Review: NOW YOU SEE ME LIVE at London Coliseum

Following in the footsteps of Lionsgate’s franchise of three top grossing movies, the live stage show version stars Enzo Weyne, Andrew Basso, Gabriella Lester and Matthew Pomeroy as The Horsemen. Joining the big four magicians on stage, are three upcoming performers Eden Choi, Fraser Penman and Rafferty Coope, each of whom get their own slots, and participate in collective moments with the wider performance team.

Aside from that, what can I tell you except that this sort of hyped, slick, packaged entertainment, has never really been my bag. Magic shows work best when the performers are not only skilled but possess wit and comedy angles to set them apart. Otherwise, you are merely watching yet another pouting and pompous, over-coiffured, flash Harry (Houdini impersonator) recreate an escape from a water tank. Here, the performers also avoid being blown to smithereens in a safe, and predict your playing card after gazillions of variables have been tossed into the mix to blindside you (including multiple, eye-dizzying, shuffling displays). In truth, you would have to have been living under a rock to have avoided witnessing most of these magic elements at some time or other. Talking of things living beneath rocks, there is a trick involving a scorpion which provides a truly wince-worthy moment of jeopardy which succeeds in getting the pulse racing. If you’re intrigued, look up how to sedate a scorpion into submission with a chiller box before putting it in your mouth for a stage show!

Dexterity was never an issue at the evening performance I witnessed. However Weyne’s dense rustic French accent whilst exotic and intriguing, made comprehension of his linking patter, almost impenetrably unintelligible, causing several moments to fall flat due to audience-wide confusion. Meanwhile a shoe caught in a descent rope and a screen backdrop used in a ‘time travel’ video link where artefacts were visibly and clumsily delivered into a time capsule from a jacket sleeve, served to diminish the sense of awe and “How did they do that?”

In terms of pure spectacle, the use of melodramatic hyperbole, and the unrelenting attempts at audience engagement, you cannot fault the onstage performers’ desire to deliver the goods. However, the hand-held cameras (whilst perhaps capturing the Jamie Lloyd zeitgeist) for the most part, face in the wrong direction to be of any tangible use to proceedings, and so sequences relayed onto the enormous screens above the playing area, end up merely looking like well-rehearsed diversionary tactics.

Simpering child stooge moments and cloying video clip twaddle about why magic means so much to each performer felt utterly manipulative and frankly sick-inducing towards the end of the show and should be ditched. It’s a segment which is sure to have American audiences clamouring in appreciation, and perhaps it is aimed at the Britain’s Got Talent lowest common denominator, but it made me (and evidently several other nearby audience members) cringe involuntarily. I guess we can’t all like the same thing, but if my description appeals to your sense of drama and spectacle, I wish you bon chance.

NOW YOU SEE ME LIVE runs 2 hours 10 minutes with an interval and plays at the London Coliseum until 6th September.

Now You See Me Live Tickets