Sorcerer’s Apprentice Episode Six

"Less arguments and more teamwork"

Sorcerer’s Apprentice 1 The episode begins with Max Somerset telling the sorcerees that todays theme will be escapology, and with that shows the students a “1930’s hand shackle”, asking them to check that the bar is solid. Max is locked into the cuffs, with his hands behind his back, and turns back to face the students. As he introduces one of today’s guests, David Penn, he reveals that his hands are in fact free. David Penn is described as an escapologist, but he is more well known as a close-up magician having won the “Magic Circle Close Up Magician of the Year” in 1994. He proceeds to show us the villagers’ revenge: a wooden frame that unruly villagers were strapped into to have things thrown at them as a punishment. His neck, chest, wrist, knees and ankles are constrained with ropes. Miss Evans then pulls the curtain around him, and no sooner has she done it, the curtain is reopened to show that he has swapped places with Sophie Evans. The sorcerees are informed that they will have just 24 hours to perfect their own act.

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.