Frank Zak has created a charming and entertaining routine around the famed Thomas Gainsborough Blue Boy painting.

The routine begins with a discussion of how playing cards were originally hand painted and considered pieces of art.

A card is selected and returned to the deck. You then display four postcards, each depicting Gainsborough's The Blue Boy painting. You explain that one of them is a forgery as the spectators immediately spot the obvious and amusing fake.

The postcards are turned over to show Gainsborough painted a back to Blue Boy but no one ever noticed because it was always kept framed.

For the finale a postcard that was placed aside on an impromptu easel is revealed with The Blue Boy now holding the selected card.

Can be repeated four times with different cards. Comes complete with the necessary postcards and a photo-illustrated booklet. Very easy to do and fun to perform.

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Frank Zak's 'The Blue Boy' is an amusing routine that revolves around the magician's interest in art and his copy of Thomas Gainsborough's world famous Blue Boy painting. The magician's copy of the painting turns out to be a postcard of it, however this doesn't deter him from sharing his insights on Gainsborough's work and picture painting in general.

During the course of this burlesque discussion of art, the magician displays a number of copies of the Blue Boy postcard, points out that one of the postcards is a fake and confides his ingenious discovery regarding the back of the Blue Boy painting, both original and postcard reproduction.

The magician turns all this into magic by the nature of the fake Blue Boy he has discovered among the originals The fake, as the spectators can plainly see, has the blue boy holding a large playing card back out.

The fake painting postcard is placed to one side, resting against an impromptu easel the magician fashions from a card case. Eventually the magician riffles a deck of cards towards the postcard, the air currents causing it to fall over. On replacing the postcard on the easel the spectators see that the blue boy is now holding a card that was selected just before the magician turned to the subject of art.

Blue Boy is supplied with the postcards specially printed on both sides. This includes what's need to repeat the effect with four different selected cards. Accompanying the postcards is a neatly done photo-illustrated booklet which explains the handling and routine, details a card move you may need in case you don't already know it and even gives you a one paragraph synopsis of Gainsborough and his painting so you'll sound like you know what you're talking about.

There's a lot to like in Frank Zak's routine. The effect is fairly easy to do and the idea of the magician getting distracted in the art world between having a card selected and revealing it has potential. So it depends on the performer and how much he or she can get out of Zak's clever scenario and props.

-- Robinson

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