Here’s what the CBBC press release says:

A new series of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice is coming to CBBC soon! Are you a wizard in waiting – or do you spell disaster? Could you be magic, or do you need a disappearing act?!

If so, and you’re 11 or 12 years old, fill out the application form and say why you want to be the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

The closing date for this fantastic opportunity is Friday 16th May.

There are more details about how to apply on the form. Please read them carefully. We will consider everyone who applies equally, but cannot guarantee everyone will be successful. Only people who have made it to the next round will be contacted by the production team.

If you think you would like to take part you can download an application form here and completed forms should be sent to:

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Twenty Twenty
20 Kentish Town Road
London
NW1 9NX

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During lunch, they resite the school motto for one last time, and determine the order of performance. This is done by chance by using Horace the cockroach, who runs around a plate choosing sorcerees by passing over a numbered envelope containing the stage name of a sorceree. The order of performance will be: Power Joe, Alexandra the Great (good name!), The Hatted Dragon (Tomos), Gypsy Rose (Leonie), Small-dini (Mehmet) and finally Witty (Rebecca) Whitely. The sorceree will be able to perform any two of the tricks they have learnt over the two weeks. Interestingly, Tomos chooses the trick he performed the worst, in an attempt to impress the Sorcerer – will this tactic pay off?

After an afternoon of dress rehearsals in front of Mr Tariq Knight and Miss Sophie Evans the sorcerees prepare for the most important performance of the series. Once again friends and family are dragged from the corners of the United Kingdom to form the audience for the show. It would have been nice to have seen the final performances in their entirety but unfortunately they suffered the same edit as the previous episodes. Cutting to each performer in turn we saw Joe performing his mind reading trick ending with his favourite garlic eating finale. Alexandra performed the levitating wand trick (and seemed to have the speed just right) followed by the hats and chairs trick. Tomos displayed a perfect performance of the paper and cups trick, and Leonie gave a good show of her teddy bear trick. Mehmet’s performance was typically funny, and finally Rebecca performed the lemons and limes trick unfortunately flashing the lemon and giving the game away.

After an anxious wait, Max Somerset gathers the sorcerees together and announces “I Max Somerset the Third declare that the winner of Sorcerer’s Apprentice is … Tomos Power”.

I think Tomos was a worthy winner, of what’s turned out to be a very entertaining series. It has put magic in a good light, and will hopefully spark the interest of young performers. Roll on the next series.

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The girls are taught an effect by Sophie Evans whereby three items (and apple, garlic and a balloon) are placed under chrome cups while the magician faces the other way. When they turn back they correctly determine what’s under each cup. The boys meanwhile, taught by Tariq Knight, learn a trick involving making a prediction as to which choices of hat and seat the audience members will take. The tricks are easy to perform and the sorcerees feel confident about the effects. Mr Knight is pleased with the performances of the students, and looks forward to the evenings performance. Leonie is worried that her stage fright will return and ruin her performance.

The sorcerees families return to watch the evenings performance, and nerves set in as the students realise this could be their last chance to impress the Sorcerer.

Thomas Hewson is up first, and again the detail in his performance lets him down as he gets his prediction the wrong way around. Mehmet and Tomos give good performances next, and then Joe has an interesting finale where he eats the garlic from his trick. The others pull of their performances, and they get to spend some time with there families will Max makes his decision. In the end Thomas Hewsons bumbling has cost him dear as he is asked to leave along with Megan, Frankie and one time golden girl Ellie. The remaining six make it through to tomorrows final.

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For their lessons, the boys are taught how to float a cup or bottle, and then a trick involving levitating a pack of cards. The girls are shown a more interesting trick with a rising wand trick. Neither of the tricks are at all taxing, but as with most levitation tricks, the key is performing it in a convincing way. After a morning of practice the sorcerees are invited to a magic sports day.

The sports day will involve events that practice balance, poise and hand-eye coordination. The team leaders are chosen by drawing from a hat, and turn out to be Joe and Alexandra. Increasingly annoying Joe is determined to win, and justice prevails when the girls finally win. Joe is not happy.

After the afternoons activities the sorcerees are looking forward to their dinner. When they arrive at the dining room they find out that dinner will be crocodile kebabs. With great restraint, Max manages not to use a “and make it snappy” punchline, and moves onto a Losander floating table routine that astound the students. Joe is clearly still in a bad mood, and calls Max a liar stating that he thinks the crocodile kebabs are chicken. After dinner, Max summons Joe to his office, and tells him how disappointed he is with his behavior, and presenting him with a shrink wrapped pack of crocodile meat. Joe apologies are accepted by the Sorcerer, but I think this will count against him on the day of reckoning.

And so to the next day. For this evenings performance a number of magicians will be in the audience. These include Careena Fenton, Alex Lodge, Chris Lee, Angelo Carbone and Kevin Tasker. The performances are quite entertaining with Mehmet introducing his playing cards as One-dini, Two-dini … When it comes to Leonie’s performance of “Gypsy Rose”, she fails to take the stage as nerves get the better of her. The episode ends with a garden party and some of the guest magicians performing a few sleights. Max takes Leonie to one side and tells her she must overcome her nerves if she’s going to have a chance of winning.

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The girls are taught a trick involving a silk, a borrowed ring and a teddy bear demonstrated by Miss Evans. A volunteer from the audience is asked for a ring and are asked to hold it inside a silk. After a magical wave of the hand, the ring is shown to have transported from under the silk and into a box being held (visibly) by the teddy.

The boys are assembled by Mr Knight and showed a neat transportation trick whereby a piece of paper transports from under one cup into another by its side. This is accomplished by a careful tug of the spare paper that is attached by a thread to their wand.

The next day the sorcerees are assembled by a piano playing Max who points out that correct annunciation is critical to confidence on stage and that they would be receiving voice-coaching by actor, magician and coach Paul Rothman. The proceed to work on their speech and communication skills including a humerous part where they try the tongue twister “Chopsticks shops sell chopsticks”.

They spend the rest of the afternoon practicing until they see the audience arrive. The nerves start to show when the performers realise that this might be a difficult audience. We begin with “the boy with the million dollar smile” – Thomas Hewson who’s performance is flawless. Unfortunately as he leaves the stage he picks up his wand with its paper ball dangling from the thread like a fishing rod, leaving the audience with no doubt as to the secret behind the trick. This will cost him dearly with the Sorcerer. We run through each of the sorcerees with none of them giving astounding performances, and the audience getting bored. One audience member falls asleep, only being awoken by the ever annoying Joe Savage. Finally Frankie takes to the stage and completely fluffs his trick, but manages to keep the audience amused at least with his humour.

We end the episode with a review of the performances by Max who, it must be said, is looking might unimpressed. At this point it’s hard to say if any of the students will be good enough to become crowned the Sorcerer’s apprentice.

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The students are duly split into three mixed teams and demonstrated the rope escape trick they will be performing the following day. Whilst practice begins a rift starts to form in one of the teams between Mehmet and circus-girl Leonnie. Much bickering occurs between the two of them, mainly due to their strong personalities. When David Penn turns up to offer them advice, they are told to show “less arguments and more teamwork”.

After a moody lunch, the students are given a makeup lesson whilst musical Max gives us an impromptu performance of “keep young and beautiful” on the piano. The rest of the afternoon is spent practising, with Mehmet and Leonnie barely speaking.

The following day brings with it a couple more guests: Camilla Dallerup and Ian Waite from Strictly Come Dancing who, rather tenuously, are here to show the budding magicians how to command the stage and dazzle the audience. The girls and boys are paired up, including feuding pair Mehmet and Leonnie, and shown a few moves.

We finally arrive at the three performances in the theatre. The first group perform the rope escape by passing the rope through Megan, and perform really quite well. Next up are Rebecca, Elllie and Thomas with a routine they call “double trouble” and again this was performed quite well. Finally Mehmet, Leonnie and Frankie perform their routine that really didn’t work too well. Comments from the judges were “lots of bumbling”, “you lost it a bit” and “not enough substance in the choreography”. Mehmet is upset by his team’s performance, largely ruined by lack of practice due to all the in-fighting. After lunch the results are announced with the rope through Megan team winning, double trouble coming second and finally Mehmet, Frankie and Leonnie coming in last.

I found this episode less interesting than the previous ones, with too much focus on the infighting to allow the magic to come through. Hopefully tomorrow’s episode will be more entertaining.

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In true reality show fashion they all have to pack up their belongings into bags, as any of them could be asked to leave. After this, the rest of the day is spent choosing the effect they are going to perform and practicing on stage to Mr Knight. While deciding their ‘look’ on stage Mehmet decides upon a red mask and cape. Shortly after Sam is seen to be wearing a rather similar mask and cape presumably after copying Mehmet. Miss Evans is far from impressed by the rehearsal but hopes that the old adage “Bad rehearsal, good show” holds true.

During lunch Max announces that the audience will be made up of the sorcerees’ families and he brings out a bag full of numbered balls and each of the sorcerees draw from it to determine their order on stage for the performance. No one wants to be first on stage, and when Rebecca finally draws number one it brings her to tears (again). They are given the advice of “don’t let the audience faze you”.

And so we move on to the live performance. It begins with a magical introduction by Max who explains to the parents that the students have been shown vanishing and reappearance, illustrated by vanishing a cane that reappears in Miss Evans’ hand. Penetration was demonstrated with linking rings, and transformation by turning fire into potatoes by virtue of a dove-pan. The students then take the stage beginning with Rebecca demonstrating the limes and lemons trick using the theme of eating 5 fruit or vegetables a day. Mehmet gets a laugh coming onto stage wearing an enormous turban, and calling himself Small-dini. Ellie uses the magic command “cheezy-wheezy, easy peasy” to perform her trick, and then Harvey takes the stage to perform the silk into an egg trick. He manages to drop his fake egg onto the floor, and we wonder if we are going to see a repeat of the previous day’s storming off stage. He decides the show must go on, and finishes his trick. The drama continues when Megan, performing the eggs into balloons trick, forgets to bring her pin on stage to pop them at the end. She manages to keep the audience entertained, rushes off-stage to get a pin, and returns to complete the trick.

After the performances the Sorcerer, Mr Knight and Miss Evans retire to decide who stays and who goes, while the kids are briefly reunited with their families. With Max Somerset exclaiming “some people are just not cut out to be magicians” they return with the results. The four sorcerees who have to leave are to be Harvey, Rebecca (the one we haven’t seen much of), Sam and Ceanne. The other ten return to the school to continue into the second week.

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Todays theme is restoration and penetration with the boys shown a torn and restored tissue trick courtesy of Mr Tariq Knight. The girls, as taught by Miss Sophie Evans, are learning a more impressive trick that involves making eggs penetrate inflated balloons. Self-styled “Emo-Child” Ellie, fast becoming the star of the girls team, once again impresses us with her first attempt at the trick.

At the 11:00 milk and apples break Mr Knight discovers, horror of horrors, an abandoned wand. It turns out to be, no suprises here, Harvey’s and he is reprimanded for the third time this week. His punishment is to walk around the quad shouting “I love my magic wand” at the top of his voice.

The morning is interrupted by the arrival of a limousine containing Bradford’s own Dynamo (aka Stephen Frayne) complete with trademark cap and bling. He impresses the sorcerees with his brand of hip-hop shuffles and moves, followed by a card trick involving the selection of four cards that are then found and revealed one by one: one “jumps” off the deck, another is found in Dynamo’s back pocket and the other two remain after the rest of the pack disappears. The students are suitably impressed by his street-wise style, and are then excited to learn they are to be taught some moves by Dynamo’s own dance teacher. The students are paired up, and the section finishes with a humourous “dance-off”. Needless to say the increasingly annoying Joe takes this very seriously, and it’s quite funny when his team fails to be even slightly coordinated.

We then see Max for the first time today, arriving with a seemingly empty box. After everyone has pointed and waved their fingers around a bit, the previously empty box is now shown to be full of polystyrene chips and letters from the students respective families.

The next day is taken up with practice for the performance later that day. Miss Evans isn’t satisfied with the girls’ presentation, and so arranges an emergency lesson to sort them out.

The sorcerees are summoned to the Grand Theatre to perform their tricks. The girls go first, with Ellie giving her usual polished performance. All the girls perform well, with the exception of Rebecca.

The boys then begin their show, with it all going well until Harvey takes the stage. He performs the trick OK, but suddenly gets a bout of stage fright and forgets his lines. Instead of carrying on, he rushes off the stage and refuses to return. This results in the girls winning yet again, with a score of 454 to the boys 394. The episode ends with Max talking to Harvey, trying to bolster his confidence and to keep “his chin up”. He is told he can succeed with enough “dedication, discipline and detail”.

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As we would expect by now the students, or should I say sorcerees, are split into boys and girls to learn the day’s trick to be performed the following day. Miss Evans shows the girls a rather dull trick where a ball of cotton wool, a squeaker and a length of string are put into a top hat and transformed into a live white mouse. Some laughs are to be had as Ellie lets go of her mouse who promptly disappears up her large Victorian sleeves. It becomes apparent that Megan is afraid of picking up the mouse.

Meanwhile the boys, taught by Tariq Knight, are given a much better “sucker” trick where a silk is turned into an egg. We are led to believe that the silk is merely hidden inside a blown egg until for the finale the egg is cracked into a bowl and shown to be raw.

The next day begins with a workout with creepy Mr Greenhalgh, followed by a lesson in confidence building by Mr Knight and Miss Evans. This involved each student having to perform something outrageous to the others; needless to say Joe jumped straight in with a belly dancing routine.

The morning is brightened up by the arrival of French magicians Eric Leblon and Etienne Pradier complete with comedy bicycle, onions, beret and striped shirt. They demonstrate how to turn a piece of paper into a £20 note followed by a comedy “cracking fingers” and stretchy thumb effect. The “typically French” lunch of frogs legs and snails soon wiped the smile off the sorcerees’ faces, and no doubt guaranteed indigestion for the afternoon performance.

The performances were much improved from the last episode’s disaster. Highlights include Megan predictably overcoming her fear of the mouse, Joe’s unexpected robot dance and Ellie’s dropped wand. The girls won yet again with a score of 446 to the boys 401 out of a maximum of 700.

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After being split into girls and boys, the teachers then demonstrate the tricks the apprentices are required to learn ready for a performance the following day. The boys are taught a coin vanish using a pencil, length of invisible thread and a magnet; whereas the girls learn about producing lemons and limes from a mat (again using invisible thread).

After lunch is produced in front of the children from a series of dove pans, Max Somerset sets the tone warning there “can be only one apprentice”.

The following morning after breaking the rules the previous evening by entering the girls dormitory, and then ignoring house mistress Miss Ford, Harvey gets sent to the Sorcerer’s office for a reprimand. He is punished by having to spend most of the day with Mr Greenhalgh contemplating his behaviour, and more critically missing practice time and the morning lessons. These consist of being taught the art of misdirection through demonstrations of pickpocketing and the “throw paper over your head” vanish.

After lunch Harvey returns and the students are required to perform their tricks in front of Max, Tariq and Sophie. The performances are far from polished with only Tomos and Rebecca actually successfully performing the tricks. This resorted in the girls winning the first challenge 460 to 289 out of a maximum of 700 points. Much improvement will be required if the students are to succeed.

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