How to mystify yourself
Where do we begin? Oh, how about the beginning of the show,
that's a good place. When you're David Copperfield, you need to
make a grand entrance and that he did, illusion mage that he is. Out of no where, in
front of the stage, in the blink of an eye, he appears in the
flesh sitting on top of a motorcycle with his trademark looks
and smile. From there on we know we are all in for one hell of
a night of illusion and entertainment.
What made this show so great was his interaction with the
audience. He would routinely throw out frisbees or large
inflated balls at random to pick members from the audience to
participate in his next effect so you knew nothing was
pre-planned.
There were so many great tricks that he did and the comedy to go
with it kept the audience in stitches. Who new David
Copperfield was so funny? To keep this short we'll highlight
some of the standout routines from the night.
Body Through Steel
He dazzled us with him giving the illusion that he could pass
his body right through a thick piece of steel (sort of the same
illusion of him walking through the Great Wall of China). Very
cool, and no idea of how he pulled that off.
Lottery Number Predictions
This effect had a lot of build up and story behind it. The
story being about his grandfather not speaking to him because he
wanted to grow up as a magician which his grandfather did not
approve of. He did not talk to his grandfather for many years
and he ended up passing away. But David remembers doing his
first show at 15 years old and thought he saw his grandfather at
the back of the room watching but was never sure. When he
passed away, they found the ticket stub from that show in his
grandfather's home so he knew he was there to see him succeed.
He then described how his grandfather always played the lottery
and only owned 2 cars and kept the license plates of them and
that he always dreamed of owning a Green Lincoln but never did.
So he goes ahead and picks at random members from the audience
to pick numbers between 1 and 50 and he sprays paint them on a
big sheet on stage and as well asks them to tell them something
personal about themselves as well and writes that down as well
(there was a lot of comedy into that part as well).
During this
whole presentation there was a case hanging above the stage that
no one has touched and it was lowered down and opened up by an
audience member which revealed a cassette tape and predictions
in a bag. Of course, he plays the tape which has him speaking
and rattling off the numbers the audience members chose and the
papers reveal the personal stuff that the audience had told him.
And last but not least, he revealed the two license plates that
his grandfather kept and of course the numbers on them matched
the numbers written down as well. And for the kicker ending, he
made the Green Lincoln car appear out of no where in seconds on
the stage.
Transport Audience Member to Australia
Another grand illusion. In a nutshell, he took an audience
member who apparently has not spoken to her father in years who
had moved to Australia and wanted to reunite with him. No
problem for David. He had someone sign his arm, someone take a
picture of the audience members on stage holding a board that
had a random picture on it and signed so that they could take
that photograph with them to prove they were really in Australia
on the beach by the ocean. Away they went into a booth above
the audience, and poof, next thing you know they have a live
satellite feed showing them on a big screen appearing out of no
where showing her running around the beach and into the ocean.
She then shows the picture of the audience members they had
taken and David shows his arm with the same signature.
Unbelievable and we know the writing of this trying to explain
what happened does not do this effect justice, you need to see
it to believe it. Then David leaves the beach and magically
appears in the middle of the audience!
Others
There were many other effects that we won't touch on in depth
but were just as worthy mentioning. Like the duck in barrel
routine, very funny. The duck would disappear from a box and
reappear in a barrel held by an audience member. Then he would
do it in slow motion to show how the trick was done but not
really. Another effect was in theory getting a girl pregnant
without touching her, another comical routine. Also, having a
scorpion pick a card from deck of cards that was the card
selected by an audience member. And many others that we could
go on and on about.
All we can say is if you ever get a chance to see David
Copperfield live, go! You will not regret it as it is worth
every penny! We had two standing ovations for him before he
left the stage.