John van der Put is a magician and comedian from the UK much better known by his stage name as Piff the Magic Dragon. Piff has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, toured with Mumford and Sons, fooled Penn & Teller on television and charmed the Unite…
Continue ReadingJohn van der Put is a magician and comedian from the UK much better known by his stage name as Piff the Magic Dragon. Piff has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, toured with Mumford and Sons, fooled Penn & Teller on television and charmed the Unite…
Continue ReadingAvailable onlineDeception is rife and amazement is constant in this uplifting night of gripping tricks, full of audience interactionMagical Bones has got me ripping up playing cards in my living room, which he promises will be worth it. After tearing f…
Continue ReadingTommy Cooper’s fez and Paul Daniels’ saw-in-half box part of display at Wellcome Collection Tommy Cooper’s fez, a gorilla mask used by Derren Brown and a wooden box and saw that Paul Daniels used to saw Debbie McGee in half have gone on display at a mu…
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
Nick Mohammed doesn’t quite conjure the powers of previous extravaganzas but this entertaining set has some impressive feats of memory
Nick Mohammed’s comedy, magic and musical mashups have been among the highlights of recent Edinburgh fringes, culminating in a Houdini extravaganza two years ago that I’d happily have been chained to. His new show, The Vanishing Elephant, where he is again in character as excitable northern busybody Mr Swallow, doesn’t quite measure up. It’s more of a conventional magic show, without the preposterous narrative or musical overreach of its predecessors. I also missed erstwhile sidekicks Mr Goldsworth and Jonathan; Mr Swallow is a character at his eccentric funniest when he has someone to play off.
The conceit – it may even be true – is that Mr Swallow has narrowly failed to secure the elephant that would have supplied the show’s dramatic finale. Instead, he serves up some lesser illusions, a few impressive feats of memory – and character comedy too, if lower in the mix than usual. Sometimes the comedy and magic pull in different directions. In a subsidiary character as the scouse spirit-guide Claire, Mohammed pulls off a mean tarot card trick, but the alter ego is so garish – and the amplified voice so grating – the conjuring gets a bit overwhelmed.
Continue ReadingPlan your schedule with our roundup of top shows, ordered by start time. This page will be updated daily throughout the festival Continue reading…
Continue ReadingJimmy Shubert was just a kid from Philly who wanted to be a magician. That’s how he started in show business, before moving to Los Angeles in the 1980s and taking a job at The Comedy Store, where he became the kid in Sam Kinison’s outlaws of comedy crew. That led to development deals and […]
Continue ReadingNate Bargatze is Jimmy Fallon’s favorite stand-up comedian, and Bargatze has the Tonight Show credits to back that up. Nate also has gone on tour with Fallon, multiple tours to entertain the troops in Iraq and Kuwait, and has two hit comedy albums to boot: Yelled At By A Clown and Full Time Magic. Those […]
Continue ReadingThe American duo’s slick act shimmers with Vegas-style glitz, while the Scottish standup’s sleight of hand is as flabbergasting as his vicious jokes
The classic magician image, we are told in Penn and Teller’s new show, was established by the French conjuror Robert-Houdin in the mid 19th century. But who, in the post-Paul Daniels era of postmodern magic, bothers with top hat and tails any more? These days, magic comes at us in all shapes and sizes.
At the Robert-Houdin end of the spectrum – smart suits, if not tuxedos – Penn and Teller brought a little bit of Vegas to the Hammersmith Apollo this month, in a characteristically high-end two hours of trickery. Yes, their patter (well, Penn’s patter; Teller is silent) defers to the modern requirement that magicians debunk the supernatural and mock the credulous, but their iconoclasm is strictly rationed. Theirs is a traditional magic show, and they relish their high status to the point of smugness, delighting in duping their audience.
Related: The must-see standup of summer 2017: Daniel Kitson, Sara Pascoe, Rob Delaney and more
Related: That’s not magic: Penn, Teller and Derren Brown reveal all (or do they?)
Continue ReadingThe star of Catastrophe brings carnality, the elusive Kitson attempts to ‘alter language’, Sara Pascoe goes dating, while Hannah Gadsby goes out with a bang
Penn and Teller
Las Vegas’s loss is Britain’s gain, as the veteran magic double-act return for UK tour. Publicity has focused on Penn Jillette’s relationship with the US president, with whom he worked on Celebrity Apprentice in 2012. “We wish we could make Trump disappear,” ran the headlines. That’s not, unfortunately, the prospectus for their new show, which should feature the usual impressive combination of jazzy set pieces hyped by Penn and tender conjuring vignettes by Teller.
• At Hammersmith Apollo, London, 20-25 June. Box office: 0844-249 4300.
Rob Delaney
When he first gigged in the UK, the American comic Rob Delaney was mainly famous for being funny on Twitter. Two years ago, cresting Channel 4’s hit show Catastrophe, he delivered a depraved (his word) standup show entitled Meat. This summer, that carnival of carnality is back.
• At Leicester Square theatre, London, 5-15 July. Box office: 020-7734 2222.
