EFTA00591881.pdf
PDF Source (No Download)
Extracted Text (OCR)
Keith Barry
Keith Patrick Barry (born 25 October 1976) is an Irish Mentalist, Hypnotist,
Magician and Activist for the Elderly.
Early life
Born in Waterford city, Ireland, Barry's interest in magic began at the age of 14 when he
purchased a book entitled Magic for the Complete Klutz.
Magic
Barry's television career began with a
series entitled Close Encounters with
Keith Barry, which ran from 2003-2005.
The show originally aired in Europe and
has since aired in
28 countries
worldwide.
In 2004, Barry performed in 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.
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 12 May 2006 and was
entitled Keith Barry: Extraordinary. The special later aired on New Year's Eve 2006 on
The CW and on New Year's Day 2007 on TV3 in New Zealand and the Arena channel in
Australia.
In the Keith Barry: Extraordinary special, he performed various illusions and striking
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. In another, he made a
blindfolded man lift his arm when he thought others stopped touching him. 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.
Page I 1 of 3
EFTA00591881
Following a successful Irish tour along with a week in Dublin's Vicar Street, Barry and
his longtime manager Eamonn Maguire were badly injured in a car crash on the Belfast
to Newry road on 1 March 2007. Barry suffered severe trauma to his left leg and only
returned to the stage later the same year at Vicar Street.
Barry's TED Talk is in the top 12 Most Viewed TED Talks of all time and follows from his
first ever live stage performance which was at TED in Monterey, California in 2004. He
returned to TED in 2005 and was the special guest performer then on the opening night.
On 29 December 2007, Barry performed in a live Saturday night prime-time special on
ITV in the UK titled Keith Barry - The Escape Live. The finale of the show featured an
escape from a shed rigged with explosives. Barry 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 would not make it out of the explosion. Participants lit a fuse, started a two
minute countdown, and carried the chair into the shed. Workmen hammered additional
wood to cover the door and windows from the outside, then left the scene when one
minute remained on the countdown. After the countdown was complete, the shed
exploded, then the camera changed to reveal Keith safely on top of a gantry some
distance away.
Barry has performed live on The Ellen DeGeneres Show four times and The Paul
O'Grady Show four times.
In February 2010, Barry finished a pilot for a new series on The Discovery Channel in
the US. The show is called Deception with Keith Barry and the pilot aired in July 2010.
The show was picked up for a season and premiered on 31 May 2011 with 4 one hour
shows, Black Ops, Used Car Salesman, Cops and Robbers, and Daring and Dating. The
show premiered on 6 October 2011 in Taiwan, 1 November in Japan, 3 November on
Quest in the UK, on 7 December in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, 13 December in
Australia and New Zealand and in India February 2012.
Also in 2010 and 2011, Keith toured extensively with his live show "The Asylum" which
finished its run in May 2011. On this tour, Keith set the record as the most successful
solo act ever to play The Olympia Theatre in Dublin. On 13 July 2011, his "Keith Barry -
8 Deadly Sins" show opened to critical acclaim and a standing ovation at the Olympia
Theatre in Dublin and ran for 5 weeks setting new box office records during the run. It
was followed by a national tour in Jan/Feb 2012 with shows in almost every county in
Ireland.
In June 2012, Barry stated his disapproval of TV3's late-night anti-intellectual offering
Psychic Readings Live and challenged one of its presenters, Psychic Wayne to prove his
psychic powers..
Page 12 of 3
EFTA00591882
Keith's hit show "The Dark Side" launched with a 31 date sold out tour in Jan/Feb 2013
and continued with a 12 night run at the Olympia in Dublin in July 2013. On 23rd July,
Keith took time out to give a talk at the Science Gallery in Dublin. With UK mentalist,
Pete Turner, the two of them very effectively demonstrated the techniques of cold
reading and explained how "psychics" can convince so many people that they can read
minds.
Acting
As an actor, Barry performed in the "Open Water" episode of CSI: Miami in 2006.
Presenting
In 2009, Barry hosted the Irish version of Deal or No Deal on 1'V3.
Activism against elderly abuse
Barry's grandfather, 82, was attacked in his home in Waterford by burglars in 2009,
later dying of his wounds. Barry and his father launched a high-profile campaign to
stamp out abuse against the elderly in their homes, said the government was "insulting"
the elderly and said he would "bring the country to a halt"
Pundits referred to the
incident in discussions of laws about the actions people can legally take to defend
themselves in their homes.
*****
Page 13 of 3
EFTA00591883
Document Preview
PDF source document
This document was extracted from a PDF. No image preview is available. The OCR text is shown on the left.
This document was extracted from a PDF. No image preview is available. The OCR text is shown on the left.
Document Details
| Filename | EFTA00591881.pdf |
| File Size | 247.0 KB |
| OCR Confidence | 85.0% |
| Has Readable Text | Yes |
| Text Length | 5,741 characters |
| Indexed | 2026-02-11T22:51:53.834002 |