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Penn and Teller
HMV Apollo, London
14th - 17th July 2010
Reviewed by Kevin Bird AIMC
People tend to either love or hate them, but either way, no one was in any doubt
that the maverick performers, where taking a short break from their award
winning show at Rio Casino in Las Vegas to perform a short run at the
Apollo, Hammersmith. This was the pairs first appearance in the UK for 15
years, following their series ‘The Unpleasant World of Penn and Teller’ for
Channel 4.
Having been lucky enough to have seen them on several occasions in Vegas, it was
with some excitement that I joined a packed audience on the Saturday night, to
see what treats Penn, the tall, brash front man and Teller, his silent partner,
had in store.
There was much more audience participation and less of the grotesque than I had
seen in their previous shows. To open, a lady was invited up onto the stage by
Penn, whilst Teller, head in a concrete type box, stood on the other side of the
stage. Placing her glasses in his jacket pocket for safe keeping whilst Penn
performed a few effects involving a billiard ball and wand, he went to return
the spectacles to the lady only to find them missing. Smashing the box around
Tellers head, his partner was revealed, wearing said specs.
The beautiful Cut and Restored routine which followed, with the assistance of a
small boy form the audience and a roll of polyester sheeting was slick and
humorous. Next was my favourite, Teller's version of Miser's Dream, which was
rightly listed in a recent series of articles in the Magic Circular magazine, as
one of the 100 best tricks ever. For those who are unfamiliar with this, Teller
wets his hands in a large empty fish tank, then magically produces numerous
coins, which he drops into a goldfish bowl held by a lady from the audience.
However, when he scoops up the 50 or so coins and places them back into the main
tank, it instantly fills with 100’s of gold fish. Pure magic at its very best!
More involvement with the audience followed; with predictions from joke books
passed randomly back through the audience. The final ‘punch line’ was predicted
in an envelope which had been on display in the foyer for the arriving audience
to sign.
The expected revealing of how tricks are done involved Teller demonstrating
misdirection during a cigarette production, and then a extremely polished Torn
and Restored Newspaper routine where by both the performers tore up their own
paper, swapped ripped pieces and with impeccable timing both nonchalantly
produced the fully restored papers.
The first half ended with Teller apparently drowned in a water tank attempting
to break Houdini’s record of holding his breath under water. The routine was
amusing and smooth, the humour centering around Penn’s lack of success in finding
the spectator's signed card, which would allow Teller to be released, coupled
with a spectator calling out the time every 30 seconds - on each occasion Penn
politely replied “Nicely Done”, even when his world was falling down around him,
in his attempt to find the card. The added touch being that Penn’s eulogy to his
deceased partner, lying motionless in the tank, but with I hasten to add, the
spectator's signed card revealed in the diver's mask Teller was wearing, was
interrupted by the shout of “eleven minutes 30” by the timekeeper.
As they say in footballing terms, “it was a game of 2 halves”, and for me, the
second half lacked the punch of the first. It began with Teller sitting on a
park bench, joined by Penn, who suddenly found himself handcuffed by his colleague.
Following a period of dialogue in which Penn became increasingly angrier, the
pair hugged, during which Penn was secretly released from the cuffs and exited
the stage, whilst Teller was left on the bench, handcuffs ready for his next
victim. This seemed drawn out and to me lacked the zest for a routine to open
the second half of the show. There were the familiar signature pieces - Teller's
Needles and Thread routine, and an effect where the shadow of a rose in a vase
was projected on a screen, and as Teller pruned various bits of the shadow, the
matching pieces of the real flower fell off in sympathy, both of which were
delightfully performed.
A knife throwing routine with the assistance of a lady from the audience had a
nice touch in that, when she was blindfolded and thought she was going to throw
a menacing looking blade at Penn, in fact the one she was holding was attached
to a fishing rod, so when she actually threw the knife it was controlled in the
air by Teller, allowing Penn the thrust the real knife into the wooden board
near to the painted outline, which was then revealed to the spectator. I
understand that earlier in the week the spectator was so worried that she would
hit Penn with the knife that she was too scared to throw it.
A member of the audience was given a camcorder to film the spectators’ view of a
close up effect with a toy cow in a farmyard scene which was projected onto the
large screens. The audience could see the trickery involved, items being handed
thru to Penn by Teller through a gap in the backdrop resulting in the cows
multiplying, the background changing, as did the cover of the table cloth, the
camcorder man oblivious to all this. But all this was a rouse to find that the
real effect was that the spectator transposed into Teller who we had seen
earlier.
Penn appeared with a high powered nail gun and demonstrated that it was capable
of firing nails quickly into a thick piece of wood. He explained that the nails
were contained in a plastic sleeve inside the tool, and by removing some of the
nails from this sleeve the nail gun made the noise but did not dispatch a nail.
He stated that he had memorised the random pattern where the spaces were and
then proceeded to rapidly fire the nails into the wooden block however when he
reached the point where the nail had been removed from the sleeve he fired it into
his hand - the speed increased, and he continued to make the right decisions
firing nails into the wood and the empty sleeve into his hand, then neck and
groin. Thankfully his memory was correct and he escaped without injury.
I am a fan of the American Duo and was now wondering what big effect the Maverick
pair would close the show with - their world renowned Bullet Catching trick
maybe or one of their other signature effects to bring the show to a memorable
crescendo. But unfortunately, I was to be disappointed - the lights were dimmed
to reveal Penn holding a small flame, he thanks all those involved in the show
and then spoke for what seemed like an age but was more than likely 7 - 8
minutes about fire eating and how it appealed to him as a child. He then
performed a short fire eating routine, putting the burning flames out in his
mouth, lit the torches from this mouth, again all very slick but something I
have seen many times at circuses and by buskers in Covent Garden and then... that
was it, show over! They ran off stage and outside to sign autographs, which I
have to say is always a nice touch for the audience.
Would I see them again? Too right! Would I recommend them to others? Again yes,
the one thing you can rely on is that their show will always be well rehearsed,
slick and smooth.
If it had just been advertised as an hours show and consisted of the first half,
I would have gone away happy, content and thoroughly entertained. As it was it
felt I felt a bit empty, especially with no real finish which would have sent
the audience away buzzing. Most people I heard chatting on the way out, were
still discussing Teller's 'Miser's Dream' with the goldfish tank in the first half.
Hopefully they won’t wait another 15 years to return to these shores.
© Kevin Bird AIMC, July 2010