More Fool You

Before we start, I want to clarify that I am a big Penn & Teller fan. I’ve seen their Vegas show three times and I love pretty much everything they have ever done, with the possible exception of the special where they were doing magic underwater while Aaron Carter sang. Anyway, their performances are exciting, surprising, relevant, novel and thought-provoking. Everything that much modern magic is not.

My feelings about “Fool Us” however are a little mixed. It’s the most important new magic show on British TV for ten years. Since Blaine at the end of the Nineties and Brown at the beginning of the 2000s, nothing has really hit the mark and made an impact on the public in the same way. It’s well-shot and allows ordinary, working magicians a chance to do something extraordinary and appear in front of 4 million people. The producers also seem to be slightly more on the side of the acts than in the (as juggler Matt Ricardo described it) “Shiny Floored Entertainment Slaughterhouse” that is Britain’s Got Talent.

My problem is that the one thing that “Fool Us” is not is a contest. It is presented like one and the TV listings describe it as one. The acts aren’t paid (other than some who got a token £250) because it’s meant to be a contest. You either win and get the glory or you lose and get nothing, just like in a contest.

But it’s not a contest. A contest would have clearly defined rules with the notion of what is regarded as having fooled them being set out clearly. Unfortunately the definition of “fooling” is not made clear and makes the idea that it is in anyway fair redundant.

There are two ways you can explain a magic trick. The first is how someone who knows nothing about magic (“the layman”) would do it, speaking broadly without going into specifics: “there’s something up with that box” or “he used sleight of hand”. The second is how a magician would do it, using the correct terminology: “it’s the million dollar mystery principle” or “the card was switched by means of a top change”.

A layman will often claim he isn’t fooled by a trick if he is aware of how a small percentage of it may be done - eg. due to the magician being sloppy, he may see a hidden object that he wasn’t meant to. The second he sees that he believes he has caught the magician out and will state he knows how it works, even if that hidden object forms only 5% of the entire methodology. A layman will also sometimes claim to not be fooled if he thinks that a magical technique that he is familiar with could be being used, even if he doesn’t know how. Any magician who does card tricks will have been accused of using marked cards or tapered cards as these are the two most popular form of fake cards on sale. The fact that the cards being marked or tapered would not aid the trick at all doesn’t help prevent this accusation.

On the other side of the scale, magicians by and large consider themselves fooled when they can’t describe in complete detail how a trick was accomplished. For example, in card magic parlance, a “colour change” means the visual transformation of one card into another. Essentially, one card is secretly placed on top of (or taken away from) another to create the illusion that the card magically changes. In skilled hands it looks beautiful. There are countless different techniques for doing this and new ones are developed all the time. A magician can know twenty different methods for a colour change but can see a new one and if just a finger position is different to what he already knows, he will state that he has no idea what is going on - he is fooled.

For some inexplicable reason on “Fool Us”, Penn & Teller are allowed to claim they weren’t fooled under either the layman’s or the magician’s rules. And, if that doesn’t prove fruitful they then start to ask questions or even request that they examine the props that are used for the trick. With enough questioning and examination ANYBODY would be able to get close to the method of ANY trick.

To have the methodology behind a trick revealed to millions of people is quite frankly humiliating. To discourage this from happening, performers were informed that if Penn & Teller weren’t fooled, initially Penn would speak in magic jargon (or, as it turns out, street jive which sounds like jargon but isn’t actually used such as “copped the prop” or “rang in a cooler”) - the purpose being it would show the performers that they were wise to their methods. At this stage the performer could choose to argue their case but the production company strongly advised against this as they wanted to minimise the magic exposure in the show, and extended confrontation would make the post-trick section difficult to edit accordingly. So, after some of the acts Penn made a general comment alluding to a general method and the performer had to make the choice - do they argue the toss and risk being embarrassed further with a detailed breakdown of the trick or do they roll over and concede that they have been beaten. A friend who filmed for the show took the latter option but to this day does not know if P&T knew the specifics of the trick.

Some of the things that P&T have said after the performances show that they had no idea how the tricks worked. In Alan Hudson’s trick in episode three, at no point do they say the method or even get close. Penn stated the trick used a “much higher tech method than my idea” alluding to the fact that he believed they were special CD players that have music stored on a chip inside and then they play that music rather than whatever is contained on the CD (or something along those lines). As a friend of Alan’s I can state this is 100% not the method, or anywhere close. After Alan wouldn’t let them examine the CD players they claim victory and state they aren’t fooled. I have news for you guys: You were fooled- this is exactly what you were meant to think. Fundamentally, magic tricks are tricks. In almost every trick there will be some part of something that is not quite right. Something fake, something hidden, something going on. If you spend enough time prodding around ANYBODY will eventually come across SOMETHING.

It’s safe to say that if you have to ask to examine all the props – you were fooled.

Alan didn’t push them further as their post-trick expository phase took a good five minutes on the night and because he was trying not be argumentative, and because Jonathan Ross was pushing for closure, he just gave in.

If P&T ask to examine the props because they believe the trick is done in one way, there is always the very real chance that even if their theory regarding the methodology is wrong, they may inadvertantly stumble across the actual method for the trick during their inspection.

The way that September Films edited Alan's section made it appear that P&T knew the method to be "high tech", and therefore to the viewers it looked as though he had gone on the show trying to fool them with a poor/obvious method - cue endless forum/YouTube comments slating Alan and the trick and talking about how it was the worst trick in the world. It may not have been the greatest ever trick but take into account the fact the CD players were normal, the CDs were normal, and there was no electronic trickery of any kind (no cables/leads being switched, no preprogramming of the CD players) then the trick is definitely what would be classed within the magic world as a fooler. The real method is out there, but P&T didn't know it.

There are other examples this series: with Jon Allen’s nail trick Penn said they saw him put the nail in the bag at the end but how come every block of wood in the other bags was solid with no hole for a nail? How does that work gentlemen? I put it to you that you didn’t know. Therefore, to a lesser or a greater extent, you were fooled.

Of course things worked both ways: there have been performances where, if they had wanted, they could have claimed “No fool” under any of the above rules. If they had wanted, they could have given vague and non-specific explanations to Matthieu Bich and Graham Jolley, but for whatever reason chose not to. When asked on Twitter why they ask to look at certain props but not others, Penn replied, “it’s just the way we feel and the vibe”. Not what I would call the fair way to do it when you are meant to have an adjudicator backstage to either confirm or deny your suspicions.

“Fool Us” is an amazing vehicle for Penn & Teller. It presents them as being the best magicians in the world and raises their profile in the UK significantly. As a chance for magicians to showcase themselves on television it is a remarkable opportunity. As a fair and equal contest? No, sorry. Not at all. As P&T might themselves comment: that’s bullshit.