Penn and Teller: Fool Us - Episode 2

Yesterday's episode of Penn and Teller: Fool Us, featured more magicians and better magic than last week's. The magicians trying to win a trip to Vegas by fooling Penn and Teller today were...


Mark Shortland - Comedy Mentalist

Mark did a trick involving luck. He had Jonathan Ross (as irritating a host as ever) put his phone into an envelope, which were mixed up with five other envelopes, each with prop phones in. Jonathan rolled a dice, and Mark destroyed the phone in the corresponding envelope with a hammer. The surviving phone was Jonathans's.

The trick was amusing and well presented, but it did not fool Penn and Teller, who theorised that the dice was rigged, though that still doesn't explain how the dice avoided landing at the random number Jonathan had given his envelopes


Mathieu Bich- Close-up magician

Mathieu did a pick-a-card trick, but one with two novel aspects. First of all, the details of the card (colour, suit, value, etc) were each randomly chosen by different members of the audience. Secondly, Mathieu revealed the chosen card by fanning the deck out in such a way the cards details showed in the fan. Due to these two aspects, Mathieu fooled Penn and Teller and won the trip to Vegas


Young and Strange- Comedy Illusionist Duo

Young and Strange performed a novel version of the Metamorphosis illusion. One of the members was locked in a trunk, and the other went behind a screen. However, from there, the trick differed from convention. The member in the trunk walked out of the other side of the screen, timing this perfectly, then opened the trunk to reveal a female assistant in the trunk. The first member who was supposed to now be in the trunk emerged at the back of the studio. They didn't fool Penn and Teller, but, in terms of entertainment value, presentation, and fooling ME, it was probably one of my favourite performances of the evening


Daniel Madison- Card-Counting Magician

Daniel delivered a technically excellent, but slightly boring card-counting trick as he counted a Royal Flush of Diamonds from the deck whilst blindfolded. I thought that he would fool Penn and Teller like so many cardsharps before him, but he didn't.


As ever, Penn and Teller finished the show with a performance of their own, involving A blindfolded Teller finding a chosen card by stabbing at the deck with a knife, and accidentally embedding both into Penn's hand. The trick was not wow, but it was clever and funny. All in all, it was an excellent episode with some excellent magic.