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Two of the best card tricks I have ever seen, can't stop watching them on the SKY box, they'll be on the planner for a while

The Producer doesn't "fool me" though, putting the strongest act at the start, two of the weaker acts between two of the stronger, then the weakest at the end..which always makes the P & T trick look stronger

Watching this with my wife now is a nightmare, she sussed Chris Dugdale 2 minutes in..."how do we know there is a number 480? those numbers could all be made up...." - annoying that shes right so often as well!

And as already mentioned by people on here, the reveal at the end kind of insured he was fooling no-one

The one criticism of the show? Does anyone else get sick of Jonathan Ross and the same tired old "WOW, how did that happen BS?!"

And Radio Times says that show was 7/8, so assuming we have one last show this week?

No P&T listed for this Saturday, after Harry Potter there's a Ronnie Corbet special followed by Goldeneye. Perhaps 8/8 is the Christmas special referred to earlier? I wonder if it will contain any new stuff or be the highlights of this series?

Arkesus wrote:Chris' mask merely slipped over his head, and he needed the sunglasses in order to hide his actual eyes which would have been clearly visible. He could not have performed that effect without the sunglasses, and he figuered that only a black person would wear sunglasses indoors.

The eye glue thing might have a bearing on why sunglasses were needed.

The truth is that you don't know Chris's motivations any more than I do, so please stop being a typical magician trying to prove that your supposition is correct. You are always right, everyone who thinks something else is wrong, blah, blah, boring.

Mandrake wrote:No P&T listed for this Saturday, after Harry Potter there's a Ronnie Corbet special followed by Goldeneye. Perhaps 8/8 is the Christmas special referred to earlier? I wonder if it will contain any new stuff or be the highlights of this series?

Ahhhh, yes makes sense, thats often how the listings are worked it I remember correctly

E.g - Brief summary and number of episodes and cast sent to listings company, depending on whether prime time or not amount of words is decided on...etc

Episode 8/8 is a 2 part christmas special, to me thats another two episodes!!

Just some random thoughts.

Gazzo’s routine the other week was excellent but he seemed less than fully comfortable with a studio audience but I can see why he’s the top chap at street performing – plenty of feedback to work with and bounce around as he performs which you don’t get in a studio. As fantastic as his cups and balls routine was, quite obviously P&T would know just about every permutation of that effect, are unlikely to be fooled so why choose that to present to them? Similarly the quick change act was excellent but very unlikely to fool magicians as there wasn’t actually any magic in there. In both cases I can only conclude that the real reason for appearing was exposure of a different kind - to reach a wider audience via TV than in clubs and theatres etc. On that basis well done – but not really in the ‘fooling’ category.

Does anyone remember that awful BBC show 8 years ago – Secrets of Magic? The concept was for magicians to dream up three ways of doing the same effect and let a ‘celebrity’ (yeah, right!) panel and studio audience guess which one was the true method – there’s a sort of Review thing at http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic1660.php&highlight - oddly enough that show involved Etienne Pradier as well. As I recall it, he was brought before the big noises at the Magic Circle and given a verbal warning about exposure, John Lenahan was actually expelled even though they had specially invented the methods they exposed – the argument was that the exposed methods were equally viable and shouldn’t have been exposed anyway. So how come we aren’t hearing noises from the Magic Circle over these P&T shows? I wonder if they’ve become more lenient since 2003?

Whatever the Christmas Specials turn out to be, I daresay we’ll all be gagging for them due to the lack of magic on TV in the meantime!

My son and I have really enjoyed watching this series together and we're looking forward to the next episode(s) later in the year. We really hope that they do another series, or perhaps preferably a straightforward magicians' talent show where the emphasis is more on entertainment than fooling the high-profile magicians. Perhaps P&T could judge it...?

Yes there were some performances that were never going to fool P&T, but I feel the series was the better for including them. I think we need to remember that this was primetime Saturday night TV and therefore needs to appeal to a wide audience. While it may hold interest for many of us on these boards, I think the TV audience would tire quickly of an hour of (e.g.) card/coin sleights - variety is the key.
The quick-change, for example - maybe not "magic" per se, but very much "illusion" and it was a good slick performance.
The young lad's 6-card routine - one of the "standards" and not a P&T fooler, but I wonder how many younger viewers saw that and thought about giving magic a try...

Some of my favourite performances of the series did not fool P&T - Michael Vincent was a joy to watch, the Cubic act was unlike anything I've seen before, and Piff was a highlight of the series (tickets already booked for his show at the Edinburgh Fringe).

I was initially a little disappointed by a couple of the acts that did fool P&T as I felt that they did so by adding a specific move that was only designed to fool P&T. But the more I think about that, it's a simple misdirection that was crafted to work on the specific audience. Haven't we all seen (done) similar subterfuge? "I know how he did that - it's in his other hand" ... other hand opens ... "Oh - it's not".

And I really enjoyed Matthieu Bich, John Archer, and especially Shawn Farquhar.

As someone who grew up with the Paul Daniels magic show on TV I'm delighted to see magic on the telly, and after some disappointing shows (Lenny Henry and anything featuring the MM) this was enjoyable Saturday-evening TV. More, please.

isb

with regards to the final episode of the series, Penn retweeted this on his twitter yesterday.

@HeSay_SheSay @pennjillette There is one more episode but its not going out till end of August. We'll keep you posted.

phillipnorthfield wrote:
Maybe I'm seeing conspiracies here all over the place , but wasn't a little odd how the randomly chosen spectator by Penn happened to be with Iain Sharkey?

The randomly chosen spectator was me and I can confirm that there was no conspiracy. I just happened to be sitting directly in Penn's line of site when he turned round.

Kenny

jimmyshoes wrote:

phillipnorthfield wrote:
Maybe I'm seeing conspiracies here all over the place , but wasn't a little odd how the randomly chosen spectator by Penn happened to be with Iain Sharkey?

The randomly chosen spectator was me and I can confirm that there was no conspiracy. I just happened to be sitting directly in Penn's line of site when he turned round.

Kenny

Hahah, I don't think it could have come from a better source :p

Funny that people from the magic community thought I must be a stooge because we were sitting next to Sharkey... To the lay person I looked more like a stooge because a Scottish mentalist got a Scottish volunteer )

Most of the comments I've had have been asking whether I am Colin's brother/cousin/uncle/former room-mate!

Cheers!

Kenny

Come to think of it ... it was rather funny to see how a magician can use himself as a stooge in his own magic show.

It would seem that some people are mistaking the phrase "racial stereotyping" for "racism". I am not accusing Chris Dugdale of being racist. I'm more than happy for Chris or anyone associated with him to prove to me a reason other than the one I put forward as to why the mask had sunglasses.

With regards to the idea that it is possibly the only one he had available at the time, I do have a bit of trouble grasping the idea that the procurement of a mask, would be from a place that provides only one design, and indeed a design that would look out of place at any indoor, well lit event.

As I said in my first post, my aversion to the perpetuation of the stereotype began a good seven or so minutes before I found out it was actually Chris Dugdale. I say again, I am not accusing him of being racist, simply perpetuating a stereotype. Had he chosen an old white guy in a string vest and a hankerchief tied on his head at the four corners, I would have been equally as annoyed.

Arkesus wrote:With regards to the idea that it is possibly the only one he had available at the time, I do have a bit of trouble grasping the idea that the procurement of a mask, would be from a place that provides only one design, and indeed a design that would look out of place at any indoor, well lit event.

I think Chris was working with a number of restrictions here because of the fact the mask needed to be removed at the end of the set and the aesthetics of the whole endeavour.

As others have argued, the "colour change" makes for a more dramatic visual effect; however, we will always be speculating on that.

It would be possible and quite easy to obtain better prosthetics. In terms of masks, however, this is about the best you can get (try YouTube for the Mythbusters episode where Adam dresses up as Jamie and vice versa to get an idea).

If Chris had opted for latex/silicon buildups on his own face, the effect would've been much more natural, but would have also made it impossible to do the reveal at the end, unless he wanted to spend half an hour wiping at his face.

Arkesus, you are making the conjecture that Chris chose a black-skinned mask because the mask would require wearing sunglasses. I think this is the thing people seem to be having difficulty with.