Now You See Me Live Turns the London Coliseum Into a Scorpion-Mouthed Card Trick Machine

Now You See Me Live | London Coliseum until 6 September 2026

Scorpions, a need for subtitles and a very suspicious calculator!

Now You See Me Live takes the premise of the Now You See Me films, heist thrillers about a gang of stage illusionists known as the Four Horsemen who use elaborate magic tricks to pull off increasingly outlandish crimes, and turns it back into precisely the kind of stage show the films were dreamed up to evoke. This live illusion show has already toured Australia and Singapore and has now arrived in London for a summer season at the London Coliseum, currently featuring seventeen-year-old Britain’s Got Talent finalist Rafferty Coope as part of the company.

I’ll admit I gave up on the films after the first one because there’s no real sense of how any of it would actually work, it’s all cutting and CGI. A friend of mine, who performs stage magic and illusion, confirmed as much: none of the tricks in the film could be done for real. On stage, of course, they have no such luxury. It all has to happen in front of you, even if it is still trickery through and through.

The London Coliseum is a vast space, so there’s a huge LED screen above the performers to bring the close-up card work to everyone in the room, a proper video set-up, not the kind of thing you’d get in a Jamie Lloyd production, just a clear colour feed trained on the magician and members of the audience. Even if you’re up in the gods, you’ll see exactly what’s going on.

Beyond that, there’s barely a plot to speak of, save the occasional passing reference to the Four Horsemen. What you get instead is a straightforward, slick, well-oiled illusion machine.

My friend told me, rather cruelly, that I was the worst possible audience member for a show like this: asked to imagine a sport for one sequence, I immediately thought of tiddlywinks. He is also the worst person to take along, because he spent half the evening telling me exactly how things were done, “I’ve got a box like that, I can do that”, except for one illusion, which stumped even him. That was the one where the performers apparently teleport and then show you video, supposedly filmed earlier, of items they’ve only just collected from members of the audience. Although subsequently he did get an idea of how this was done.

The company is a genuinely international one. Enzo Weyne, a French illusionist, needs subtitles, you’ll struggle to catch half of what he says, but you can always see exactly what he’s doing, and he’s terrific. Andrew Basso, an Italian escapologist, was my favourite and needs no subtitles at all; he has tremendous stage presence and charisma, which even impressed hard-to-please Tom! At one point he performs an illusion while being slapped about the face by a member of the audience, with a live scorpion in his mouth. I did wonder if it might be some sort of trick prop, but Tom assured me it was entirely real. Matthew Pomeroy hosts and handles the card work, while Gabriella Lester covers escapology and various other bits and pieces.

Other magicians at the performance I attended had less to do. Rafferty Coope served as essentially a warm-up act, with one of his tricks briefly revealed on the large video screen. Fraser Penman also had a small spot, but a real highlight was Eden Choi and his truly magical card work.

My one disappointment was the finale: a calculator trick involving audience members shouting out random numbers, which Pomeroy then inputs into a calculator, leading to a miraculous conclusion that I won’t spoil. I’ve seen this trick done before, but with the audience using their phones to follow along, which is far more impressive. In this version, because you never actually see what’s being typed in, the performer could, in theory, have entered anything at all, which rather undercut the moment.

Unlike some of the shows I’ve reviewed lately, this one is a genuine family outing. There were plenty of children present on the night I attended, and it was great to see them enjoying it. Different performers rotate throughout the run, so you’ll see a different set of tricks depending on when you go. If you’ve never seen a show like this, it’s well worth attending to experience it for yourself and try to figure out how it’s all done.

A slick, family-friendly illusion, escapology, and card trick show featuring a neat teleportation trick and a scorpion-in-the-mouth showstopper. The calculator finale slightly underwhelms, but it’s well worth a look.

EyeOnLondon says take the kids, take a sceptical friend who does magic themselves, and enjoy watching the scorpion trick more than the calculator one.

For more London arts and culture, visit EyeOnLondon at eye-on-london.com.

[Image credits | Johan Persson]

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