me with a pole, they won’t go near it.

RL: Has it ever gone wrong?

KB: Not with me, but here’s the deal with that effect, OK? It’s basically I am the first magician ever to use a spectator’s hand and let them make a decision to with that type of effect. Since then a bunch of guys have tried to copy me -- go to YouTube for “ When Magic Goes Wrong” … a bunch of them have done it so badly, they’ve sliced their own hands, sliced spectators’ hands and it’s still there on YouTube. Pretty gruesome. By the way, these aren’t your normal amateur magicians, these are really well-known in the magic community. Not in the public eye, but in the magic community they are respected. They’ve got it wrong, but it’s never gone wrong on me. I can’t afford for it to go wrong. All joking aside, if I slice somebody’s hand, it’s the end of my career. You watched me do it with a blindfold on! I did that to Ellen, as well. Everybody starts to shake and get really worried. For giggles, go to YouTube and watch it: It’s like a horror movie.

It’s probably overall the favorite illusion that I do. I love it because it’s almost like punking somebody with magic, ’cause you’re getting a different reaction every time. The person on stage is scared to death, and the people in the audience have an emotional connection to the person on stage. That’s what I try to do; I try to get different emotions. That’s why I also put the pulse stop routine in there because people in the audience, a certain amount of them are genuinely concerned for my safety. “It might be a trick or it might not be, or did he stop his heart?” And then when it’s gone on for so long, they’re actually frightened for me. I like that in the show, because you go from routines where people are laughing and then with the spike effect and they’re, “Holy God! If this does go wrong, someone is going to be screaming out of here with a spike through their bloody hand!”

RL: Right. You’re going to be doing Ellen’s show again. Maybe when she’s at the Colosseum at Caesars for the Comedy Festival.

KB: They want me to fly to L.A. now to pre-tape an effect where I drive a car blindfolded at high speed with a celebrity in the car. I did it back in 2002 before it was seen anywhere else, and then I did it on my CBS show. So that’s what they want me to do with Ellen. They want me to drive a car at speed blindfolded with her in it. She doesn’t know anything about it! It will be a rather shocking surprise for her. I really want to do it. I’m ready to rock, and I think she’ll flip.

RL: The illusion with the four, the criss-cross of numbers on the board mounted on an easel -- that is an exhausting piece of mathematics. Does it ever exhaust you when you’re doing it?

KB: Yeah, completely. You can see at the end of it, I’m out of breath and my mind has gone a bit nuts. It is actually very taxing on your brain, because, first of all, through the use of psychology, you’ve got to figure out what the number is that the person is thinking of and then you have to do all the mathematics to make all the numbers add up to the right number. And, yeah, I mean quite honestly, there are two parts in the show that really, really tax my brain, really, really tax my brain. That’s one of them, and then the other one is where I memorize an entire shuffled deck of cards in less than 20 seconds. They are the two points in the show where I’m really using my memory a lot. The thing is with the numbers count, it’s in the very beginning of the show.

RL: You’re wiped out from the get-go.

KB: Yeah, absolutely, and then I have to regain my composure and get on with the show and get the energy back up again.

RL: How long did that number stunt take to master?

KB: About six months of every day practicing it. It was the same with the memorizing the deck of cards, it took about six months of practicing every single day with the memorization techniques, and lightning mathematics. I can do lightning mathematics quicker than somebody can do them on a calculator. I like to put that in just for the intellectuals in the audience so they can see there are some weird things happening.

RL: And you get a different number, and a different set of numbers every night?

KB: Every night. Last night the number was 46, the night before it was 37. Every night it is different. It doesn’t matter what is thrown at me, I can still do it in the four columns by four columns up and down, side by side, corner to corner, across in every direction. It even amazes and amuses me that it’s possible at such high speed.

Then I love the memorization of one deck of cards shuffled by four audience members, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle the whole deck. Then they put the whole deck together, they shuffle again. So the whole deck is really mixed up by four different random audience volunteers. And then I take the deck back and basically I go through them. I go through each card, look at all 52 cards and memorize the whole deck in exact order in less than 20 seconds. I cut the whole deck in half, I give half to the guy on one side and then the other half to the guy on the other side and then I have to call the cards in order in each guy’s hands.

It’s exhausting. I’m knackered by that on stage, but luckily that one is toward the end of the show. It’s strictly memorization. Last night, I got three wrong, to be honest with you. But it was interesting because since the first night, I’ve only been doing that specific card trick since I came to Vegas; I’d never done it before. I had perfected it at home but I had never done it in front of an audience. The night you were there was only the second night I had ever performed it. So I was really nervous performing it. I think I got it all right the night you were there, but last night I got a couple of cards wrong and I was quite embarrassed on stage. But what was interesting about it was that the audience was on my side, they wanted me to get them right. They actually gave up being amazed just so I would get them all correct the second time!

Keith Barry’s been wowing audiences at Planet Hollywood, and the Irish newspapers back home have featured screaming headlines about his American success -- so much so that Vegas HD cameras will film two of his shows next week “live from Las Vegas” for a new TV special.

I’ve learned that his return engagement for a longer period of time next spring after a previously booked European winter tour will probably be announced next Tuesday! When he does get back to the Strip, he’ll also be followed by TV cameras for a new reality series that has just been set for him.

Keith’s on the overnight stardom fast-track -- and that’s no illusion!

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