I used to love sandwich tricks. Years ago I learnt Harry Lorayne’s One Eyed Jacks sandwich – great trick – simple to follow and clear effect. Very magical. Since then I must have seen or read dozens of sandwich effects. And, to be honest, I think I may have had my full… So I wasn’t too excited when the BH Sandwich DVD arrived through my door.

But I don’t think it is just the fact that I have gorged myself on sandwich effects, that leads to my general lack of enthusiasm about this release.
bh sandwich - reviewThe DVD teaches, and I quote, “5 Powerful Sandwhich Routines”. Without even mentioning the unnecessary capitalisation in that claim, I would still have to dispute that claim. They are all sandwich routines. But I’m not sure I would call them all powerful. Let me try to describe them.

Quick Sandwich is just that – a card is selected and returned to the pack and found between two jokers. This is the classic sandwich effect.

Duo Sandwich takes this idea and makes it unnecessarily complicated! First the Jokers vanish, one by one, then they appear in the deck with a large chunk of cards between them, then they move to the top to make a true sandwich of the chosen card.

Escape Sandwich – two cards are chosen and the two kings are placed in the card box. Then the other two kings are placed in the deck and capture two cards between them. These turn out to be the other kings – and the original selections are found to be in the card box.

Costume Sandwich – this is essentially the same as the Escape Sandwich but with your pocket being the mystery location, rather than the card box.

Deluxe Sandwich – 2 mystery c ards go in your pocket. 2 jokers are removed. 2 cards are chosen then lost in the pack. The 2 jokers find one of the selections, then another. Then it turns out it is the cheeky kings who have captured the selections. No wait a minute, they’ve actually captured the pesky jokers – and the selections are now in your pocket. Are you confused yet?

My descriptions contain the essence of each effect, but to my mind in the actual performances there are many superfluous moves – displaying and re-displaying cards – dealing and re-dealing – etc. I just don’t think this is very elegant routining.

There probably needs to be a caveat – I first watched the performances with English subtitles, ironically enough whilst eating a sandwich. So this may not have been the best way to follow the action. But to write the descriptions above I re-watched the ‘studio’ performances with no distractions – and I still found them confusing – though this time there was no explanation (English or otherwise).

The live performances are a bit noisy and with subtitles. The studio performances and explanations have no spoken dialogue or explanation simply an increasingly annoying piano riff on endless loop.

The explanations mean I could only really recommend this release to a reasonably competent card magician, since not only do the routines require some moderate sleight of hand skills (side steals, breaks, palming, etc.) there is literally no verbal explanation of any of these – you simply have to try and follow the action in his hands. This can be a bit confusing since he switches between showing you the moves and showing you the current position – but of course with no verbal cues it is hard to tell which is part of which.

Most of the routines make use of what he calls the ‘Sliding Door Change’ – a way of switching one face down card for another between two face up cards. Again, the explanation is a little hard to follow without verbal explanation (though not impossible) – and to me the whole move is a bit convoluted.

You probably haven’t picked up on this, but I’m not a big fan of this release. I think there are other simpler and clearer sandwich effects available. The most positive thing I can say is that it only runs for an hour so it’s only 60 minutes I’ll never get back.

If you’re a die-hard sandwich trick collector, don’t let me out you off though..

BH Sandwich is available from MagicShop.co.uk for only £22.99

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

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