★★★★

“it’s gaudy, funny and charming”

And for my final trick, I’ll let you in on the joke!

Hailing from the USA, Penn & Teller are magic’s favourite double act and Las Vegas’ longest running residency in history. They are celebrating the 50th anniversary of their extraordinary career with a show that promises brand new tricks and a healthy dose of slapstick comedy. Penn is the charismatic showman, leading audience interaction with irreverent off-the-cuff commentary. Teller is the silent and goofy trickster. Together, they let us into their world where reason and logic will be tested. We skirt to the edge of our seats. We laugh! But are we fooled?

Exiting the theatre, I overheard an audience member describing the show as a comedy act with magic – and that might just be the sum of it. You would expect the self-described ‘kings of magic’ to blow you away with an act that makes you truly question how it was pulled off. However, though some tricks will make you scratch your head a bit, the magic aspect of the show is surprisingly lack-lustre. The show consists of content we haven’t seen from them before, but the tricks themselves are not new – rather, they are repackaged, and their success relies on highly creative presentation. Maybe it’s unfair to expect something truly unique when reinvention is the true nature of the magician’s craft. This pair of magicians are celebrating fifty years of mastering theirs. If you are expecting someone to convince you that you are witnessing a new magic trick, you would expect it from performers with their level of experience – especially when they make that promise at the top of the show. To our disappointment, they fall short on that promise but that’s also the key to their brand identity.

The show is a spectacle with playful costumes, piles of confetti and lots of audience participation. Gradually it becomes clear that the aim of the show is not to trick your brain, but to use the magician’s craft to deliver a punchline with ‘the magician’ as the butt of the joke. That’s Penn & Teller. In this show, with grand promises of performing miracles, they draw your attention to the obvious deception of magic. As they have done in the past, they also sometimes explain the mechanics of a trick with a demonstration before performing it again on a larger scale with added obstacles. Penn & Teller are showmen who lean into the concept of the magician as the conman who never reveals his secrets. What makes them special is that they are honest conmen, so whilst their tricks might not be unique, they are. I am convinced that one of their tricks, which is performed as a means to prove that they don’t use stooges in the show, is ironically and purposefully their only trick that is actually pulled off with a stooge – which is hilarious! They have built their brand on persona and letting the audience in on the joke so we can all laugh about it. It’s gaudy, funny and charming – resulting in a decades long career that deserves celebration.

Penn & Teller deliver a roaring comedy act about magic – with magic. With deception in plain sight, they might just have you fooled. Do not miss this show and find out why Penn & Teller are the ‘kings of magic’.

PEAKY BLINDERS: THE REDEMPTION OF THOMAS SHELBY

Sadler’s Wells Theatre

★★★★

“a mesmerising cacophony of movement”

Welcome to the show! No phones. No photos. And NO. F—ING. FIGHTING.

Thomas Shelby has survived the war and is free to do as he pleases. At least until he is pursued by the law, a woman and death itself. How will he fight back?

This dance iteration of Peaky Blinders is written by the series’ creator Steven Knight with direction and choreography by Rambert’s Artistic Director Benoit Swan Pouffer. The story starts in Flanders, where Thomas and his brothers face the devastation of WW1 on the front lines. Pouffer’s direction is cinematic, epic and foreboding. The sound design (Moshik Kop) simultaneously pins your body to your seat and absorbs your mind into the space. A trench cracks open and soldiers drag their bodies into the light. Spotlights direct the spectator’s gaze amongst a swarm of combatting performers. Immediately you understand that the laws of physics do not apply to Rambert’s dancers. They leap and soar as if they have never been incumbered by the burden of gravity. Featuring the soundtrack from the series (musical direction by Yaron Engler), you will certainly require your red right hand to pick your jaw up from the floor. This show is grand, sexy and gives you a craving for whiskey.

The lawless Shelby brothers have returned from the war and are known as the Peaky Blinders. They are bookmakers, money launderers and occasional protectors of their fellow man. Knight’s stage adaptation focuses on the relationship between Thomas, the Peaky Blinders’ leader, and Grace – the woman with a gun who could steal more than his secrets. Narrowing the focus of the story for the purpose of translating it to dance does come with its setbacks. For fans of the series, Thomas’ life is reduced to a romantic tragedy. For those who are encountering the story for the first time, there is an obvious lack of visibility of Thomas’ brothers as the show progresses. In both cases, this unfortunately makes it difficult for the audience to feel the full emotional depth of the events transpiring onstage.

Despite this lapse in storytelling, Knight and Pouffer have done a brilliant job of capturing the mood and aesthetic that we associate with Peaky Blinders. The first act fully immerses us in Birmingham as it is experienced by the Shelby brothers. With Moi Tran’s set designs and Richard Gellar’s costumes, the world of the TV series is reimagined for the stage. Dancers become units in a production line of a factory. Carousel horses are paraded around the ring before they are mounted and raced by jockeys. Burlesque dancers take us to a nightclub. Tran’s design of the raised stage allows Pouffer to be expansive with his direction and the dancers to move on multiple plains. The result is a mesmerising cacophony of movement, made up of duets and solos that sporadically come together to create a snapshot of the ensemble.

The first act has the tenacity of a pub brawl. The second act is the tremble of aftershock. There is a significant shift in pacing. Thomas Shelby (Conor Kerrigan) is the centrepiece of the longer dance sequences, and he is at magnificent full force. There is a satisfying similitude between Thomas’ mental state and the restlessness of his movement, but his character journey feels stagnant throughout the second act. This being said, the choreography in the second act will leave you breathless, so we’ll let it slide.

Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby is a beautiful and ambitious production. The show truly captures the feeling of the TV series and will transport you to the reimagined world of Peaky Blinders. Death might be coming for Thomas Shelby, but no one can come for Rambert’s dancers – they are masters of their craft.

PENN & TELLER 50 YEARS OF MAGIC

London Palladium

★★★★

“it’s gaudy, funny and charming”

PENN & TELLER 50 YEARS OF MAGIC

London Palladium

Reviewed on 13th September 2025

by Lara van Huyssteen

Photography by Joan Marcus from performance at Radio City Music Hall

Previously reviewed at this venue:

PENN

PENN

PENN

PEAKY BLINDERS: THE REDEMPTION OF THOMAS SHELBY

Sadler’s Wells Theatre

★★★★

“a mesmerising cacophony of movement”