Did anyone ese watch this programme? As I understood the hype, because of Charles’s interest in magic, then magic would feature heavily and I guess with three magic acts that was sort of true. However, I thought all the magic was a bit weak. Dynamo is obviously still recovering a bit from his illness earlier this year and it’s been said that he’s still working on becoming as dextrous with cards as he used to be - hence he did a book test. Whilst it was good it wasn’t exactly amazing but was perhaps a good start to the show.
Penn & Teller seemed lost on that stage and the card trick they did just didn’t seem to be up to their usual high standard. As my better half pointed out, the ‘freely chosen’ card was shown to the cameras and therefore to the audience so, when the audience member, even though it was David Berglas, waved a large version of that card it wasn’t exactly earth shattering as there was plenty of time for an assistant to find the card and get it to David before the reveal.
The Ehrlich Brothers seemed ready to redress the balance with some high powered, big box magic but after appearing in said box, complete with motorbike, their crescendo was a version of Snowstorm in China – assisted by tons of the stuff from above the stage. We knew that was going to happen because several stray flakes descended at various earlier points in the show.
Whilst the various shots of the guest(s) of honour showed happy, laughing faces, IMHO we may have been amused but not exactly amazed. Perhaps I’m just a grumpy old…. f.... ogey…
Or could it be that I've seen much better magic on TV in the last year or two and was expecting an equally high standard in this show?It's on ITV hub, and probably on YouTube, for all those who didn't tune in or set the Skybox.
