- Penn & Teller: 50 Years of Magic [06/06 Meridian Hall, Toronto, ON]
This show was this afternoon. We have been to Meridian Hall before under several different names (O'Keefe Centre, The Sony Centre). I think for the last couple I went with my wife and we were in the accessible areas so we didn't notice the coziness of the seats. This time we were in regular seats second last row of the balcony basically at the top. The seats were very cramped. This was partially caused by the addition of cup holders which is a nice gesture but it takes up real estate. But they need to give you a place to put your $4 cans of coke. We actually went to the top row. It said row J so we went up 10 rows. Turns out they skipped row I for some reason so we had to move. The real row J seats were actually a bit less cramped. We likely won't do this venue again.
Before the show they had a jazz musician playing the piano (he played background during the show too). They also played videos of Penn telling you to fill out guesses for the number of jelly beans in a jar and your dream. They also had a card they wanted you to sign. We of course did neither. They did tricks with these dreams and the jelly beans during the show.
It was a good and funny show. I don't pretend to know how they did most of the stuff. They say it is all misdirection and tricks. They said they don't do illusions. They had plenty of audience participation and the sheer number would indicate they were not stooges.
They had one trick where they basically had people randomly pick chapter verse and number from the bible. They then had a guy read it from the bible (or something posing as a bible) and then grabbed a banner from the envelope everybody had signed which matched the verse. It was an interesting trick until I looked up the bible verse and it was something completely different. So it wasn't a real bible which reduces the odds and makes the deception and the trick easier.
The coolest thing started out rather weird. They said they were trying a new trick and it would seem weird. They did a whole bunch of weird stuff and it didn't really make much sense and there wasn't much of a trick. But then as a finale they played the video back backwards and added live narration. It had Teller solving a rubics cube in 3 spins, taking a shuffled deck of cards and laying them out in order and Penn catching ping pong balls in his mouth.
We had a good time. It was 2 hours of fun and entertainment.
Upcoming Shows:
2026:
- Paul Simon: A Quiet Celebration [06/26 RBC Amphitheatre, Toronto, ON]
- Journey [11/04 Scotiabank Arena, Toronto, ON]
