Hogwarts doesn’t quite come off
YOU’RE welcomed to the show with a fake pilot announcement telling you to sit back and enjoy the journey to wonderment, and that cellphone users will be ejected. The majestic red curtains open to reveal a woman poised on a large black hoop. She swirls and waves her arms and the hoop spins and eventually dismounts to kick off the show.
A man dressed in a suit and dark sunglasses waves a red flag and then stands on a platform and raises the flag above his head, and voila! he turns into a tuxedoe’d Mo Magic. The audience applauds and cheers.
He apologises for the late start and tells us what we should not expect; walking through walls and sawing a woman in half, he tells us, is not going to happen. And a good thing too, because if you had any expectations of amazement and head-scratching feats of illusions, you will be sorely disappointed.
There’s the classic ball and cups trick, in which he procures different balls from the same, unmoving cup, a trick in which he makes money disappear and then reappear, although not with the same initials the volunteer scrawled on them, and he admits to knowing at least two of the “random” volunteers.
One illusion is blindfolding a couple, then tapping one of them and asking them to raise their hands if they feel a tap. They both raise their hands and the audience gasps.
The interaction is great, a six-year-old pink-loving girl steals the show with her personality and Mo has a flair for comedy and his jokes get the audience laughing appreciatively.
The bit where he asks two volunteers to place their cellphones in a bag, and then proceeds to stomp over the bags, seems to work, until Mo makes us believe he has accidentally smashed one of the phones. He assures the girl she will be given back her phone later. And he does, by making her burst a balloon with the phone appearing inside. It should come off as a neat trick, but it has the undesired effect of making us believe he messed up.
A mini tribute to Hogwarts and Harry Potter results in three seconds of levitation, which would be mind-blowing if we do not actually see them set up the wire that hoists him into the air.