Keith Patrick Barry
is an Irish illusionist, mentalist, and close-up magician.
|
KEITH BARRY TICKETS
|
Early Life
Born in
County Waterford,
Ireland in October, 1976, Barry's interest in magic began at the age of fourteen when he purchased a book entitled
Magic for the complete Klutz
.
Career
Since 2003, Barry has performed on his own television show in Europe entitled
Close Encounters with Keith Barry
. The show has been played in 28 countries worldwide.
In 2004, Barry had an
MTV television special entitled
Brainwashed
. 2005 ended with Barry performing a live Christmas special in Europe.
Keith Barry Live With Friends
featured various celebrities such as magician
Billy McComb,
Jim Corr of
The Corrs, and
The Conway Sisters [1].
Barry's success throughout Europe coupled with his MTV special led to a four year multi-special deal with
CBS. His first special with CBS debuted on May 12, 2006 and was entitled
Keith Barry: Extraordinary
.
[2] The special later aired on
The CW on New Years Eve 2006 and on New Years Day, 2007 on
TV3 in New Zealand and Australia on the Arena channel.
In the
Keith Barry: Extraordinary
special, he performed various pieces of illusion and interesting mental feats. In one trick, which he referred to as "Black Ops Hypnosis", he made a host from
Entertainment Tonight
forget that he had torn a specific page from a book and sealed it in an envelope, in the span of roughly five minutes. Another "trick" is that he made a man lift his arm when he thought others stopped touching him. His eyes were covered. Barry first used suggestion to make the man "concentrate" and lied that he was touching the man. The man imagined the touch and lifted his arm, but Barry and another member of the audience only moved their hand afar.
Following on from a successful week in
Dublin's Vicar Street, Keith was injured in a car crash on the
Belfast to
Armagh road on March 1, 2007. He suffered severe trauma to his left leg and only returned to the stage in July of the same year at Vicar Street.
As an actor, he performed in the "Open Water" episode of
CSI: Miami
.
On December 29, 2007 Keith performed in a live special on
ITV in the UK titled
Keith Barry - The Escape Live
.
[3] The finale of the show featured an escape from a shed rigged with explosives. Keith was tied to a chair with thick ropes by two members of the audience. One of these was Glen Gathard, noted for hoping that Keith Barry wouldn't make it out of the explosion. The chair was carried to the shed where initially six workmen were seen to be hammering additional wood to the exterior of the shed. A fuse had been lit and a two minute countdown was in progress. After one minute, seven workmen left the scene. After the countdown was complete the fuse fizzled out and a few seconds later the shed exploded. Keith was safely on top of a gantry some distance away.
On January 15, 2008 Keith performed live on
The Ellen Degeneres Show
replacing a musical act that was regularly featured on her show.
Keith made appearances on the Paul O'Grady Show on 26th May and 13th October 2008 and 6th March and 1st May 2009.
TV3 Ireland announced that as part of their new autaum season Keith Barry will host the irish version of
Deal or no Deal
.
Criticism
His television acts were done with the use of celebrities, which side-stepped an oft-cited criticism of
David Blaine, namely, that he edits out the tricks that don't go well for television. One criticism not so easily side-stepped is that in this, as in other show, Keith used many well known illusions, with little original material. While his show did not receive much press or promotion, the CBS special garnered many fans in the blogging world.
[4]
References
- http://www.rte.ie/tv/keithbarry/
- CBS.com
- Keith Barry - The Escape Live
- MagicTalk - The Official Discussion Group for Magicians