The Magicians (UK TV series)

Not to be confused with The Magicians (U.S. TV series).
The Magicians
Genre Magic
Comedy, entertainment
Presented by Lenny Henry (Series 1)
Darren McMullen (Series 2)
Starring Barry and Stuart
Luis de Matos (Series 1)
Chris Korn (Series 1)
Jason Latimer (Series 2)
Pete Firman (Series 2)
Judges Audience
Country of origin United Kingdom
Original language(s) English
No. of series 2
No. of episodes 11 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s) Karen Smith
Producer(s) Will Spokes (Series 1)
Sam Donnelly (Series 1)
Richard Greenwood (Series 2)
Location(s) Shepperton Studios, Surrey
Running time 60 minutes (series 1)
75 minutes (series 2)
Release
Original network BBC One
Picture format 16:9 (HDTV)
Original release 1 January 2011 (2011-01-01) 
11 February 2012 (2012-02-11)
External links
Website

The Magicians was a British family entertainment television show, first broadcast throughout January 2011 on BBC One.[1]

The show features magicians performing a number of magic tricks with guest celebrities, to decide which pair will face a forfeit trick at the end of the episode. In the first series, this was decided through audience participation; however, for the second series, a phone vote was introduced. The first series was hosted by Lenny Henry, and featured magicians Luis de Matos, Barry and Stuart and Chris Korn. At the end of series 1, Luis de Matos was deemed series champion.[2]

The second series, which began airing in January 2012, is hosted by Darren McMullen, and replaces magicians de Matos and Korn with Jason Latimer and Pete Firman. While the first series was completely pre-recorded, the second series was broadcast live on Saturday nights, with the exception of the pre-recorded "Street Magic" and "Location Grand Illusion" segments. Thus, The Magicians became the first live magic programme to be broadcast on the BBC in over 30 years. At the end of series 2 Jason Latimer was deemed series champion by the UK viewers.[2]

It was announced on 28 June 2012 that The Magicians had been axed.[3]

Format

Each episode features three magicians, each of whom are paired with a different celebrity. They must then perform a series of tricks to decide which pair will face a forfeit trick at the end of the episode.

In series one, the tricks were as follows:

In series two, the tricks were as follows:

The order in which each of the magicians perform, and the order in which each of the tricks is done, changes from show to show. In series one, each episode had a specific theme, however, in series two, there were no themes. The second series also featured guest performances from another magician whilst the phone votes were being counted.

In the first series, after all nine performances, members of the studio audience voted for their favourite magician-celebrity partnership using an audience response system. In the second series, viewers could vote for their favourite acts via telephone. The act with the most votes were declared the winners, and the act with the least votes had to then attempt the forfeit trick. In the first series, the forfeit trick was explained to the magician, but not the celebrity. In the second series, the forfeit was explained to all three celebrities and magicians before the show went on air.

Episode list

International adaptations

Country Title Presenter Magicians Network Premiere Date
 Spain Por arte de magia[4] Anna Simon Jorge Blass
Yunque
Luis de Matos
Juan Tamariz (assistant)
Antena 3 13 September 2013

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/17/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.