Disappointed
by OldMichael on 4/6/16The Santander Performing Arts Center - ReadingI went to this show because I love the TV show The Carbonaro Effect. Yes, the fact that he’s fooling unsuspecting participants in his magic is fun, but for me the real draw is the unique magic he does: a customer brings a melon to him, he cuts it open and there’s an animal inside he exits on one side of the room and comes back seconds later on the other side. He pours fifty glasses of beer from one pitcher He pulls a basketball out of a carton way too small for it. This live show? I understand that he’s not going to fool anyone, since obviously the audience is coming knowing he is a magician. I thought he was going to come up with some other context for the tricks he does on TV. But too much of it was tricks I’ve seen magicians do for years: Tearing a newspaper up then revealing it as whole again Card tricks Cutting a lemon and pulling the “missing” $20 bill out of it. He did do a few tricks that were on the caliber of his TV show, which were great. And he has a quick wit, and improvised many comments to fit unique happenings. Another issue I had was that some of the magic was close up, so unless you were in the first couple rows you had to watch the big screen to get the trick. And the screen resolution was not great, so sometimes I had to take his word for it that he did what he said he did. There was an opening act – a comedian – who was on for about 20 minutes. There was some laughter in the audience, but not a lot of people were laughing. Certainly not a bad show by any means, but not up to the high standards he set on his TV show.