Barry and Stuart
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Barry Jones and Stuart MacLeod are a two-man magic act from the United Kingdom. They are also sometimes known as the 2magicians. They are known for their dark and sinister performing style, weird and bloody tricks and for their recreations of Biblical miracles using conjuring principles and techniques.
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[edit] Biography
Barry and Stuart are both previous winners of “The Young Magician of the Year” competitions. Barry was born in on April 16, 1982 in Aberdeen and grew up in Portlethen, Scotland. Stuart was born on July 4, 1980 in Aberdeen and grew up in Peterhead, Scotland. Stuart lived in Peterhead and studied philosophy and psychology at Aberdeen University, while Barry grew up in Old Portlethen, before moving to London to study multimedia computing.[1]
They met in Aberdeen in 1994 and started making cultish videos of themselves performing magic. This is where their style of acting out scenes in character while performing illusions developed. The filmed results of these magic sketches eventually reached a television production company and led to the making of their first TV series “Magick.” The show was nominated as Best Comedy Series at the international television awards in Montreax in 2004.
In 2005 Barry and Stuart hosted the Channel 4 studio magic show “Dirty Tricks” and presented the clips show “When Magic Tricks Go Wrong.” Most controversially they put together a TV special entitled “The Magic of Jesus,” in which they replicated Jesus’ alleged feats from the New Testament.
In 2006 Jones and MacLeod put together a second religion inspired special called “Tricks from the Bible,” in which they mainly performed the miracles of Moses among other Old Testament events. They currently live in London where they perform live together in comedy clubs. [2]
[edit] Television Shows
[edit] Magick
Barry and Stuart's first television series "Magick" debuted on October 5, 2003 and was described as "comedy magic featuring surreal characters in bizarre and uncomfortable situations."[3]
This series featured reverse film magic, where the magic was performed backwards and the film later reversed to reveal the backmasking.
In one of a series of ‘crimes’ caught on CCTV, footage captures two men being caught en flagrante in a public toilet by a police officer. To get out of trouble, one of the men hides the other behind his coat and makes him disappear. In another incident, a man breaks into a car by sticking his hand through a glass window without breaking it.
Secret filming in a supermarket captures Stuart and Barry magically sabotaging the products by putting dead insects into sealed bottles of mineral water and penetrating razor blades through the foil lids of ready-meals.
This four part series was nominated, in 2004, for a Rose D'Or comedy award in Montreaux.[4]
[edit] Dirty Tricks
Dirty Tricks was a six part series hosted by Barry and Stuart. It was described as “like magic meets Natural Born Killers.”[5] The show also had regular spots from Pete Firman and Jonathan’s Escapes as well as guest appearances from international variety acts and celebrities. These acts included Penn & Teller and Kevin James.
At the end of every show Barry and Stuart ‘killed’ the cheesy radio and TV presenter Neil Fox (also known as Dr. Fox) in a horrific and painful manner. These included him being cremated, stabbed and crushed.
[edit] The Magic of Jesus
This one hour special aired in December 2005. In this show Barry and Stuart recreated miracles from the New Testament. They walked on water, turned water into wine, made a blind person see, raised the dead, caused a virgin to get pregnant and fed the 5000.[6]
The show caused controversy among newspapers and other press with Bishop Michael Reid, the Founder of the TV watchdog the Christian Congress for Traditional values giving the following statement, “Maybe these two fraudsters could try being crucified to see if they can rise three days later.”[7]
[edit] Tricks from the Bible
Following on from “The Magic of Jesus” this one hour special aired in June 2006. The miracles recreated here saw Barry and Stuart turning staffs into snakes in Egypt, exactly where it was said to be performed in the Old Testament, cast the plagues of Egypt, transformed into pillars of salt, exorcised a demon, robbed a Samson of his strength and parted the Red Sea.
[edit] See Also
[edit] References
- ^ Barry and Stuart interview
- ^ Official website
- ^ Channel4's Magick Website
- ^ Magick on IMDB
- ^ The Guardian – Dirty Tricks Review
- ^ Magic of Jesus on IMDB
- ^ The Sun Online - Fury at C4 Jesus show
