Magic on TV

[AJM]

There's has been a little bit of a magic theme on TV here in the UK this evening.

The One Show on BBC (nightly chat show type format) featured a few of the The Illusionists who will be performing in London throughout the summer. The 'MC' of The Illusionists show did a 'bill in banana' effect for the Sir Michaels, Caine and Palin. A rather good card manipulator closed the show.
Perhaps Tom Moore can fill us in on who they were as I didn't catch their names.

In addition, there was a piece on the Indian Rope Trick which was filmed in the Magic Circle and in Davenports Magic Shop in Charing Cross - contributors included Peter Lamont, Romany and Scott Penrose.

I rarely watch the One Show however pleased to have caught it this evening as it was very entertaining.

Fast forward an hour or two and I see John Archer was featured in tonight's Britain's Got Talent - I didn't catch his performance however this is finals week so I assume he must have progressed through some earlier rounds. Hope he does well.

Cheers

Andrew

[Richard Kaufman]

Archer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f62F2z1jHM

[Tom Moore]

I didn’t catch the show but the uk cast are
James More, Enzo, Yu Ho-Jin, Adam Trent, Chris Cox, Paul Dabek and Jonathan Goodwin.

John archer didn’t make it through to the grand final but very nearly did tonight. The uk version of got Talent uses the wildcard system for 1 act in the final and he would certainly be in the running for that slot any other year but this year there’s several incredibly good and popular acts that didn’t make it to the final so the contest for wildcard is going to be fierce.

[Tom Moore]

And to add, despite his fears about how he’d look on this type of show John Archer did do two absolutely barnstorming performances and will undoubtedly do very well post-show from this.

[AJM]

Thanks Tom - it was Paul Dabek (The Trickster) and Yu Ho-Jin (The Manipulator) who featured on The One Show.

Last night's show should be available on BBC's iPlayer for those who have access.

Andrew

[Tom Moore]

Paul dabek is massively underrated, he’s spent years working hard to refine and establish his material. If you ever have the chance to check out his performance you absolutely should!

[Dave Le Fevre]

In a public square in Perth a few years ago, I happened to find Paul Dabek performing. He held a large crowd entranced for a long time, using a single prop. Hugely entertaining.

[Tom Moore]

Finals of BGT last night saw 2 magic acts in the top 3 (Ben Hart and the returning Marc Spellman who had entered in disguise) though it was ultimately won by a pensioner war veteran singing in front of a backdrop of poppies.

This version of the show publishes voting figures after the show is over (https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/tv ... s-16369246) on other versions of the show the figures are kept secret but the ones i've seen on other productions in the past year have largely mirrored the splits seen here (in the semi finals circus acts get low number, magicians get mid range numbers, comedians get mid range, novelty acts either get almost no votes or ALL the votes) and i think it's worth highlighting that the people who would be considered our "best chance" magic acts (John Archer, Jonathon Goodwin) actually got quite low audience votes compared to the unknowns / new acts who got much higher numbers from the public vote. I have a theory that a low level of fame plus a confidence (which can be mistaken for smugness) isn't as powerful a vote winner as the novelty of someone new and slightly out of the depth.

Magicians in the show were:-
Dave and Finn (policeman doing mentalism with his dog)
The Haunting (uk version of Sacrid Rianna story concept)
4MG (literally One Direction doing card tricks)
Matt Stirling (movie stuntman who does magic combined with stunts - worth checking him out)
John Archer (yes, that one!)
Angels Inc (dutch female illusion troupe, originated by Sitah, Hans Klok's original assistant)
Ben Hart (a sort of British Doug Henning, all about the story and emotion than knuckle busting)
Graeme Mathews (comedy magician)
X (Marc Spellman following the Mask / Shemask story arc from Uri Geller / The successor show)
Jonathan Goodwin (3 more completely original stupidly dangerous looking stunts)

Biggest surprise of the finale was 4MG getting such an incredibly low vote - in their Semi Final they got 1/3rd of all votes, in the final they got just 2% - I'm not a fan of their style but didn't feel that their finale act was substantially worse or different to what they had done in the earlier rounds. I would have put good money on them being the most successful long term but a loss of public support that quickly will be making every producer think twice about whether they are the future.

[Jack Shalom]

"won by a pensioner war veteran singing in front of a backdrop of poppies."

Never underestimate them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ03N532sX4