Review Lecture - The Good, The Bad, The Gruesome: A Night with Psycho Kev (Kevin Cunliffe)

The Good, The Bad, The Gruesome: A Night with Psycho Kev – Magic at Its Wildest!
The Order of the Magi, Manchester
10th June 2025
Reviewed by Jonathan Royle

When a magic lecture is billed as “The Good, The Bad, The GRUESOME,” you know you're not in for an ordinary evening of card tricks and coin vanishes. And when it’s being delivered by Kevin Cunliffe—better known in certain delightfully deranged circles as Psycho Kev—you don’t just attend, you strap in for the ride.

Raised in the wild world of touring circuses and born into a five-generation legacy of showbiz, Kevin has spent over 25 years dazzling audiences from theme parks to music festivals, and even TV and radio (yep, that’s BBC and ITV Granada). He’s also a three-time ACE Magician of the Year and a Guinness World Record holder. So, when this man offers you a peek into his toolbox of secrets, you listen.

What Went Down

From elegant card routines to reality-defying sideshow stunts, Kevin’s lecture was a rollercoaster through magic’s dark and delightful corners.

Close-Up Sorcery:

• £5-£10-£20 Predicted – A seemingly impossible mind-reading routine where spectators mix and hide banknotes, yet Kevin names their locations perfectly. And just when the applause hits? Bam! Each note is revealed to have the word Table, Pocket, or Hands written on it. Genuinely fooling and super commercial.

• The Da Vinci Deal – What starts as a casual shuffle turns into a jaw-dropper as a deck is split into four perfect suits in new deck order. Order out of chaos—Da Vinci would be proud.

• Card Selection & Revelation – A follow-up card routine that felt so impossible, even the most jaded among us leaned forward in our seats.

• Shadow Cards V2 – Two signed cards are placed under hands on the table... only to magically swap places. As clean and smooth as a ghost in the night.

• Celebrity Drawing Book – A genius gimmicked notepad lets you draw upside-down portraits that only reveal their celebrity likeness after being flipped. It’s like mind reading meets Pictionary—but you actually win.

• Blindfellan – After having his head entirely wrapped in thick bandage making it impossible to see anything, Kevin performed a kind of “Russian Roulette” whereby after an inflated balloon had been mixed between some volunteers on stage, he was able to divine who was holding the balloon above their heads and burst it after seemingly about to get it wrong with potentially bloody consequences. Keeping the audience on the edge of their seats and then amazed in equal measure this was another example of packs extremely small and yet plays massively.

The Gruesome Goodies (And They Were Glorious)

This is where Psycho Kev earns his name—and then some.

• Glass Eating – Kevin smashed a real glass bottle and then—yes, really—ate the shards. Okay, so he taught us how to do it safely (and it is!), but the visual? (and sound effects) Yikes-in-a-good-way.

• Pin-Head – Starts with a shock gag: a long needle through his tongue (fake but very convincing), and then ramps up with the needle visibly inserted into his eye socket. The best part? The methods were easy... ridiculously easy. High impact, low risk.

• The Needles – His take on the classic East Indian Needle Mystery: he swallows needles and thread, only to regurgitate them—neatly threaded. No glasses, apparently no dumping, no sleeves... just a champagne cork and showmanship. Deceptively clean, incredibly smart.

And Then Came the Butterfly…

“The Magic Butterfly” wasn’t just a highlight—it was the moment that will have been positively burned into the minds of everyone who witnessed it forever! Kevin folds a postcard into a butterfly, rests it on a spectator’s hand, and... it comes alive. It flutters, it flies, it hovers mid-air across the room with no visible means of support.

Kevin even walked away from the spectator while it floated between their hands. No threads? Oh, but yes there were—invisible thread. And it was so invisible, people refused to believe it was even there until Kevin proved it by hooking them up with it live on the spot.

Reactions? Pure gasps and stunned silence.

Even seasoned magicians were floored by how practical, strong, and invisible this setup was—especially since the spectators themselves unknowingly become part of the hook up. Real-world genius.

Final Thoughts

Kevin generously explained every routine, every subtlety, and every shortcut with zero ego and maximum clarity. Every effect was road-tested, real-world approved, and often born from situations that were... well, gruesome.

But make no mistake—“The Good, The Bad, The Gruesome” isn’t about the tricks going wrong. It’s about the wild, sometimes absurd, always entertaining journey behind the magic. It’s a celebration of surviving and thriving in the world of live performance—often in extreme conditions—and distilling all that chaos into beautiful, powerful, fooling routines.

Whether you’re into sleight-of-hand, mentalism, stage illusion, or sideshow thrills, this lecture had something unforgettable for everyone. And the lecture notes? Chock-full of everything you saw—and more—with video links included.

Verdict: Clever. Shocking. Theatrical. Unmissable. If you ever get a chance to experience Kevin Cunliffe live... don’t walk—levitate.

Kevin Cunliffe can be contacted via www.kevincunliffe.storenvy.com.

PS: Here is a short clip of a heavy origami cardboard butterfly levitating in full bright light at extremely close quarters YouTube.

PPS: I’ve known Kevin since he was a babe in arms as his dad Fabian has been a family friend of my dad since before even I was born and so I couldn’t resist including this image of Kevin as a baby, when he was featured in many UK National Newspapers sat on a bed of nails!

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