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IDIOM by Mike Shaw and Alakazam Magic
Idiom is a new release by Alakazam Magic which is essentially a way to force letters from a box of Scrabble tiles.
You receive two bags of “Scrabble” tiles, two cloth pouches, a stand for the letters, and a box to mix them in. There’s probably around a hundred tiles in each bag. I’m glad they gave you all of these tiles so that you can make the routine your own. Half of the tiles are “gimmicked” and half are “regular.” The mix of these two types of tiles is what allows you to force any word. The quality of everything you receive is top notch. The tiles look exactly how they should, the stand is nice, the bags are good, and the box is well built and will clearly last. I originally thought the box would be gimmicked, but it’s not. It’s totally ordinary so you can use it, or if you don’t like it, you can replace it with any box.
The main routine is that a bag of Scrabble tiles is dumped into a box and mixed by a spectator. They then remove a specific number of face-down tiles. The performer then tells them the highest and lowest value letter they hold and begins to name words they could spell with the letters they picked. Three letters, four, five, six, and finally seven letter words. The performer writes a number on a board then has the spectator add up the points of all the tiles they selected, The total matches the number on the board. Finally, they look at the tiles they DIDN’T remove from the box and see what word it spells. The performer reveals a prediction of that exact word. You get a couple of live performances of the main routine, an in depth explanation, and a studio walk through of the routine.
They also teach a routine with four spectators who each chose a tile from the box and put their letters together to create a word. The performer reads the mind of the four people and tells each the letter they chose. It ends with a prediction being revealed which shows the performer predicted the word the four people would create. And they teach a spooky story routine where the tiles drawn from the box make the name of a dead woman from the spooky story. And the letters they don’t use spell the name of the haunted hotel the story is based in. They also teach a routine with alphabet cards and a shuffle-bored style routine with the tiles.
Stick with me because here’s where I get real honest, but then I’ll give you the silver lining. Personally, I don’t like the main routine. I don’t really understand what “power” is being demonstrated, and I find it long and monotonous with very little payoff. I guess my issue is that it feels too real and it’s not magical enough. Once it’s clear that you know all of the letters they picked, the rest seems anticlimactic. The spelling part feels like pulling teeth. They liken it to a magic square, and I agree it does feel similar to that, but with one big difference: only the on stage spectator can see the little tiles. So really and truly; it’s only a trick for them. The rest of the audience has to take their word for it. Or you need a camera and projection set up so everyone can see it, but then they are just staring at tiles on a table the whole time. In the explanation they say the routine can run six to nine minutes. Holy cow! I would be like, “Get on with it,” by about minute two.
Thankfully, they provide some other routines, but I don’t particularly love any of them either. I think the best one is the four person routine.
Now you may read all of this and assume that I hate this, but that’s where you’re wrong! I think this is really, really clever. It’s a fantastic tool that can really be used to do some amazing things. You essentially have a way to force any word in a way that feels totally random and, more importantly, doesn’t involve flipping through a book, pad of paper, or writing anything down. It’s a very memorable and unique moment, so you might as well make it something that is impressive enough to want to remember. I actually think this is even better for casual situations. Imagine hiding this in a scrabble box at a coffee shop you frequent, going there with a friend, pulling it off the shelf, and absolutely blowing their mind. Again, part of the issue is that it’s small, so on stage, the audience won’t be able to see the tiles without a camera, but up close, it’s great.
However, I do think there is a FANTASTIC use for this for stage performers. This is PERFECT for Christopher Carter’s routine “Scrabble Memories” from “In the Spotlight.” His routine involves forcing the same letter scrabble tile on several volunteers, having them think of a word with that letter, and then reading their minds. IDIOM gives one huge advantage: the tiles can be dumped on the table or into the box for the spectators to select tiles. They don’t have to reach into a bag. They get to SEE that there are a ton of options and all different letters. Each spectator can come up, shake the box, and see a whole host of options they can choose from. This fixes what I think is the biggest flaw of the Idiom method which is that if you’re forcing a whole word, they have to keep mixing the pieces until they have the correct number of letter tiles. In the live performances, they have to shake the box four times to get all of the tiles they need. But if you’re forcing a letter, you can have a whole bunch of those letters in the box and then you don’t have to worry about them having to mix anything more than once because you can rest assured at least one of those force letters will be face down.
I will be using IDIOM for that routine in my stand up show. It's worth adding.
Also, I didn’t know this, but when you place an order on Alakazam UK from the US, the item actually ships from their US warehouse (which is run by Chris James.) So you don’t need to worry about high shipping costs or paying tariffs. It also means your item will arrive in less than a week. So if you’ve been concerned about that when ordering from Alakazam, you don’t have to!
Available for $148 at
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