Ben Earl: Trick Artist (2013) s01e01 Episode Script
Crime
1 I was 12 years old.
Saw a book on sleight of hand in my local library.
Stole it.
I've been obsessed ever since by the art of deception.
I spent a lot of my early 20s in casinos developing those skills, allowing me to do things like this.
We're going to leave that in, face up, so if I leave it face up, you'll actually see the exact moment that that comes up.
Years of training have led me to my biggest challenge yet - a series of shows where I invite a select group of people to join me, and with them I'll create stories I hope they'll never forget.
Oh, my! Oh my God! Ah! My urine has turned purple.
How has he managed to do this? Absolutely baffled.
I'm just going to bring you round to here.
Oh, my God! How did you do that? Wow! Hello, Ben.
It's now red.
Mind-blowing.
Close the door.
Close, close! Welcome to Trick Artist.
In tonight's show, all the tricks are about crime.
So what better place to start than in a prison with three ex-cons? My name is Derek Jones.
I've done two and a half years in prison.
My name is Jason Cooke, and I've done four years and one month in prison.
My name is Charles Young, and I've done just over 20 years in prison.
Now, I know you guys have all spent time in prison, and I'm not going to ask you about that.
I don't want to glorify prisons in any way, but I would be lying if I didn't say I was fascinated by the stories of deceit and deception.
Now, prisons are places where commonplace objects take on different meanings inside.
For example, if we had a pen, a pen is just a pen in everyday life, but in prison this is potentially quite a deadly weapon.
You often have to conceal these or hide them, or you can't get them in in the first place.
Derek, can I ask you to look after this pen for me? Can you put it in your hat? My hat? Yeah.
You don't have a hat? That's fine.
I don't have a pen.
So, sleight of hand is a major part of what I do, and I thought it would be fascinating to come to a place like this and see what I could do with severely restricted hand movement.
Um, hence why these are here.
So, I want you to check those out.
Those are standard issue handcuffs.
OK? I'm going to put these on.
That's number one.
Could you put this on for me? OK.
Now, do one of you guys have a cigarette paper, something like that, or some Yes? I'll take those for you for a second.
OK.
Just take one of those.
If you take that back.
Sorry about this, I can't move my hands too far apart.
Now, there was a story about Baden-Powell, who was the leader of the Scout movement, I believe, and during the Boer War, he was apparently masquerading as, like, a wandering or travelling botanist, and what he would do was draw pictures of butterflies, and then within the patterns of the wings he would actually disguise maps and plans and stuff like this, and it was rumoured that prisoners actually used some of those images and plans to actually formulate escape plans.
It turned out to be rubbish, but nevertheless I thought it would be interesting taking that idea that had come from this world to do something Something like this.
Let's see if we can try this.
- Is it real? - Yeah, it is real.
Yep.
Now, as much as myself and the butterfly are having fun, I really don't want to stay in these all day, so can I borrow another Rizla, Jason? Is that OK? Now, what I need you to do is draw the shape of a key on that for me, on the Rizla.
So just take a Rizla out and just draw a key on there for me.
That's it.
If you want to take that from me.
OK.
Perfect.
OK.
Just here It's been fun, but I've got to go.
Excellent.
Fantastic.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Charles.
Now it's time to get a select group of people to come here and join me.
Identity fraud is something that can easily affect us all, so I wanted to try something involving their personal documents and a shredder.
Now, I don't know about any of you guys, but I shred all of my personal documents.
I don't have anything to hide in particular, it just seems like a good way to protect yourself against identity theft.
We've all heard of those stories in films and TV where you have a load of children who have been employed by some crime syndicate to piece back together shredded documents with Sellotape, and you see this kind of frayed piece of paper, but you can kind of roughly piece together all of that information.
Scary, right? Now, I think there's a way to still get that information but without using Sellotape, so that's what we're going to do.
Now, I've asked a number of you to all bring bank statements or credit card statements or personal documents with you.
Can we have a show of hands for the people that have that? Or just hold your envelopes up, just so I know who actually has brought them.
I know not everyone who managed to Can I use you? Is that OK? Sorry, what's the name? - Constantine.
- Constantine? - Yeah.
- Excellent.
Is that OK if we use this? - Yeah, wonderful.
Sounds great.
- It's wonderful? Great, OK.
Now, is this a bank statement? Is it a credit card bill? - Bank statement.
- It's a bank statement? - Yeah.
- Perfect, OK.
And you don't mind if we shred it? - No.
No? - No, I don't mind.
Would you do me a favour? Take it out of the envelope for me, but keep the information away from me.
Yeah.
OK? And I'll take the envelope.
I'll take the envelope.
Done.
OK? Great.
Now, just come over here just a little bit.
- Yeah.
- Just stand over there for me.
Now, hand me the thing, but keep the information facing outwards, away from me.
Keep the information facing away.
So we're going to put this There we go.
Wow.
OK.
Now, do you think that you could possibly read any of the information on that, bar a couple of tiny digits? - Unbelievable.
- No? - I cannot believe it.
- I've only shredded your document.
Have you seen a shredder before? No, it's my first time.
Your first time? We could just stop there with this marvel This marvel of office technology.
I'm glad you're impressed by that, OK, I'll be honest with you.
What I'm It's fine.
What I'm going to try and do is, um, get some of that information back.
Let's see.
Let's have a look.
Mm.
Amazon.
You spent money at Amazon? I bought about 10, 15 books from there.
You are eating it all, man! I am, yeah.
Um, did you take out some money on Oxford Street from your cash machine? I think it was around £250.
Yeah, yeah.
He's right.
Good.
That's fine.
I nearly gagged then.
Oh, man! This is the part I meant about doing it without Sellotape.
Constantine OK, now You are great.
250 on Oxford - yes.
Amazon stores.
Yeah, that's fine.
I just needed to check.
I didn't know what I was eating, for a second.
But anyway, look.
Here's Take this for me.
I know it's disgusting.
It is yours.
It is yours.
It's mine.
Go and sit down.
Thank you.
Guys, give him a round of applause.
He was brilliant.
Thank you.
Oh, my God! In tonight's show, all the tricks are about crime.
I've invited a select group of people to show them the tricks I've been working on.
I invited one of them down to my basement, where I'll pretend to teach him about pick-pocketing, but really I'll be fleecing him of everything he has.
Pablo, thanks for coming.
Thank you.
Now, I've always been hugely interested in the world of conmen, hustlers, card grifters and pickpockets, especially pickpockets.
So we've set up a training room, if you will, where we have nine pickpockets, who are part of a crew, and we have a guy who's going to be the mark, or the victim.
Now, the reason they were called the mark goes back to the days of the carnival and the fun fair, where you would have someone physically marked with a piece of chalk.
They would mark them on the back and then the rest of the crew would know that that's the person everyone's going to steal some stuff from.
Right.
Now, the way in which you would know what that stuff was is you would actually do a technique called fanning, or fanning the mark, Where you would get in close and actually touch and feel where objects would be.
In this case I know that you have a wallet and a phone.
Is that right? Yeah.
OK.
Now, do you have something in your pockets, a sweet or a key or a coin or something A coin.
Perfect.
Put it back in your pocket.
What I'm going to do is teach you a technique called the bounce.
First of all, if you could just come side on for me, so we can see this.
What's going to happen is this, we're actually going to go straight into the pocket like this.
We just bounce that coin, it's a bit tight here, but just bounce it up to the point where you can catch it.
Now, the problem is, er, I might want to actually ditch that off to someone, um, so what you would do is this.
As you're talking, I'm adjusting them, and now that actually should be back in the pocket, which you can go inside and actually check to make sure that's in there.
Yeah, it is.
OK? Take that out.
Right, now, put it back in.
Make sure it's going back inside.
At some point, I'm going to try and get that coin out of your pocket, OK? Right.
Now, I'm going to teach you the pinch, and this is by using two fingers like this, we can actually pinch stuff out of the pocket.
I'm going to teach you that.
First of all, I know you have a wallet.
I do.
Can we take that out for me for a second? Sure.
Now, keeping it in the front side of the pocket is good, because that way it stays, you know, very close to you.
We'll leave that back there for a second.
Bring that round.
What we're going to do is actually, Sebastian here keeps a wallet in the same position, so we're going to go over and try that with him.
- So if we both walk over here, yeah? - Yeah.
What I'm going to do is show you how to do this for real, and we're going to do this by going inside and pinching this out.
So what will happen is you'll come in the side, use these fingers as pinching, you go straight inside, dip, pull this out, and go over the shoulder, OK? So it goes past his peripheral vision.
OK? So remember, these two fingers, you're going to come in, you're going to dip inside and then take that out.
OK? Straight over his shoulder.
Now, I want you to carry on walking this way, but as you do, there's a pocket here.
I want you to ditch that in the pocket and then carry on walking.
Carry on walking.
Brilliant.
If you come over here, I'll show you what to do.
By the way, do you still have the coin? Yes, I do.
Do me a favour.
Put your hand directly into your pocket.
That's it.
Directly inside.
Check to make sure that coin is actually there.
- Can you really, really, genuinely feel that? - I do.
Yes? Right.
Let go of the coin.
Take your hand out for a second.
Just take it all the way out.
Leave it in there.
I need to adjust James for just a moment.
Let me try this here, and here.
Just need to adjust him a little bit.
Um, now, at the beginning I said that this was about training you to take some stuff off of the mark, but really, James wasn't the mark.
Um, James is just the guy that holds all the stuff.
Pablo, you were the mark.
This wasn't about the coin.
What I was trying to do was focus your attention on something which I wasn't interested in, and nor were the rest of these guys.
It's just a £2 coin.
It's just in your pocket.
What's really valuable would be your wallet and your phone.
Those things would be very, very interesting.
Do you mind if we use your wallet for something? Yeah, no problem.
It's not here any more.
OK, that's interesting.
Let's go have a look in here.
Just go inside that pocket for me.
Oh, my God.
Oh, fuck me! Oh, shit! Just make sure everything's still inside.
Oh, yes.
Perfect.
How long do you think that whole process took? I don't know.
Five minutes? Five minutes, maybe less.
But how would you know if you're not wearing a watch? Oh, come on! Oh, my God, I can't believe it! Let me just try something.
What's your telephone number? Can I just, er in fact, don't call it out loud.
Just punch your number in for me.
Just give it a ring.
Push "call".
Oops I think James is holding onto something for you.
Holy fuck! You don't have to answer it.
That's fine.
We both know who it is.
It's me.
Thank you very much.
When I think about crime, I tend to think about it from the movies, with guns and stuff.
I wanted to enter that world, so I decided to update the classic bullet catch trick, but this time in a way that involves penetrating bullet-proof glass.
- Hi, guys.
How are we all doing? - Good.
Thank you all for coming to this underground firing range somewhere in the south of England, where, today, I'm going to attempt to catch a bullet.
Now, the way in which it's traditionally done is, a marksman would take aim at a performer's head, and the performer would catch it in his teeth.
Now, that's always seemed a little bit preposterous to me, so I'm going to attempt to do it slightly differently.
Now, the way in which I'm going to try and do this is by firing ten bullets repeatedly at the same point on a sheet of bullet-resistant glass, so that by that tenth bullet, that glass, I'm told, should be weak enough so that when that bullet goes through, the velocity is just at the point where it's possible to catch, and a hole in the hand, I'm told, is better than a hole in the head.
So, Emilia, you will be firing the bullets today, is that right? Yes.
We're going to be firing these 9mm full-metal jacket Parabellum rounds.
So we're now going to fire a test round and see this glass in action.
So that was ten bullets fired at ten different points on the glass.
Can we now go through and have a look at those? Yes, by all means.
Roger, you are an expert when it comes to this bullet-resistant glass.
Can you explain what has actually happened to this glass? We fired at the glass.
Um, we can see the bullet marks that have been left.
We can see the dust on the front where the bullet has actually hit the glass.
We can see from the back the bullet's not come through at all.
The polycarbonate works like a baseball glove.
It's effectively caught what we shot at it.
OK, but if we were to shoot all of those ten shots in the same spot Then you will penetrate the polycarbonate.
But it should be going, hopefully, at a slow enough speed that it's possible that I might be able to catch it.
Um, it will be going slower.
I'm not sure about the possibilities of catching it.
OK.
Well, thanks, that's great.
Thanks a lot.
Right.
So let's go and load the glass.
So, Shaz, I'm going to put my hand here.
I want you to draw a circle on the outside of that glass.
We're going to line that circle up with the laser, and then that's where my hand is going to go.
OK? Is that going through the circle? Yes.
So the laser is now going through the circle on the outside of the glass and directly onto the middle of my hand, so I'm going to have to ask everyone else to go back to the safety of the viewing gallery, while we load the ammunition.
We're just getting ready for Ben to actually catch the bullet.
I'm really nervous for him.
He actually looks quite nervous because it could literally end in disaster.
The whole experience is absolutely nerve-racking.
I personally don't know how he's going to catch an actual bullet.
He has everything set up, so The man's unbelievable.
I just hope he can do it.
Live ammunition loaded.
First round.
Fire.
Second round.
Fire.
Third round.
Fire.
Fourth round.
Fire.
Fifth round.
Fire.
Sixth round.
Fire.
Seventh round.
Fire.
Eighth round.
Fire.
Ninth round.
Fire.
Tenth round.
Fire.
No fucking way! He caught it! Oh, my god! He caught it! My heart's in my throat.
I'm actually shaking.
I honestly can't believe he just caught a bullet.
That is heavy.
It's actually heavy.
You are literally Superman! You are Superman.
It's just mind-blowing.
Oh, my god.
In tonight's show, all the tricks are about crime.
I've invited a select group of people to show them the tricks I've been working on.
In this show about crime, I think it's only right I mention one I've committed, no matter how small.
Now, the first thing is to do with a crime that I committed when I was a child.
Yeah, that's right.
It was stealing Jelly Babies.
Unlike most children that maybe steal something, you get dragged back to the shop by your parents and made to apologise.
That didn't happen to me.
I kind of got away with it, essentially.
Um, no-one knew about it.
Well, until tonight.
Sorry, Mum.
But there were consequences.
I had nightmares for a couple of years about Jelly Babies.
It was just guilt.
You know, I was raised well.
So we're going to do something with that.
I'm going to show you what was going on in my head.
I asked one of you, I don't know where you are, I asked you to hold Here we go.
Yes, that's fine.
Thank you very much.
And also would you mind standing up, coming up here for me? Thank you very much.
Round of applause.
Sorry, what's the name? Cody.
Thank you very much, Cody.
So, as you can see, we have orange, pink and a green jelly baby.
One of the weird things was this.
I'll try and do this so that you can all see.
So the pink jelly baby, what that would do is actually essentially pop into life.
Oh! What?! Then this one would essentially change and transform into a black one.
Then this huge head would come out of the sky with teeth, and what that would do is literally reach down like this Literally bite the head off that jelly baby, and then, um Pop back like that.
And it would come back together.
I would then eat it.
Um, this doesn't seem like a nightmare at the moment, but believe me, at the time it was quite terrifying.
So you and I are going to share some Jelly Babies.
OK.
I've only got red ones.
Now, I'll be really honest with you.
- It's Cody, is that right? - Yeah.
The red ones were the ones that were in the middle of my nightmares, so I said, "Please don't give me the red ones.
" You have left that red one.
Don't eat it.
This one is literally the stuff of my nightmares.
OK.
Only he'd never look this small.
He'd look more like this.
Oh, my God! Crime fiction is a huge industry.
Millions of people share a fascination with crime stories, so I thought I'd have a go at writing one myself, with the help of three specific members of the group who are all massive crime novel enthusiasts.
Hi, thanks for coming.
Now, I understand you guys are all avid readers of crime novels.
Well, I have an idea for the plot of a crime story in my head.
I'm hoping that today the three of you can actually help me write the crime story.
So, the first decision that you're going to make today is I want you to walk around this car park and choose a car that maybe you think would fit a crime story.
Too small.
That's too flash.
Something nondescript with a decent boot space.
That could work, you know.
It could be anything, in a certain light.
This is the one.
Yeah, I think so.
Ben! So what have you gone for? This beautiful specimen.
Right, this is almost exactly the car that I had in mind.
Susan, I happen to have a feeling that maybe you already possess the key for this car.
Have a search.
Oh my God.
I don't believe it.
Now, let's just see if this is the right Yeah, it is.
Oh, my gosh! Perfect.
In fact, I actually have something, some packages for you guys in the boot here.
If we have a look inside.
put those about your person somewhere.
Hide them.
We're going to come back to those a bit later on.
The next thing we're going to do is go for a bit of a drive.
Now that you've picked a car, we're going to put some cameras in it to record the next bit.
While they're doing that, you guys need to decide which seats you want to sit in.
I have to drive, for insurance reasons.
OK.
You go in the front.
Short legs in the back.
Yeah.
OK, so let's go.
Thank you.
As you guys know, everything in a crime story happens for a reason.
Like, for example, where characters may choose to sit.
So, Claire and Susan, if you just, er have a look above your heads there.
Oh! Oh, no! And Mark, if you just pull down this at the front, you should have a We are now going to go on a drive.
I don't know where.
I'm going to leave it up to you to decide.
I want you to tell me to turn left or right, and we'll see where we end up.
Take a left.
Turn left here.
Right.
Right, OK.
Where am I going? Left.
This one? Where shall we stop? Shall we look for something interesting-looking? Is that a turning? OK, so we've arrived at this location by random choice.
Now, just like you had the key in your pocket for the car wouldn't it be great if somehow we had a key to that padlock? Maybe if Oh, no! If the key to that padlock was this key That's so funny.
Mark, just jump out and see if that clicks.
Oh, my God! OK.
So, we are now nearing the end of the story that I've had in mind.
As you guys probably know, with any stolen car, it's never a good idea to leave your fingerprints all over it, and I think you guys may have.
Oh! So, with that in mind, we have to now decide how this story is going to end.
We could either just walk away and abandon it, or we could torch it.
Or we could crush it with the gigantic car-crushing machine that you can see behind you.
Now, this is a decision that I want you guys to make, and whatever you decide is what we are going to do.
OK.
Right, well OK.
What's behind us? The biggest crusher in the world? We're going to get lost amongst all the crushed cars, rather than torch it, and then you've got a torched car amongst the crushed cars, Definitely.
Are we saying? Let's crush it, guys.
I think so.
We're here, so Yeah, let's crush it.
I think it'll be kind of fun, as well.
Yeah, it could be quite fun.
Crushing it.
OK.
Crushing it, definitely.
What's that? Oh, God! What the? What's that? What is it? Oh, shit! We were going to crush that! Have you made a decision? Crush it, definitely.
Brilliant.
Ah! Wow! Whoa! You guys all have packages on you, which you've had since the very beginning.
Take them out.
We're going to open them up.
This is that crime novel that I've had in my head.
OK? Well, I say "novel".
I mean, there's no actual content whatsoever.
But there is a rather wordy title.
I'll read it loud for you.
So this is "The incredible story of the three crime writers "who all stole a Vauxhall Vectra, all sat in the correct seats, "drove randomly for 14 minutes, stopped at a scrapyard "for which they happened to have the key, found a man in the boot, "made a decision and ended up crushing a car that wasn't theirs, "which the police would now like to speak them about.
" 'Solitary confinement is used by prisons as the ultimate punishment.
' 'I wanted to experiment with the idea.
' 'The truth is that no prison would lock me up in solitary confinement, 'but there is a place where the isolation effects 'are potentially worse, 'and I had a feeling that I had a way of coping with that isolation.
' If you'd like to follow me.
This is an anechoic chamber.
The anechoic chamber is a very, very quiet room.
Sound gets absorbed straight away.
As soon as you go in there, it feels strange.
You don't say it sounds strange, or, "I can't hear anything".
You just think, "This feels strange".
I feel like I can't breathe as much now.
Some people can handle it.
There's a fair few that can't handle it, who walk straight out, or will just seem very, very still, cold and clammy.
Now, one of the most severe forms of punishment is solitary confinement.
The idea of that is to separate a person from all human contact, so that they experience feelings of despair and isolation.
Now, there's an even more severe form of punishment, where you separate a person from themselves.
You do that by putting them in a room with no sound and no light.
Complete sensory deprivation.
I'll just take that from you.
Now, the average amount of time that someone can actually survive in a room like this before they experience mental effects is about ten minutes.
Now, I heard a really interesting story a number of years ago about someone that managed to survive a huge amount of time in solitary confinement purely through the use of a needle and by pricking the skin, so that they were feeling pain, so they had something to concentrate on.
OK.
So, Chris, would you just reach in and take out a needle.
Sharmane, please pick three coloured threads from this pile.
Orange, yellow and black.
And black.
Take those, and then thread those onto the needle, and what we're going to do is use the thread, so that, essentially, one of those needles is identifiable for you.
Go on.
There you go.
Do black last.
Shall we? Right.
Wow, that's superfine.
What I want you to do is drop that in there.
I'm going to mix that around and I'm going to get you to carry on mixing that round.
Just mix that up.
Now, Sharmane, I'm going to ask you to bind my wrists.
Right, OK.
I'll just do one more, just for luck.
There we go.
Excellent.
So, what I'm going to try and do is find your needle Right.
With a sense of touch alone, with severely limited hand movement, in a room with no sound or light.
Once these two doors are closed, there'll be no light or sound, therefore total sensory deprivation.
If you're left in there for some time, you start hearing the heartbeat.
They hear other things, as well.
They're listening to what's happening in their inner ear.
You'd end up just listening to yourself and talking to yourself and just drive yourself mad.
Whoa! Ow! I think Argh! I think that this is your needle.
Oh, my God! How has that? He's shaking.
I'm shaking.
Now, if I'm honest, I think that took me about three minutes to find your needle, but for the last 12 minutes, I've been trying to keep my mind occupied with something else.
So just take your torches Oh, my God.
And go inside.
Oh, my God, this is creepy.
What? 'Yep, there's 10,000 needles.
' Oh, my God.
Whoa! I just walked through it.
How has he managed to do this? This is mad.
This is actually mad.
I'm baffled.
I am.
If I could describe how I'm feeling now in one word, it would be shocked.
Mine's just annoyed.
Annoyed that I have absolutely no idea how he did this, and when I go to bed at night, this is all I'm going to be thinking about, and I'm just going to be thinking, "How did he do this?" Oh! Hey, I want to do that! As I near the end of this show about crime, I invited back some specific members of the group for one final trick.
So, hi, guys, and thank you all for coming.
Now, you've been invited here today because you're all involved in some way, in the show.
I'm going to be showing you something today to do with theft.
That's what the whole show is about.
I need you, Faz, and you, Mia.
OK.
Come and stand here.
I also need a deck of playing cards and two fast cars.
Oh, my! Are you ready? We don't need the box, we can get rid of that.
Like I said, this is to do with theft, we're going to start with you.
What I want you to do is very, very cleanly, count ten cards into my hand, one at a time.
One Two Three Four Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
That's ten cards, right? These are going to be for you.
Can you hand the deck to Faz? Great, you look after those, but I want you to lock them solidly inside of your hands, OK? Faz, I want you to do exactly the same thing.
Count me ten cards into my hand.
One Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Ten.
We're going to do exactly the same thing.
I want you to keep hold of these tight in between your hands.
OK? Now, it's really important that you do not move your hands apart, OK? So you have ten cards in your hand, you have ten cards in your hand, but your hands are locked together.
OK? I'm also going to do something else.
I have two blindfolds here.
Don't worry.
You're in safe hands, kind of.
Hopefully you shouldn't be able to see.
- No? - Er, no.
No? Perfect.
Same for yourself, Faz.
Now, what I'm going to do is take us on a drive in these two cars, and I'll secretly steal three cards from you, Mia, and give them to you, Faz.
Mia, you're going to go and sit in the back of this car.
Come with me.
For the rest of you, Faz, this way.
Come this way.
Which way? Just follow me, follow me, follow me.
You guys have had your hands clasped together since the beginning, and blindfolds on.
Yep.
I'm just going to lift your blindfold up a bit, just so now you can see.
Still keep your hands together.
Now, the idea was to steal three of your cards and transfer them over here.
That's kind of the idea, and you've literally not taken your hands apart.
Right? Do this very, very slowly.
Take your hands off.
If we have stolen three of your cards Just count them very, very slowly, loudly, one at a time.
One One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Seven, so three have gone.
Take your hands apart, for the first time My arms are aching.
And count them out loud.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12, 13.
So you've had those three cards stolen from yours and gone across to yours.
Yeah.
Now, we're going to do this again, only this time without the blindfolds, so you're going to see everything.
All right, I'm on it.
Right? So we're going to give you ten cards again, so hold your hand out, so, you know, it's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
OK? Hands on top.
Right? Same for you.
Hands out, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten.
All right.
So we're going to run exactly the same thing again.
Keep your hands together.
- Ready to go? - Yeah.
Let's go again.
Sweet turn.
So, like I was saying, what I have to do is work out a way to steal these cards from you.
So, what I have to be able to do, is actually reach in and take out three cards like this.
Right.
They look invisible right now, but to be honest, they really have gone.
Right? So what I have to do, though, is I have to get them over to this car.
So believe it or not, those three cards are really in my hand right now, and you now have seven, but I have to get them there, so I have to hold them here, and then I have to do this.
What? Er Oh, I see you.
Hey, I want to do that.
I need to do is steal three cards from her, and weirdly enough, I've actually stolen them but they're invisible.
You actually can't see, and it helps, helps me a lot.
What I need to be able to do is get those inside of yours, so that's two, and that's now three.
Right, OK.
Because those have now gone in, you should now have 13, but don't open them.
Keep those still closed, but the thing is, I have to get back so that I start in the same position.
Right, OK.
- Unfortunately, I'm going to have to go.
- Nice meeting you.
There we go.
We're nearly there now.
That's pretty crazy, right? So this time you had your blindfolds off and you saw everything.
You saw me, apparently, take those cards out of your hand.
Imaginary cards.
- Imaginary cards out of your hand.
- Yeah.
And then I had to get out of the car and go across the roof.
I like that bit.
Now, by taking those imaginary cards, you should have seven, OK? So just count them out loud.
Let's have a look.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
You did perfectly.
Hold those.
I went across that roof, jumped onto the roof of your car, climbed in through the window, took those invisible cards and dropped those into your hand, but again, you kept those tight.
Right, so count those out.
- Your hands OK? - Yeah.
You shouldn't hold them so tight.
One Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12, 13.
You did brilliantly well, Faz.
Thank you very much.
You did brilliantly well, Mia, thank you.
That was awesome.
So, I said at the beginning, when we all arrived here, that this whole thing was about theft.
Right.
Stealing three cards from you and giving them to you isn't really much of a theft.
I mean, it's just a card trick.
So, I did all of that with the playing cards, with the cars, the over the top, elaborate set-up was absolutely essential, but more essential was using you, Mia, and you, Faz.
Now, what I mean by that, is, throughout the entire show, I've been stealing personal items from each and every person involved in the show.
Oh, my God! OK? You guys come forward.
If we actually have a look This is something from every single person in the show.
Hey, that's my purse! We have Percy's I think that's your phone.
Is this yours? Oh, my God.
I'll put those back for a second.
Look, it was a very specific reason as to why, Mia and Faz, I used you, because you were the only people throughout the entire process, who I never managed to steal anything from.
I tried, believe me.
Well, that was until today.
I think that's your wallet, Faz, and that's your phone, Mia.
That's cheeky.
Can I have it back? Well, I'll leave those with the rest of them.
How did you do that? Oh, my God! Each of you is going to burn one of these pictures.
Saw a book on sleight of hand in my local library.
Stole it.
I've been obsessed ever since by the art of deception.
I spent a lot of my early 20s in casinos developing those skills, allowing me to do things like this.
We're going to leave that in, face up, so if I leave it face up, you'll actually see the exact moment that that comes up.
Years of training have led me to my biggest challenge yet - a series of shows where I invite a select group of people to join me, and with them I'll create stories I hope they'll never forget.
Oh, my! Oh my God! Ah! My urine has turned purple.
How has he managed to do this? Absolutely baffled.
I'm just going to bring you round to here.
Oh, my God! How did you do that? Wow! Hello, Ben.
It's now red.
Mind-blowing.
Close the door.
Close, close! Welcome to Trick Artist.
In tonight's show, all the tricks are about crime.
So what better place to start than in a prison with three ex-cons? My name is Derek Jones.
I've done two and a half years in prison.
My name is Jason Cooke, and I've done four years and one month in prison.
My name is Charles Young, and I've done just over 20 years in prison.
Now, I know you guys have all spent time in prison, and I'm not going to ask you about that.
I don't want to glorify prisons in any way, but I would be lying if I didn't say I was fascinated by the stories of deceit and deception.
Now, prisons are places where commonplace objects take on different meanings inside.
For example, if we had a pen, a pen is just a pen in everyday life, but in prison this is potentially quite a deadly weapon.
You often have to conceal these or hide them, or you can't get them in in the first place.
Derek, can I ask you to look after this pen for me? Can you put it in your hat? My hat? Yeah.
You don't have a hat? That's fine.
I don't have a pen.
So, sleight of hand is a major part of what I do, and I thought it would be fascinating to come to a place like this and see what I could do with severely restricted hand movement.
Um, hence why these are here.
So, I want you to check those out.
Those are standard issue handcuffs.
OK? I'm going to put these on.
That's number one.
Could you put this on for me? OK.
Now, do one of you guys have a cigarette paper, something like that, or some Yes? I'll take those for you for a second.
OK.
Just take one of those.
If you take that back.
Sorry about this, I can't move my hands too far apart.
Now, there was a story about Baden-Powell, who was the leader of the Scout movement, I believe, and during the Boer War, he was apparently masquerading as, like, a wandering or travelling botanist, and what he would do was draw pictures of butterflies, and then within the patterns of the wings he would actually disguise maps and plans and stuff like this, and it was rumoured that prisoners actually used some of those images and plans to actually formulate escape plans.
It turned out to be rubbish, but nevertheless I thought it would be interesting taking that idea that had come from this world to do something Something like this.
Let's see if we can try this.
- Is it real? - Yeah, it is real.
Yep.
Now, as much as myself and the butterfly are having fun, I really don't want to stay in these all day, so can I borrow another Rizla, Jason? Is that OK? Now, what I need you to do is draw the shape of a key on that for me, on the Rizla.
So just take a Rizla out and just draw a key on there for me.
That's it.
If you want to take that from me.
OK.
Perfect.
OK.
Just here It's been fun, but I've got to go.
Excellent.
Fantastic.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Charles.
Now it's time to get a select group of people to come here and join me.
Identity fraud is something that can easily affect us all, so I wanted to try something involving their personal documents and a shredder.
Now, I don't know about any of you guys, but I shred all of my personal documents.
I don't have anything to hide in particular, it just seems like a good way to protect yourself against identity theft.
We've all heard of those stories in films and TV where you have a load of children who have been employed by some crime syndicate to piece back together shredded documents with Sellotape, and you see this kind of frayed piece of paper, but you can kind of roughly piece together all of that information.
Scary, right? Now, I think there's a way to still get that information but without using Sellotape, so that's what we're going to do.
Now, I've asked a number of you to all bring bank statements or credit card statements or personal documents with you.
Can we have a show of hands for the people that have that? Or just hold your envelopes up, just so I know who actually has brought them.
I know not everyone who managed to Can I use you? Is that OK? Sorry, what's the name? - Constantine.
- Constantine? - Yeah.
- Excellent.
Is that OK if we use this? - Yeah, wonderful.
Sounds great.
- It's wonderful? Great, OK.
Now, is this a bank statement? Is it a credit card bill? - Bank statement.
- It's a bank statement? - Yeah.
- Perfect, OK.
And you don't mind if we shred it? - No.
No? - No, I don't mind.
Would you do me a favour? Take it out of the envelope for me, but keep the information away from me.
Yeah.
OK? And I'll take the envelope.
I'll take the envelope.
Done.
OK? Great.
Now, just come over here just a little bit.
- Yeah.
- Just stand over there for me.
Now, hand me the thing, but keep the information facing outwards, away from me.
Keep the information facing away.
So we're going to put this There we go.
Wow.
OK.
Now, do you think that you could possibly read any of the information on that, bar a couple of tiny digits? - Unbelievable.
- No? - I cannot believe it.
- I've only shredded your document.
Have you seen a shredder before? No, it's my first time.
Your first time? We could just stop there with this marvel This marvel of office technology.
I'm glad you're impressed by that, OK, I'll be honest with you.
What I'm It's fine.
What I'm going to try and do is, um, get some of that information back.
Let's see.
Let's have a look.
Mm.
Amazon.
You spent money at Amazon? I bought about 10, 15 books from there.
You are eating it all, man! I am, yeah.
Um, did you take out some money on Oxford Street from your cash machine? I think it was around £250.
Yeah, yeah.
He's right.
Good.
That's fine.
I nearly gagged then.
Oh, man! This is the part I meant about doing it without Sellotape.
Constantine OK, now You are great.
250 on Oxford - yes.
Amazon stores.
Yeah, that's fine.
I just needed to check.
I didn't know what I was eating, for a second.
But anyway, look.
Here's Take this for me.
I know it's disgusting.
It is yours.
It is yours.
It's mine.
Go and sit down.
Thank you.
Guys, give him a round of applause.
He was brilliant.
Thank you.
Oh, my God! In tonight's show, all the tricks are about crime.
I've invited a select group of people to show them the tricks I've been working on.
I invited one of them down to my basement, where I'll pretend to teach him about pick-pocketing, but really I'll be fleecing him of everything he has.
Pablo, thanks for coming.
Thank you.
Now, I've always been hugely interested in the world of conmen, hustlers, card grifters and pickpockets, especially pickpockets.
So we've set up a training room, if you will, where we have nine pickpockets, who are part of a crew, and we have a guy who's going to be the mark, or the victim.
Now, the reason they were called the mark goes back to the days of the carnival and the fun fair, where you would have someone physically marked with a piece of chalk.
They would mark them on the back and then the rest of the crew would know that that's the person everyone's going to steal some stuff from.
Right.
Now, the way in which you would know what that stuff was is you would actually do a technique called fanning, or fanning the mark, Where you would get in close and actually touch and feel where objects would be.
In this case I know that you have a wallet and a phone.
Is that right? Yeah.
OK.
Now, do you have something in your pockets, a sweet or a key or a coin or something A coin.
Perfect.
Put it back in your pocket.
What I'm going to do is teach you a technique called the bounce.
First of all, if you could just come side on for me, so we can see this.
What's going to happen is this, we're actually going to go straight into the pocket like this.
We just bounce that coin, it's a bit tight here, but just bounce it up to the point where you can catch it.
Now, the problem is, er, I might want to actually ditch that off to someone, um, so what you would do is this.
As you're talking, I'm adjusting them, and now that actually should be back in the pocket, which you can go inside and actually check to make sure that's in there.
Yeah, it is.
OK? Take that out.
Right, now, put it back in.
Make sure it's going back inside.
At some point, I'm going to try and get that coin out of your pocket, OK? Right.
Now, I'm going to teach you the pinch, and this is by using two fingers like this, we can actually pinch stuff out of the pocket.
I'm going to teach you that.
First of all, I know you have a wallet.
I do.
Can we take that out for me for a second? Sure.
Now, keeping it in the front side of the pocket is good, because that way it stays, you know, very close to you.
We'll leave that back there for a second.
Bring that round.
What we're going to do is actually, Sebastian here keeps a wallet in the same position, so we're going to go over and try that with him.
- So if we both walk over here, yeah? - Yeah.
What I'm going to do is show you how to do this for real, and we're going to do this by going inside and pinching this out.
So what will happen is you'll come in the side, use these fingers as pinching, you go straight inside, dip, pull this out, and go over the shoulder, OK? So it goes past his peripheral vision.
OK? So remember, these two fingers, you're going to come in, you're going to dip inside and then take that out.
OK? Straight over his shoulder.
Now, I want you to carry on walking this way, but as you do, there's a pocket here.
I want you to ditch that in the pocket and then carry on walking.
Carry on walking.
Brilliant.
If you come over here, I'll show you what to do.
By the way, do you still have the coin? Yes, I do.
Do me a favour.
Put your hand directly into your pocket.
That's it.
Directly inside.
Check to make sure that coin is actually there.
- Can you really, really, genuinely feel that? - I do.
Yes? Right.
Let go of the coin.
Take your hand out for a second.
Just take it all the way out.
Leave it in there.
I need to adjust James for just a moment.
Let me try this here, and here.
Just need to adjust him a little bit.
Um, now, at the beginning I said that this was about training you to take some stuff off of the mark, but really, James wasn't the mark.
Um, James is just the guy that holds all the stuff.
Pablo, you were the mark.
This wasn't about the coin.
What I was trying to do was focus your attention on something which I wasn't interested in, and nor were the rest of these guys.
It's just a £2 coin.
It's just in your pocket.
What's really valuable would be your wallet and your phone.
Those things would be very, very interesting.
Do you mind if we use your wallet for something? Yeah, no problem.
It's not here any more.
OK, that's interesting.
Let's go have a look in here.
Just go inside that pocket for me.
Oh, my God.
Oh, fuck me! Oh, shit! Just make sure everything's still inside.
Oh, yes.
Perfect.
How long do you think that whole process took? I don't know.
Five minutes? Five minutes, maybe less.
But how would you know if you're not wearing a watch? Oh, come on! Oh, my God, I can't believe it! Let me just try something.
What's your telephone number? Can I just, er in fact, don't call it out loud.
Just punch your number in for me.
Just give it a ring.
Push "call".
Oops I think James is holding onto something for you.
Holy fuck! You don't have to answer it.
That's fine.
We both know who it is.
It's me.
Thank you very much.
When I think about crime, I tend to think about it from the movies, with guns and stuff.
I wanted to enter that world, so I decided to update the classic bullet catch trick, but this time in a way that involves penetrating bullet-proof glass.
- Hi, guys.
How are we all doing? - Good.
Thank you all for coming to this underground firing range somewhere in the south of England, where, today, I'm going to attempt to catch a bullet.
Now, the way in which it's traditionally done is, a marksman would take aim at a performer's head, and the performer would catch it in his teeth.
Now, that's always seemed a little bit preposterous to me, so I'm going to attempt to do it slightly differently.
Now, the way in which I'm going to try and do this is by firing ten bullets repeatedly at the same point on a sheet of bullet-resistant glass, so that by that tenth bullet, that glass, I'm told, should be weak enough so that when that bullet goes through, the velocity is just at the point where it's possible to catch, and a hole in the hand, I'm told, is better than a hole in the head.
So, Emilia, you will be firing the bullets today, is that right? Yes.
We're going to be firing these 9mm full-metal jacket Parabellum rounds.
So we're now going to fire a test round and see this glass in action.
So that was ten bullets fired at ten different points on the glass.
Can we now go through and have a look at those? Yes, by all means.
Roger, you are an expert when it comes to this bullet-resistant glass.
Can you explain what has actually happened to this glass? We fired at the glass.
Um, we can see the bullet marks that have been left.
We can see the dust on the front where the bullet has actually hit the glass.
We can see from the back the bullet's not come through at all.
The polycarbonate works like a baseball glove.
It's effectively caught what we shot at it.
OK, but if we were to shoot all of those ten shots in the same spot Then you will penetrate the polycarbonate.
But it should be going, hopefully, at a slow enough speed that it's possible that I might be able to catch it.
Um, it will be going slower.
I'm not sure about the possibilities of catching it.
OK.
Well, thanks, that's great.
Thanks a lot.
Right.
So let's go and load the glass.
So, Shaz, I'm going to put my hand here.
I want you to draw a circle on the outside of that glass.
We're going to line that circle up with the laser, and then that's where my hand is going to go.
OK? Is that going through the circle? Yes.
So the laser is now going through the circle on the outside of the glass and directly onto the middle of my hand, so I'm going to have to ask everyone else to go back to the safety of the viewing gallery, while we load the ammunition.
We're just getting ready for Ben to actually catch the bullet.
I'm really nervous for him.
He actually looks quite nervous because it could literally end in disaster.
The whole experience is absolutely nerve-racking.
I personally don't know how he's going to catch an actual bullet.
He has everything set up, so The man's unbelievable.
I just hope he can do it.
Live ammunition loaded.
First round.
Fire.
Second round.
Fire.
Third round.
Fire.
Fourth round.
Fire.
Fifth round.
Fire.
Sixth round.
Fire.
Seventh round.
Fire.
Eighth round.
Fire.
Ninth round.
Fire.
Tenth round.
Fire.
No fucking way! He caught it! Oh, my god! He caught it! My heart's in my throat.
I'm actually shaking.
I honestly can't believe he just caught a bullet.
That is heavy.
It's actually heavy.
You are literally Superman! You are Superman.
It's just mind-blowing.
Oh, my god.
In tonight's show, all the tricks are about crime.
I've invited a select group of people to show them the tricks I've been working on.
In this show about crime, I think it's only right I mention one I've committed, no matter how small.
Now, the first thing is to do with a crime that I committed when I was a child.
Yeah, that's right.
It was stealing Jelly Babies.
Unlike most children that maybe steal something, you get dragged back to the shop by your parents and made to apologise.
That didn't happen to me.
I kind of got away with it, essentially.
Um, no-one knew about it.
Well, until tonight.
Sorry, Mum.
But there were consequences.
I had nightmares for a couple of years about Jelly Babies.
It was just guilt.
You know, I was raised well.
So we're going to do something with that.
I'm going to show you what was going on in my head.
I asked one of you, I don't know where you are, I asked you to hold Here we go.
Yes, that's fine.
Thank you very much.
And also would you mind standing up, coming up here for me? Thank you very much.
Round of applause.
Sorry, what's the name? Cody.
Thank you very much, Cody.
So, as you can see, we have orange, pink and a green jelly baby.
One of the weird things was this.
I'll try and do this so that you can all see.
So the pink jelly baby, what that would do is actually essentially pop into life.
Oh! What?! Then this one would essentially change and transform into a black one.
Then this huge head would come out of the sky with teeth, and what that would do is literally reach down like this Literally bite the head off that jelly baby, and then, um Pop back like that.
And it would come back together.
I would then eat it.
Um, this doesn't seem like a nightmare at the moment, but believe me, at the time it was quite terrifying.
So you and I are going to share some Jelly Babies.
OK.
I've only got red ones.
Now, I'll be really honest with you.
- It's Cody, is that right? - Yeah.
The red ones were the ones that were in the middle of my nightmares, so I said, "Please don't give me the red ones.
" You have left that red one.
Don't eat it.
This one is literally the stuff of my nightmares.
OK.
Only he'd never look this small.
He'd look more like this.
Oh, my God! Crime fiction is a huge industry.
Millions of people share a fascination with crime stories, so I thought I'd have a go at writing one myself, with the help of three specific members of the group who are all massive crime novel enthusiasts.
Hi, thanks for coming.
Now, I understand you guys are all avid readers of crime novels.
Well, I have an idea for the plot of a crime story in my head.
I'm hoping that today the three of you can actually help me write the crime story.
So, the first decision that you're going to make today is I want you to walk around this car park and choose a car that maybe you think would fit a crime story.
Too small.
That's too flash.
Something nondescript with a decent boot space.
That could work, you know.
It could be anything, in a certain light.
This is the one.
Yeah, I think so.
Ben! So what have you gone for? This beautiful specimen.
Right, this is almost exactly the car that I had in mind.
Susan, I happen to have a feeling that maybe you already possess the key for this car.
Have a search.
Oh my God.
I don't believe it.
Now, let's just see if this is the right Yeah, it is.
Oh, my gosh! Perfect.
In fact, I actually have something, some packages for you guys in the boot here.
If we have a look inside.
put those about your person somewhere.
Hide them.
We're going to come back to those a bit later on.
The next thing we're going to do is go for a bit of a drive.
Now that you've picked a car, we're going to put some cameras in it to record the next bit.
While they're doing that, you guys need to decide which seats you want to sit in.
I have to drive, for insurance reasons.
OK.
You go in the front.
Short legs in the back.
Yeah.
OK, so let's go.
Thank you.
As you guys know, everything in a crime story happens for a reason.
Like, for example, where characters may choose to sit.
So, Claire and Susan, if you just, er have a look above your heads there.
Oh! Oh, no! And Mark, if you just pull down this at the front, you should have a We are now going to go on a drive.
I don't know where.
I'm going to leave it up to you to decide.
I want you to tell me to turn left or right, and we'll see where we end up.
Take a left.
Turn left here.
Right.
Right, OK.
Where am I going? Left.
This one? Where shall we stop? Shall we look for something interesting-looking? Is that a turning? OK, so we've arrived at this location by random choice.
Now, just like you had the key in your pocket for the car wouldn't it be great if somehow we had a key to that padlock? Maybe if Oh, no! If the key to that padlock was this key That's so funny.
Mark, just jump out and see if that clicks.
Oh, my God! OK.
So, we are now nearing the end of the story that I've had in mind.
As you guys probably know, with any stolen car, it's never a good idea to leave your fingerprints all over it, and I think you guys may have.
Oh! So, with that in mind, we have to now decide how this story is going to end.
We could either just walk away and abandon it, or we could torch it.
Or we could crush it with the gigantic car-crushing machine that you can see behind you.
Now, this is a decision that I want you guys to make, and whatever you decide is what we are going to do.
OK.
Right, well OK.
What's behind us? The biggest crusher in the world? We're going to get lost amongst all the crushed cars, rather than torch it, and then you've got a torched car amongst the crushed cars, Definitely.
Are we saying? Let's crush it, guys.
I think so.
We're here, so Yeah, let's crush it.
I think it'll be kind of fun, as well.
Yeah, it could be quite fun.
Crushing it.
OK.
Crushing it, definitely.
What's that? Oh, God! What the? What's that? What is it? Oh, shit! We were going to crush that! Have you made a decision? Crush it, definitely.
Brilliant.
Ah! Wow! Whoa! You guys all have packages on you, which you've had since the very beginning.
Take them out.
We're going to open them up.
This is that crime novel that I've had in my head.
OK? Well, I say "novel".
I mean, there's no actual content whatsoever.
But there is a rather wordy title.
I'll read it loud for you.
So this is "The incredible story of the three crime writers "who all stole a Vauxhall Vectra, all sat in the correct seats, "drove randomly for 14 minutes, stopped at a scrapyard "for which they happened to have the key, found a man in the boot, "made a decision and ended up crushing a car that wasn't theirs, "which the police would now like to speak them about.
" 'Solitary confinement is used by prisons as the ultimate punishment.
' 'I wanted to experiment with the idea.
' 'The truth is that no prison would lock me up in solitary confinement, 'but there is a place where the isolation effects 'are potentially worse, 'and I had a feeling that I had a way of coping with that isolation.
' If you'd like to follow me.
This is an anechoic chamber.
The anechoic chamber is a very, very quiet room.
Sound gets absorbed straight away.
As soon as you go in there, it feels strange.
You don't say it sounds strange, or, "I can't hear anything".
You just think, "This feels strange".
I feel like I can't breathe as much now.
Some people can handle it.
There's a fair few that can't handle it, who walk straight out, or will just seem very, very still, cold and clammy.
Now, one of the most severe forms of punishment is solitary confinement.
The idea of that is to separate a person from all human contact, so that they experience feelings of despair and isolation.
Now, there's an even more severe form of punishment, where you separate a person from themselves.
You do that by putting them in a room with no sound and no light.
Complete sensory deprivation.
I'll just take that from you.
Now, the average amount of time that someone can actually survive in a room like this before they experience mental effects is about ten minutes.
Now, I heard a really interesting story a number of years ago about someone that managed to survive a huge amount of time in solitary confinement purely through the use of a needle and by pricking the skin, so that they were feeling pain, so they had something to concentrate on.
OK.
So, Chris, would you just reach in and take out a needle.
Sharmane, please pick three coloured threads from this pile.
Orange, yellow and black.
And black.
Take those, and then thread those onto the needle, and what we're going to do is use the thread, so that, essentially, one of those needles is identifiable for you.
Go on.
There you go.
Do black last.
Shall we? Right.
Wow, that's superfine.
What I want you to do is drop that in there.
I'm going to mix that around and I'm going to get you to carry on mixing that round.
Just mix that up.
Now, Sharmane, I'm going to ask you to bind my wrists.
Right, OK.
I'll just do one more, just for luck.
There we go.
Excellent.
So, what I'm going to try and do is find your needle Right.
With a sense of touch alone, with severely limited hand movement, in a room with no sound or light.
Once these two doors are closed, there'll be no light or sound, therefore total sensory deprivation.
If you're left in there for some time, you start hearing the heartbeat.
They hear other things, as well.
They're listening to what's happening in their inner ear.
You'd end up just listening to yourself and talking to yourself and just drive yourself mad.
Whoa! Ow! I think Argh! I think that this is your needle.
Oh, my God! How has that? He's shaking.
I'm shaking.
Now, if I'm honest, I think that took me about three minutes to find your needle, but for the last 12 minutes, I've been trying to keep my mind occupied with something else.
So just take your torches Oh, my God.
And go inside.
Oh, my God, this is creepy.
What? 'Yep, there's 10,000 needles.
' Oh, my God.
Whoa! I just walked through it.
How has he managed to do this? This is mad.
This is actually mad.
I'm baffled.
I am.
If I could describe how I'm feeling now in one word, it would be shocked.
Mine's just annoyed.
Annoyed that I have absolutely no idea how he did this, and when I go to bed at night, this is all I'm going to be thinking about, and I'm just going to be thinking, "How did he do this?" Oh! Hey, I want to do that! As I near the end of this show about crime, I invited back some specific members of the group for one final trick.
So, hi, guys, and thank you all for coming.
Now, you've been invited here today because you're all involved in some way, in the show.
I'm going to be showing you something today to do with theft.
That's what the whole show is about.
I need you, Faz, and you, Mia.
OK.
Come and stand here.
I also need a deck of playing cards and two fast cars.
Oh, my! Are you ready? We don't need the box, we can get rid of that.
Like I said, this is to do with theft, we're going to start with you.
What I want you to do is very, very cleanly, count ten cards into my hand, one at a time.
One Two Three Four Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
That's ten cards, right? These are going to be for you.
Can you hand the deck to Faz? Great, you look after those, but I want you to lock them solidly inside of your hands, OK? Faz, I want you to do exactly the same thing.
Count me ten cards into my hand.
One Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Ten.
We're going to do exactly the same thing.
I want you to keep hold of these tight in between your hands.
OK? Now, it's really important that you do not move your hands apart, OK? So you have ten cards in your hand, you have ten cards in your hand, but your hands are locked together.
OK? I'm also going to do something else.
I have two blindfolds here.
Don't worry.
You're in safe hands, kind of.
Hopefully you shouldn't be able to see.
- No? - Er, no.
No? Perfect.
Same for yourself, Faz.
Now, what I'm going to do is take us on a drive in these two cars, and I'll secretly steal three cards from you, Mia, and give them to you, Faz.
Mia, you're going to go and sit in the back of this car.
Come with me.
For the rest of you, Faz, this way.
Come this way.
Which way? Just follow me, follow me, follow me.
You guys have had your hands clasped together since the beginning, and blindfolds on.
Yep.
I'm just going to lift your blindfold up a bit, just so now you can see.
Still keep your hands together.
Now, the idea was to steal three of your cards and transfer them over here.
That's kind of the idea, and you've literally not taken your hands apart.
Right? Do this very, very slowly.
Take your hands off.
If we have stolen three of your cards Just count them very, very slowly, loudly, one at a time.
One One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Seven, so three have gone.
Take your hands apart, for the first time My arms are aching.
And count them out loud.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12, 13.
So you've had those three cards stolen from yours and gone across to yours.
Yeah.
Now, we're going to do this again, only this time without the blindfolds, so you're going to see everything.
All right, I'm on it.
Right? So we're going to give you ten cards again, so hold your hand out, so, you know, it's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
OK? Hands on top.
Right? Same for you.
Hands out, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten.
All right.
So we're going to run exactly the same thing again.
Keep your hands together.
- Ready to go? - Yeah.
Let's go again.
Sweet turn.
So, like I was saying, what I have to do is work out a way to steal these cards from you.
So, what I have to be able to do, is actually reach in and take out three cards like this.
Right.
They look invisible right now, but to be honest, they really have gone.
Right? So what I have to do, though, is I have to get them over to this car.
So believe it or not, those three cards are really in my hand right now, and you now have seven, but I have to get them there, so I have to hold them here, and then I have to do this.
What? Er Oh, I see you.
Hey, I want to do that.
I need to do is steal three cards from her, and weirdly enough, I've actually stolen them but they're invisible.
You actually can't see, and it helps, helps me a lot.
What I need to be able to do is get those inside of yours, so that's two, and that's now three.
Right, OK.
Because those have now gone in, you should now have 13, but don't open them.
Keep those still closed, but the thing is, I have to get back so that I start in the same position.
Right, OK.
- Unfortunately, I'm going to have to go.
- Nice meeting you.
There we go.
We're nearly there now.
That's pretty crazy, right? So this time you had your blindfolds off and you saw everything.
You saw me, apparently, take those cards out of your hand.
Imaginary cards.
- Imaginary cards out of your hand.
- Yeah.
And then I had to get out of the car and go across the roof.
I like that bit.
Now, by taking those imaginary cards, you should have seven, OK? So just count them out loud.
Let's have a look.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
You did perfectly.
Hold those.
I went across that roof, jumped onto the roof of your car, climbed in through the window, took those invisible cards and dropped those into your hand, but again, you kept those tight.
Right, so count those out.
- Your hands OK? - Yeah.
You shouldn't hold them so tight.
One Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12, 13.
You did brilliantly well, Faz.
Thank you very much.
You did brilliantly well, Mia, thank you.
That was awesome.
So, I said at the beginning, when we all arrived here, that this whole thing was about theft.
Right.
Stealing three cards from you and giving them to you isn't really much of a theft.
I mean, it's just a card trick.
So, I did all of that with the playing cards, with the cars, the over the top, elaborate set-up was absolutely essential, but more essential was using you, Mia, and you, Faz.
Now, what I mean by that, is, throughout the entire show, I've been stealing personal items from each and every person involved in the show.
Oh, my God! OK? You guys come forward.
If we actually have a look This is something from every single person in the show.
Hey, that's my purse! We have Percy's I think that's your phone.
Is this yours? Oh, my God.
I'll put those back for a second.
Look, it was a very specific reason as to why, Mia and Faz, I used you, because you were the only people throughout the entire process, who I never managed to steal anything from.
I tried, believe me.
Well, that was until today.
I think that's your wallet, Faz, and that's your phone, Mia.
That's cheeky.
Can I have it back? Well, I'll leave those with the rest of them.
How did you do that? Oh, my God! Each of you is going to burn one of these pictures.