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for those that are that outraged over it - surely it wouldnt take that much organising to create say a 15 minute montage of a few of you - and then through the power of facebook and other such devices...spread the word...

IAIN wrote:for those that are that outraged over it - surely it wouldnt take that much organising to create say a 15 minute montage of a few of you - and then through the power of facebook and other such devices...spread the word...

indeed, we could get together and do a LIVESTREAM webcast to our own websites and facebook pages. I do actually think this is worth pursuing!

Yes, magicians will not like this in general, lay people may do. Barry and Stuart are the highlight of the show, but the bad ora of the show eclipsed them.

The celebrities are a bit of a none-entity, a British Celebracadabra I think.

Lenny Henry was his normal over enthusiastic self, no probs there, just being a good host.

It seems the BBC are no longer good at making magic shows... Give the magic shows to channel 4 they are better at it!

I thought Barry and Stuart were the worst personally, but overall, what did you really expect? With the state of entertainment what is is, let alone magic, it was never going to be on the old Paul Daniels show level. I hope the Meade's show is good though.

CLICKY (suite 101)

suite101 wrote:Not to hammer on this point but if the purpose of this show is about magic and performance then why in the name of Science did someone decide that bolting on a celebrity competition element is a good idea? All this does is detract from the acts and their abilities by turning it into a cheap gimmicky load of nonsense. So what could have been an enjoyable magic based entertainment show turns into another celebrity advertisement.

Barry and Stuart took a risk doing a BBC magic show, hope they dont feel bad if it continues to get bad reviews.

PC Wells wrote:

I think it just served to reinforce the stereotypes that make so many laypeople think that they hate magic.

Put a good magician with some good routines in front of a lay audience then the audience will almost certainly enjoy the experience. I think that all of the workers here at TM would realise that they could entertain better that this show did.

I'm not taking anything away from the magicians that performed as they are indeed skilled performers but the format is simply wrong. There wasn't anything innovative on show and Barry and Stuart's presentations are too wooden for me.

The format would have been much better without the celebs and with a different set of magicians each week.

I got uot of bed to watch this and had fallen asleep on the sofa way before it ended.

Just re-watced the million dollar mystery.

Camera work was very tight at one point, so some thought and care had gone into that section. you didnt see the secret once..... except if you know where to look, there was an unfortunate shadow for a moment, because some of the lighting was not focused in the right place.

that said.. you would only know it was wrong, if you know how the effect works. And i suspect that some people commenting on it, dont.
Its not an easy thing to do .And i am told by somebody who makes them, they can be a total bitch to set up.

Meanwhile, I watched a different program, called The Magicians on BBC1. Catch it on iPlayer, it was pretty good

Seriously guys, I'm not sure why everyone was attacking it so much. Remember you all know how these tricks are done - you know what to look for. You know where the mirrors are, you know what the smoke is for and you know where to look for some tiny wobble on what probably was a cheap prop (it's a low budget new year filler program made for a cash strapped BBC)

Of course it's amateur - celebrities who before the show didn't know how to do magic were involved. Of course it's wooden - the celebrities were either scared, out of their comfort zone and don't have the wealth of stage presence involved in magic you guys have, or both. Of course the presenting was bad - it's Lenny Henry! When has Lenny Henry ever been funny?

We've moved on from Paul Daniels, TV is no longer used as merely sticking a camera inside a theatre (although there are still programs that are like that). If people wanted to see a magician do straight magic they'd go and watch them. Whether you like it or not, people like watching celebrities on TV (they always have done), and I thought getting celebrities involved in the magic was a nice touch. They did it on QI last week, and I thought that was pretty good as well

It makes great TV, doing the same thing year after year, time and time again is just dull. Audiences do want to see x-factor type shows, and the viewing figures have proved it, with this year's show having the biggest ratings in history. We'll see how well the ratings for tonight's show go, I'll post on here if I find out

Paul Daniels is seen by a great deal of laypeople as just some old man magician who spends his time complaining about how stupid the media is and how he knows so much better than everybody else (but is unwilling to go on "stupid media courses" like these people do... maybe because he knows it all), and then goes on shows such as wife swap and Strictly to raise his media profile and make a fool of himself while he's at it

They didn't even set any of them up to fail, the celebrities were supported and there wasn't any kind of judging by anybody (there was an audience vote at the end, which again is an age old technique - something which took up only five minutes and could've been skipped). I give the writers credit for giving Lenny "Wow how did you do that?" lines rather than "yeah but there's a mirror just there, you're rubbish" if they were so apparently bad. It was about time we had a saturday night show which didn't have the cliché judges

That show was ~@~@#! AWFUL!!!

How dare they turn our delightful art-form and entertainment performance skills into a showboat piece for C-List celebrities.

They didn't once even give us any background to any of the magicians. We still have no idea who they are, what they've done or why they are on the show. Where is the human drama? Where is the reason we should care?
Why do they not get voted off if your going to have audience judges and why would you try to turn the show formula from a show-piece into some kind of game-show where there isnt any reward system or elimination system in place?

It is a joke. The (and I use this word lightly) ''celebrities'' ruin the magicians performances because they cannot focus of stage presence, presentation or elegance in the performance as they are never given a chance. No wonder any notable name in magic avoided this show like the plague. They probably saw the formula and left running away.

And why did Diversity have to steal the show with a dance number?
Why was a news reporter forced to walk on what looked like soil?
Why was Lenny Henry not eaten by Dawn French?

These are all questions we want answered and I for one am very, very disappointed in what this show did and they better get some new illusions and focus on actually entertaining the audience if they want to make it past episode 3.

Steve

P.S: Here is another review I found you might like:
http://www.suite101.com/content/the-mag ... ne-a326634

Taking the actual magic and magicians aside, I thought the concept, production, editing and execution was really amateurish and lack lustre. It had all the appeal of some really naff 1970's school production. It was leagues behind the last really good British TV magic show; Stuff The White Rabbit - and that was nearly 20 years ago.

All the reviews and comments I've read since last night have been shocking. I agree. It was.

PG

Am I the only one who read the blurb and declined to watch it at all?

Barry

magicofthemind wrote:Am I the only one who read the blurb and declined to watch it at all?

Barry

I went one further. I saw the face of Lenny Henry on the blurb and decided not to watch it.

Sadly i never got to see the show in its entirety. Mrs Grimshaw threatened to leave me unless i changed the channel. I think, judging by the quality of the show, she meant it.

Kolm i take your post as kind of pointing out that perhaps our expectations of the show were too high, and what did everyone expect from such a venture. In hindsight, i can see what you mean. No way should i have expected anything good from prime time BBC.

You'll forgive me if I'm not concerned that the BBC is cash strapped. I pay my tv license and the quality of the programming is such that i find the odd gem on BBC4 and occasionally bump into QI. Apart from that, there is little to justify the outrageous amount they charge. If the BBC are cash strapped.....two words, one idiot: Jonathan Ross.

Back on topic, i find it difficult to put my finger on exactly what was wrong with the show. This is probably because there were so many things i simply don't have enough fingers.

Barry and Stuart, quite possibly the most annoying Scottish duo since The Krankies, always fail to impress and on the show they were no different.

Getting the loud mouthed odd ball from Strictly Come Dancing to participate was only inviting him to once again prove he can say the most pointless, ridiculous things louder than everyone else.

Lenny Henry? A man who once raised a titter in the 80's and then simply became Mr Dawn French, before some rather ill-timed commercials made it look like he now has to live in a Travelodge because Dawn has thrown him out. Though his performance in Othello should be applauded however, his script on the night sounded like something an office junior had scribbled down quickly between takes and handed to him.

A shambles then. To think there's another four to go...

Grimshaw wrote:Apart from that, there is little to justify the outrageous amount they charge. If the BBC are cash strapped.....two words, one idiot: Jonathan Ross.

Cheaper than Sky, innit


According to Paul Wilson on Twitter the overnights look good. Highest rated show for the timeslot and the target audience (which wasn't you lot, by the way) liked it