Tonight’s show started with a very clear warning, in English and Chinese, telling people not to video or to use flash photography. This simple warning resulted in a lot less photography than at the previous shows.
The extremely talented Topas came out as host and introduced the first act. Topas has “it” and from the moment he walked on stage the audience loved him. They knew they were in the hands of a professional who would guarantee them a good time.
He began with a song, a “FISM Anthem” which will undoubtedly hit the internet soon. It was hilarious as it spoke about things that only magicians would laugh at and, to cap it all off, for the final verse he was accompanied by “The FISM Choir” of Max Maven, David Williamson, Luis DeMatos, Eun-Gyeol Lee and so many others.
Omar Pasha was first up with his black art. Though we’ve seen the act many times before it was wonderful to hear the gasps and reactions of the hundreds in the audience who hadn’t. They were amazed by every vanish and transformation.
Topas returned and began his great finger manipulation interaction piece with the audience but, when the technicians didn’t bring up the houselights after he asked several times, he just dropped it and introduced the next act, David Sousa.
David Sousa performed his 2006 FISM award-winning act of very slow and deliberate card manipulations, which was so well received he was inundated by fans the next day after photos and autographs.
Topas returned with another MC bit and, because I can’t remember exactly which bits he did when, I’ll quickly go through them all here.
One was ball manipulation accompanied by himself on bongos, another was his combination of sound effects with specific movements, and his main spot was an illusion where he removes the centre of his arm – but repeated three times: first we saw “The First Rehearsal”, next came “The Opening Night”, and finally was “The 1000th Performance”. It had the audience in hysterics.
Topas had a few issues with the crew, which he handled beautifully.
They seemed to think that the best way to let him know the next act was ready was to just open the curtains before he even introduced them.
Another time, while he was doing his bongo routine, a stage hand pushed through the curtains and started sweeping up about six inches directly behind him. When he finally noticed, Topas turned this around and got a great laugh.
The next act was the hit of the night, about a dozen Chinese women doing the most astonishing diablo act this side of Cirque du Soleil. Somersaults, flips, multiple diablos.. more variations than you could imagine resulting in a prolonged standing ovation.
Peter Marvey returned with three illusions that he had to cut from the first Stage Gala Show because it was running too long. He pulled the skin off a girl in a box leaving only her clothes ala invisible man... didn’t really work. He did one where he pulled his own head off and it sat on a table in front of him. This was nice when he did it at FISM Dresden, but it just seemed to go on a bit too long tonight. Finally he was sawed in half riding a unicycle... yes, I know it sounds weird, it looks weird too. He gets into a very strange box with a crane thing grabbing his waist, then is sawed in two and then his lower half rides the unicycle around the platform of the box... personally I preferred the small trick he did as build up where he sawed a ten foot pole in four pieces, put the pieces in a small bag and restored them.
Shi Lei & Jiao Jiandong are very famous here for their bird impressions and hand shadows. After seeing their act I can see why. It was another highlight in the show.
Merok was dressed all in black with a sombre attitude (Craig Mitchell described him as “one of the Addams family”) and he performed manipulation and dove work. I enjoyed it and felt the odd character made the act interesting. Others didn’t.
I.Ma.Gi.A was another act that some people felt didn’t belong on a show of such a high standard. Again, I disagreed. Their act is set with cardboard boxes all over the stage with two guys moving the packages about. Lots of magic happens and the main effect is a levitating cardboard box with a girl inside. (If you were at Blackpool this year you would have seen the Dutch trio ‘Magic Unlimited’ copying it).
I.Ma.Gi.A provided yet another style of magic, a different colour, on the show and I enjoyed their act.
Victor Voitko however, was
disappointing. He began with his award-winning floating linking rings from FISM
1994, but the end messed up. He then got a member of the audience up and had
her go into a tent and change clothes and put a wig on. “She” did a sexy dance
in the tent (we saw her in silhouette) and then went to a table and sat down
where Victor woke her up and did a very long, sexy levitation before
transforming her back to who she was... and then making the sexy girl appear
too and sending the volunteer back.
Magic aside, what was the
message he was sending in all this? The plain girl from the audience wasn’t
sexy enough for him. And when he got his sexy girl he didn’t need the audience
member anymore.
Yunke was the second last act with some interesting illusions. First he made his assistant appear from a chair, which was quick and effective. Next he had her lie on an ironing board, covered her with a cloth, and steamed her flat. I loved it. I thought it was completely original and box-free. Finally he did the “table of death” where he had to escape from the table before the spikes fell on him. They did fall on him (we saw it in silhouette) then he pushed them off him, whipped the front curtain away and jumped out of the box. Similar effect, with the same impact, as a finger chopper.
Jeff McBride closed the show with a long set beginning with his mask changing routine. Next came his miser’s dream and water bowl act, both of which were very effective and a change of tempo, and he sent the audience crazy at the end with his high energy card manipulation act. (He told everyone “If you have my DVD grab a deck of cards and play along.”)
Overall it was a sensational show and full credit to everyone on the bill.
