Did anyone else catch this? A neat little BBC special hosted by Jonathan Ross, it’s sort of like American Idol meets Penn and Teller. A number of magicians were invited to perform for Penn and Teller, with the promise that if the duo could not identify how the trick was done, they would be flown to Vegas to perform alongside them,
No spoilers, but there were some terrific magicians on the show. Also one extremely mediocre one, but what can you do? I was hoping this was going to be a short series, but alas, it’s just a one-off.
Wow, fooling Penn and Teller with a trick would be rather hard. I’ve seen a magician fool Teller in a very simple trick(it’s on youtube), but that was mostly because Teller was playing along and got called on it by the magician.
I would guess elaborate tricks are not the way to go if you are going to fool them. Teller is a magic historian and knows the fundamentals of how nearly all tricks are done.
One guy did a version of cutting a person in half, but on himself. Cool presentation, but obvious even to an amateur like me.
There were several very impressive performances, including a couple of card routines that were gem flawless. One of them was a seamless classic routine that Penn very much enjoyed watching, but he was familiar with the age-old techniques.
Another close-up guy did a card trick that legitimately fooled them They described the method they thought he used (false shuffles), and they were straight up wrong. Apparently there was another magician backstage who had been shown the method, and he confirmed they they were wrong. Teller looked stunned at this.
And then the best part. A chunky ex-cop in a hawaiian shirt who described himself as a comic magician. You could tell from the look on Penn’s face that he expects a clumsy cup and balls routine or something. Instead he presents five envelopes, four of which contain a fake 0-dollar bill with his face, and one of which contains 100 pounds. On the envelopes are written Something, Nothing, Mine, Yours, and Sex, and he has a terrific patter than goes along with this (a cross between Who’s on First and the Wine In Front Of Me sequence). He presents five audience members with their choice of envelopes, and one by one they each get stuck with the goat. At the end, he has the Mine envelope, and reveals 5 crisp 20-pound notes.
Penn and Teller stew on this for a while, examining his props. Finally Penn yells “They’re just goddamn envelopes!” and admits to being flummoxed. The probe a bit, and propose a theory about a 6th inner envelope stuff with cash that gets moved around, and the magician replies that nothing gets inserted into the envelopes during the trick. They are stumped, and Penn mock-fumes about it all night. “We wanted to be fooled, but not by HIM!” Obviously, his whole appearance is misdirection, and he’s actually pretty talented, despite his beach bum appearance.
P & T were very impressed with a few of the acts. Particulary the close up card guys.
It was a good show and if ya’ll get a change to see it by whatever means available then you should.
Two tricks actually fooled them, one of which was an extremely simple envelopes routine, more suited to a Northern working men’s club than a Vegas casino.
Penn and Teller seemed simultaneously pleased and irritated to be fooled by the envelopes routine - though not in a churlish way - and outright delighted by the other one, which involved some very accomplished close-up magic with a deck of cards.
To be fair, though, I think both of the foolings relied a little on technicalities. It wasn’t so much that Penn and Teller had no idea how the trick was done, just that their explanation may not have described the trick’s finest level of detail with 100% accuracy. I got the impression that the two challengers involved had rung one ingenious change to an established technique, and the fact that Penn & Teller couldn’t immediately put their finger on precisely what that change was allowed the producers to decide they’d been fooled.
Just to nitpick for a moment, the programme actually went out on ITV rather than BBC - which is stunning, when you consider that ITV normally shows 100% crap.
If I followed the conversation right, they were pretty far off on the card guy’s trick. They thought he was doing false shuffles, when in fact he was doing real shuffles and mentally tracking the place of the aces. That’s a very different method. And then they showed them backstage clarifying that they were genuinely stumped by a couple portions of what he did. I’ve no doubt that later that night they reviewed footage and figured it out, but it’s no technicality; Penn and Teller could not identify the method he used.
As for the envelope trick, I still have no idea how that was done, so it’s hard to say for sure. Teller looked genuinely mystified, although he might have been playing it up for the crowd at home.
It was a one-off show, but there are ongoing discussions about maybe repeating it four times a year.
There were two routines that were deemed to have ‘fooled’ Penn & Teller.
The close-up sleight-of-hand card routine that fooled them was performed by Ben Earl. Penn asserted that the routine used ‘false shuffles’. This was not strictly correct. Ben was legitimately shuffling the cards each time, but he was using other sleight-of-hand techniques to make the right cards (in this case Aces) appear at the right time.
The five envelopes routines was invented and performed by John Archer. The routine itself is based on a standard pattern known in magic as ‘Just Chance’ (British name) or ‘Bank Nite’ (American name). In essence, a number of sealed envelopes are in play, only one of which contains something of value. Members of the audience are given the chance to choose envelopes, and yet somehow they never get the one envelope that contains the valuable prize.
John’s method for this trick is his own, and relatively new (he has only been performing it for about 18 months). It is a radical departure from all the ‘standard’ ways of performing the trick, and does allow the trick to be presented in a remarkably ‘clean’ way not possible with previous methods. Penn asserted that at the last minute John had somehow ‘inserted’ the prize (in this case £100 in cash) into the one remaining envelope, and John was able to honestly say this was not the case.
I know both Ben Earl and John Archer. I am familiar with the workings of the John Archer trick, because we worked together in a show last Summer featuring several magicians. He shared the method with us backstage. It is extremely clever. He has in fact published the method on a DVD available to the magic trade, but clearly it’s one that neither Penn nor Teller had seen yet.
The two closeup magicians were among the best I’ve seen. And the camerawork got in as close as possible (with lesser closeup magicians on TV, the camera will shoot a wider shot so it’s a little harder to see exactly what they’re doing with their hands). It was really good.
The entire show was good, and Penn and Teller were, as expected, gentlemen and fair. They were complimentary to all the magicians, even the one who essentially used an off-the-shelf prop, because they liked his presentation.
And I love their last trick, which I’ve seen several times. It starts out as a standard ‘sawing a woman in half’ gag, and they even explain how the prop normally works, then they take it to the next level. I won’t give any details, but it’s a fun trick.
Never heard about this show until now. I was hoping for something similar to James Randi’s Million Dollar Challenge, but this one sounds pretty cool nonetheless.
