Impossible - A Review

(The Following Will Contain Spoilers, So Don’t Read If You Haven’t Seen the Show Yet and Are Going To)

This week, I saw Impossible, the new magic show playing at London’s Noel Coward Theatre until the end of the month. It features an all-star line-up of magicians consisting of: Killer Magic’s Ben Hart, escapologist and daredevil Johnathan Goodwin*, Luis De Matos, star of 2011’s hit TV Show The Magicians, Illusionist Ali Cook, Mentalist Chris Cox (Also from Killer Magic), and “Digital Marvel” Jamie Allan. In spite of the fact that Street Magician Damien O’ Brien (Another magician from Killer Magic) and Katherine Mills were heavily featured on promotional material, they did not appear on the show (Although Damien apparently performed tricks in the stalls during the interval), which was a real shame. Indeed, most reviews of Impossible have criticised Katherine’s absence, claiming that the show placed too much emphasis on male “Machismo” (With Ali providing the majority of the show’s Women-in-boxes tricks)

(*At the end of this week, Johnathan will leave Impossible, and be replaced by mentalist and former Britain’s’ Got Talent Competitor Aaron Crow for the remainder of the show’s run.)

Between them, the magicians performed 16 routines, not counting the opening and closing tricks.

PART ONE

Opening

The show began by introducing a basic framing story involving a boy trying to learn basic magic, before coming across a box and making Chris, Johnathan, Jamie, Ali and Luis appear from it. The opening was well staged, and I like the concept of teaching children about how incredible the art of magic is, but only three of the routines actually involved the child and the theme he represented.  

The First Eight Routines

• ·         Ben was the first magician to perform, telling the child from the opening about a magic trick his grandfather saw during the monsoon season in India. He did a routine with a deck of cards in which he diminished them to increasingly small sizes (with an unaltered card in his pocket to provide a convenient reference), before finally making them vanish. I think that the best aspect of this routine was not the trick itself, but Ben’s skill at storytelling.

• ·         Johnathan followed this kid-friendly routine with one that was probably far too intense for the children in the audience. In fact, even older viewers such as myself found it uncomfortable to watch. Johnathan was restrained in a black straitjacket (That had been tried out by a random audience member before the show begun) and hung upside down. A fuse was lit next to him, and he had thirty seconds to escape from the straitjacket before the spark set his legs on fire. Johnathan didn’t make the initial deadline, and his trousers were set alight, but he was still able to get out of the straitjacket and reach a nearby fire extinguisher, which he used to put out the flames before he could get seriously injured. It was utterly terrifying, but also incredibly memorable. In short, it was a routine I couldn’t wait to tell people about.

• ·         Luis then did a simple card routine involving four aces. He used sleight-of-hand to turn them all face-down, then made the backs of the cards change colour from blue to red, before finally transforming them into kings. It was a relatively simple routine compared to most of the others performed on the show, but it was done very well.

• ·         After two close-up routines and some escapology, it was time for the first stage illusions of the evening. Ali performed three large-scale box tricks to an energetic rock soundtrack. He begun by doing the Sword Basket illusion, as he placed an assistant inside a small box and thrust seven flaming spears into it.  He removed the spears and not only made the first assistant reappear unharmed, but made a second assistant appear from within the box. He followed this with the Suspended Animation trick, in which he switched places with an assistant from within a clear glass box. Ali finished his routine by combining two illusions into one. He made an assistant vanish from a chair, then reappear inside the Suspended Animation box a few seconds later. Overall, it was an enjoyable routine, even if I’ve seen the tricks he performed a dozen times before.

• ·         Chris then wowed the audience with a comedic mentalism routine themed around clothing. After showing a photograph of himself in an “I Love Frozen” T-Shirt (He already demonstrated his love of the Disney hit with a memorable routine on Killer Magic), Chris decided to let a volunteer dictate his fashion choices. He told a random audience member to join him on stage, come up with a one-word name for a fictional clothing brand, write it on a sheet of paper, and put the paper in her pocket. He then introduced the volunteer to two dressing rooms, one (which was covered by a curtain) for her and an open one for him. Both contained six pieces of headwear, six shirts and six pairs of shoes. Asking the volunteer a set of seemingly trivial questions, he used them to choose a piece of headwear, a shirt, and a pair of shoes, whilst the volunteer simultaneously made her own choices in private. When the volunteer removed the curtain, Chris’ chosen clothing completely matched hers, including a wig he chose as his headwear at the last second. Chris finished the routine by asking the volunteer to reveal her chosen brand name (“Dog”), and showing that it was printed on the tag of his chosen shirt. This was a very enjoyable routine, and demonstrated that Chris was able to transfer from TV to the stage.

• ·         Jamie then introduced the audience to his digital style of magic with a routine centred on digital screens. He used four digital screens to do a number of effects which involved making objects shown on the screens come to life, including a light, a ball, feathers, confetti and finally a rose. He then made a newspaper appear from an iPad before abandoning the technology for a comedic version of the Torn and Restored Newspaper trick. I felt that this routine provided Jamie an opportunity to demonstrate his style and personality, and he did this very well.

• ·         Johnathan’s second routine was themed around “Pain Tolerance”. He began this performance by telling stories of performers who had themselves crucified or locked inside incredibly hot ovens (another reason why his act isn’t really suitable for children). Compared to them, his performance initially appeared rather conventional, as he showed off a bed of a thousand steel nails and told a volunteer to lie down on it. She did this and suffered no harm, leading the audience to expect that it would be a safe stunt. However, Johnathan then explained the science behind the Bed of Nails stunt, and decided that the stunt would be too easy with 1000 nails, so he chose to lie down on a single nail. If that wasn’t enough, he told the volunteer to place a cinder block over his chest and shatter it with a sledgehammer. Johnathan managed to pull this stunt off without being injured, but it seemed more of a test of strength and balance as opposed to pain toleration, although that is probably a positive thing, given how dangerous it looked.

• ·         Luis performed the last routine before the interval. He begun with two box illusions similar to those performed by Ali. The first of these was the Origami illusion, in which he put his assistant inside a box, folded it into a tiny cube, and put swords through it to demonstrate that she had vanished, before reversing the process and making her reappear. After a brief effect in which he passed a scarf through his assistant’s neck, he put her inside a small box that was suspended in the top half of a giant frame. He then divided the box into fifths, and moved these pieces to the bottom of the frame, before opening the box to reveal the assistant inside. Following these tricks, Luis then did a smaller one with the child from the opening sequence, in which he taught him how to make a white silk change into a red one, then made the red silk vanish and reappear in his mouth. Though the silk sequence was a bit too slow and not impressive enough (I was still able to appreciate though, because it was one of the few sections of the show to emphasise the theme of the opening sequence), Luis finished the routine with an incredible trick in which he made a sports car containing the child vanish, even though it was completely surrounded by not only a curtain, but a chain of volunteers. It was the perfect way of ending the first half of the show.

 PART TWO

• ·         During the interval, Chris invited those sitting in the stalls to “Control Chris Cox” by writing down an activity they wanted him to do during his routine and putting their request in a box placed on the stage.  When it was time for the second half of the show to begin, Chris started by correctly predicting the activities written down by three random volunteers after getting them to project their thoughts to him in a number of ways (In one instance, Chris told a volunteer to drink from a bottle of water and spit some of it back in. Chris took the remaining water and drank it himself, receiving the thoughts through the volunteer’s spit). When he had done this, he got four volunteers (randomly chosen through golden envelopes with golden tickets inside) to join him on stage. They were each instructed to name an activity and a place in London, and as they did so, Chris appeared to read the minds of his volunteers by correctly guessing key facts about them (e.g. when their birthday was, what the names of their pets were). He then took out a postcard and revealed that it contained correct predictions of all the chosen activities and locations. In order to eliminate the possibility that he had written the predictions down after the volunteers had provided them, Chris then unveiled a video clip of him in London doing all the predicted activities in the predicted locations. It was an amusing routine, with Chris providing some great lines, but I wonder if the final reveal was one too many.

• ·         After his technological tricks in the first half of the show, Jamie chose to apply his distinctive style to two of the most popular (and overused) Stage Illusions of all time. First of all, he provided a variation on Sawing a Lady in Half called Clearly Impossible. In Clearly Impossible the assistants’ limbs are visible throughout the time she is in the box, and when she is bisected, the two halves are pulled pretty far away from each other. The most notable twist Jamie put on Clearly Impossible was the use of a laser to cut the assistant in half. Following this illusion, Jamie performed a short trick with Laser beams, in which he appeared to transform them into solid rods. This was impressive, but more suitable for stage than TV, as it is far more spectacular when the laser beams are being projected above the audience’s heads (This also helps them feel far more involved in the performance). Jamie than performed a levitation sequence where he appeared to levitate his assistant with light waves, covered her with a cloth, made her levitate a second time, levitated himself briefly, and finally made her vanish. I liked the way Jamie was able to blend the three most popular levitation routines into one sequence, and add his own unique touches, but I preferred the more unusual “Digital Magic” from his first routine.

• ·         Jamie’s Grand Illusions were followed by a close-up routine from Ben, who performed from within the circles above the stalls, with the TV screens that showed most of the close-up tricks in great detail conveying his performance to the rest of the audience. Inside the circles, he did a number of small tricks. The first of these saw him make a butter knife pass through a box of cards, before opening it to reveal a steel block inside, completely undamaged by the knife. This was followed by a sequence in which he did a tricks with a rope for two kids in the audience. He cut it and joined the two halves by magic, then made the rope appear to cut itself in two again without the use of visible scissors. Ben made the two unequal halves equal size before restoring them to one piece. He finally collected all the pieces of rope he had cut away during the trick, placed them in his closed fist, then made them vanish and re-join the rope. As with his first performance on the show, Ben was aiming his performance towards children, but chose to forgo the mystery of the Diminishing Cards routine, instead taking a sillier, but still amusing approach.

• ·         Johnathan’s third and final routine saw him perform a number of stunts with a crossbow, using his wife Katie as an assistant. He began by firing at a balloon held in Katie’s mouth, then managed to hit a rose and a sheet of paper. Johnathan then put on a steel blindfold and aimed at a balloon, relying on the sound of a bell held by Katie to tell him when and where he should fire. After his first shot missed the balloon, Johnathan managed to hit it on the second go. However, the remarkable part came when he removed the board behind all the items he items he had hit. There was an assistant behind it, and she was totally unharmed, even with Johnathan’s miss. I wasn’t crazy about the routine, because I’ve seen most of those Crossbow tricks before (It must be hard to come up with new ones), but Johnathan was a skilled archer and the final twist was memorable.

• ·         Having performed Illusions In the first half of the show, Ali aimed to demonstrate his close-up skills. He began with a trick involving four credit cards, as he made a coin vanish from his fist and reappear under each card one at a time, before making nine coins, including one giant one, appear beneath the cards. Ali followed this with a card trick inspired by the great magician Dai Vernon, who famously managed to fool Harry Houdini himself. He got a volunteer to sign a card with Houdini’s name, pushed it into the centre of the deck, and made it appear on top of the deck. He then added a red-backed card, and made it appear on top of the deck face first, before turning all the cards from blue-backed ones to red-backed ones. Sticking to the Houdini theme, Ali then performed the Aquarian Illusion, a trick based on two of Houdini’s most iconic Illusions: The Water Torture Escape and the Metamorphosis. He was handcuffed and shackled inside a tank full of water, and an assistant placed a curtain over it. After a few seconds, the curtain was removed to reveal that Ali had escaped from the box and the assistant was inside. I personally thought that the close-up magic was more unique and impressive, but the Aquarian Illusion was fun to watch as well.

• ·         For his final routine of the night, Luis chose to perform a trick utilising everyone in the audience. Every audience member (myself Included) had an envelope containing four postcards with a different famous magician (Carter, Thurston, Alexander and Houdini) on each one. Luis instructed everyone in the audience to tear all the postcards in half and shuffle them in a number of ways. He then got them to choose one of the eight pieces and put it in their pocket. After shuffling the pieces some more, the audience members were told to discard six of the seven pieces they had in their hands, leaving one piece in their hand to go with the piece in their pocket. The audience members were then told to look at the piece in their hand, and this turned out to match the half of the postcard in their pocket. I’m generally not a big fan of interactive tricks. They are far too simple and it is fairly obvious that they are directing the audience towards a single outcome. However, the elaborate nature of this routine and the fact it worked for everyone regardless of the half which they selected made it very impressive.

• ·         Ben then performed a routine inspired by silent movies, in which he did a couple of tricks with cigarettes, then went into the Multiplying Balls trick, in which he made several small white balls appear between his fingers. The manipulations were performed very well, but this was evidently a slower and smaller routine designed to lead into the spectacle of the climax.

• ·         The final performance was given by Ali, who provided a version of the Bo-Staff illusion. He put a female assistant inside a box, then compressed the interior to reveal that she had vanished. Ali then restored the box to its original state, and produced not the assistant, but the child who had vanished during Luis’ Disappearing car trick. It was probably Ali’s least impressive routine out of the three he performed, but I liked the way he finished by returning to the theme of the show, which had been neglected throughout the second half.

Closing

For the final trick of the show, the six magicians made a giant helicopter appear from beneath a giant sheet on the stage. It was a short routine, but the climax was truly spectacular. The Helicopter Production is a trick that gets performed a little too often, but it is incredible to watch in person, and ensured that the show finished on a high note.

VERDICT

Overall, this was an enjoyable magic show. I thought that Chris, Luis and Ali provided the best performances, but all six of the magicians were good. There were a wonderful range of tricks, with the smaller ones being performed very well and the larger ones proving utterly breath-taking when seen in the flesh. However, the main problem with the show (even more damaging than Katherine’s absence), was the framing story. I loved the idea behind it, but it was not properly integrated into the show, and should have either been used more often or scrapped entirely. In spite of this, I think the show should be judged based on the quality of the magic, and that was generally amazing.