What do you mean? “All the Champagne’s gone!”
“How about a Vol-au-vent then?”
“They’re gone too?”
“Breadstick it is then!”
Well, I suppose it is my own fault for being late to the party (again!)
What are you flipping going on about now?
I bought Treasure Island from Kaleb in February, I wanted to review it, but I’d already let my blog go offline due to suffering with poor mental health and being strapped for cash.
I decided I’d make a YouTube review of it; in fact, I pinky promised Kaleb that I would. But as I’ve explained in the past;
I have a face for radio!
Get on with it then, nobody cares about your weird stories!
Alright chill out! I’m here, aren’t I?
I’ve had some anxiety about writing a review for Treasure Island for some time, but only because I absolutely love book tests and own quite a lot of them, even though I only ever use a few.
One of those few is Kaleb’s other book test Frankenstein, which is still my all-time favourite.
You can read my full review of Frankenstein here.
On top of that, Treasure Island was created for stage use and well, the only stage I’ve ever been on is a Stagecoach!
Nonetheless a pinky promise is a pinky promise so here we go:
Treasure island is a book test created by Kaleb Wade. He created Treasure Island for his stage shows, but as you’ll see (when you buy it) you can just as easily use this in any other working environment like parlour or close-up.
Kaleb told me he was inspired to create Treasure Island whilst contracted to do some maintenance work at a hospital in Sheffield.
(No really, he’s dead good at that kind of thing)
He was given a map to help him find his way around. On one particularly cold day the heating wasn’t working and Kaleb needed to find the boiler room!
But there was a problem. You see, the map looked like it’d been drawn by one of the 3 blind mice.
(Probably the one on the left!)
Kaleb decided to ask someone for directions, but anyone who’s ever asked for directions in a hospital will know that trying to find somebody to give sensible directions is like going on a man hunt!
Whilst wandering around staring at the ridiculous looking map, Kaleb started to think about how the pirates managed. Surely, they didn’t use blind mice to draft up their maps?
That’s when Kaleb had his EUREKA moment.
I’ll start designing maps, he thought.
Alright, that’s when he decided to create Treasure Island!
Now you know the history, I’ll start telling you a bit more about it.
What you get:
The book (obviously)
This is a hardback book which looks and feels exactly like a genuine book, it’s 228 pages long and it looks completely at home on any bookshelf.
The colour and feel of the paper are identical to what you’d expect of an genuine novel. Even the font is as it should be.
Kaleb has even included a mix & match sticker, like the ones found on many books these days (this serves as a nice little convincer).
Now, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Kaleb just took the guts of Frankenstein and threw them straight into this one.
That’s what I originally thought, but that’s not what’s happened here. Kaleb made Treasure Island for his stage work and with only 3 main features in mind:
Feature 1: L*** W*** Principle
There are 14 L.W’s in Treasure Island, these are your F**** W****.
These 14 W**** use Kaleb’s AlchEmy principle, which I won’t go into here as you’ll find out more when you buy any of his book tests. Kaleb’s scripting makes it impossible for your participant to choose any other W*** than one of the F.W’s.
Panic not ye land lubber, you’ll not need to confine them to memory. Kaleb’s included a C*** Pen so you can just focus on presentation!
Feature 2: T***** O** principle
The T.O principle allows you to hand the book out to anyone in your audience, have them choose a word, then pass it along to someone else in the audience and have them choose a word also. In fact the book can be passed out an unlimited amount of times, although Kaleb recommends 6 words be chosen for this element as any more would just be roadkill….
Sorry, I meant overkill!
Feature 3: Dictionary Kicker
The dictionary kicker utilises a different method than the L.W. principle. Basically, you’d have one of your participants choose a word in Treasure Island and you’ll know what page in the dictionary that word is on, so you’d reveal the page number, and the participant would check and find their chosen word at that location. It is worth mentioning here that this feature is best used in conjunction with the T.O. feature.
You also get a C*** Pen
This eliminates the need to memorise the L. W’s. Although it highly recommended you take the time to commit them to memory, the C.P. is there as a backup. There is another function too, it acts as a C*** for the dictionary kicker page numbers.
And last but certainly by no means least, you’ll receive the instruction booklet. This is a 95-page booklet bursting with routines (5 in total) scripting, performance tips, ideas and inspiration.
All in all, Treasue Island gives you the ability to perform EFFOMS.
(FANTASTIC FEAT OF MENTALISM)
You get all of this for a rather modest £100.
You can get yours directly from Kaleb’s online store:
Alright me ‘artys its time to walk the plank.
Hey what’s going on?
What do you mean?
Not one single pirate joke in this whole post!
I know, I was trying to be sensible
Ok, I’ll make one then:
Why are pirates, pirates?
Because they Arrrr!
Doh!
Asta La Vista Baby!
Ryan