The Houdini Experience

Glamorous assistant gets in box. Glamorous assistant waves goodbye to audience. Magician makes glamorous assistant disappear from box. Audience applauds. It’s a trick we’ve all seen before and in Hans Klok’s new show The Houdini Experience it is well and truly exhausted.

Performing in London for the first time, Dutch illusionist Klok packs his debut show with entertaining magic staples, including levitating tables and conjuring cards from his fingertips, but with a two and a half hour running time the rapid yet constant disappearing acts feel like fodder to spend a few minutes.

It’s during Klok’s acts of escapology that the show comes into its own. As a homage to Harry Houdini, Klok’s daring escape exploits, from being chained and submerged in a tank of water to hanging in a straight jacket from a burning piece of rope between ‘The Jaws of Death’, pitch him at his enthusiastic and skillful best. We know he’s going to get himself out of whatever predicament he’s willingly got himself into, but it gets the pulse racing and you can’t help but wonder how he does it – and so quickly.

When Klok needs a break, or a costume change, a number of special guests take to the boards. Zhang Fan’s award winning balance act on the slack wire is edge-of-the-seat stuff and a turn from the mighty acrobat duo Leosvel and Diosmani puts most people’s six packs to shame. However, it’s an exceptional pair of contortionists called Duo You and Me that really impress with their uncomfortable and frequently impossible looking poses.

On the night, a high-speed rollerskating display from Italian trio MG Team went wrong resulting in one of the team suffering a genuine injury and it really brought home how dangerous this territory can be. Klok himself admits to taking training with Hollywood stuntmen so that he can fall properly in case one of his illusions goes wrong.

It’s been a while since a magic show has graced a London stage and discounting Klok’s perfectly blow-dried mullet and rhinestone waistcoats The Houdini Experience is a spectacle that will capture the capital’s imagination.

The Houdini Experience is running until March 25 at:

Peacock Theatre
Portugal Street
Aldwych
WC2A 2HT

Tel: 0844 412 4322

Photo by Nico Koster