The Illusionistis- Witness the Impossible

I could not find this year’s performance at Neil Simon Theatre so I am writing my review on the last year’s event.
My 13-​year-​old daughter and I truly enjoyed the show. It was a great mix of comedy and magic. The guys were all good but the absolutely wonderful one, the highlight of the show was Yu– Ho Jin AKA Manipulator. Despite his young age, he is a master!
There are a couple of parts of the show that I would have not wanted my daughter to see if she was younger. So if your young one is faint of heart, you may want to be careful. Saying that there were plenty of kids in the audience. And if you are planning to buy seats in the few front rows, prepare to be pulled on the stage!

An OK night out but nothing to write home about.
Wish some of the magic tricks weren’t so obvious. For example – Yu Ho-Jin’s act where he procures card decks from thin air – when he is turned sideways you can actually see him taking the cards out of the back of his jacket where he had pockets (we had seats close to the stage and a little left of center, so we got a pretty good view of this). Also, his jacket got conspicuously thinner as he neared the end of the act.
The trick where Kevin James makes the paper figures move while not touching them was done with the magician crouched with his back to the audience all the way at the front of the theater and not even up on the stage, so you couldn’t really see what he was doing. It was clear that they were using a taped reel, which they were showing the audience on a large screen mounted on the stage (they relied on this quite heavily throughout the show) to manipulate the figurines – a cheap trick, especially for Broadway. I have to say, Kevin James’ tricks were probably the least interesting and least skilled part of the show, relying mainly on contraptions.
It was also clear that the Belgian archer, who was standing in the aisle of the theater when he dispatched his arrow, didn’t actually shoot the arrow at the apple on the stage. Sperry’s Russian roulette trick fell flat when he guessed where the bottle neck was well before the trick was over (in favor of not impaling an audience member’s hand on it – obviously the right choice), revealing the mechanism and concluding the trick early. And the guy doing the Houdini underwater escape act? He can basically hold his breath for 3 minutes – that’s the whole trick right there.
This show has shiny bells and whistles but if you’re looking for magic, it’s not that great a magic show. It was really easy to guess the mechanisms behind most of the tricks, which was disappointing. I feel like I could have just stayed home and watched a better magic show on TV, ie Penn & Teller Fool Us.
The highlight of the show was Dan Sperry doing the trick with the doves and also Jeff Hobson, who was very funny. I would recommend this as a fun night out if you have money to burn but if you are buying these tickets as a present for someone who is a fan of magic, they will be disappointed (unless they are a young child). Likewise, if you don’t have money to burn, this show isn’t worthwhile.

Awesome! Awesome!
My husband and I went tonight, we sat in the 2^nd row.
The magicians are awesome and leave you wondering how they did their acts.
Magic and some comedy all in one. They do pull people from the audience which makes it funnier.