Ben Earl: Trick Artist (2013) s01e02 Episode Script
Art
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! My urine has turned purple.
How has he managed to do this? Absolutely baffled.
I'm 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, close.
This programme contains strong language.
Welcome to Trick Artist.
Thanks for all coming here today.
Now, I've spent the last few months planning a show from this warehouse, and putting together a whole load of effects and tricks that are in some way connected to art.
Now, I was trying to think of my earliest memory from art.
That's a relatively difficult thing to do - to think of your earliest art memory - and eventually, I realised that one of my earliest memories was from the show Take Hart, by the late Tony Hart.
I can't remember 90% of the show, but I do remember the final five minutes, with a small Plasticine creature called Morph, who would jump in and out of boats, appear into the ground, disappear, all the madness It was this very small Plasticine creature.
A magical memory of that, and one of my earliest art memories.
However, there was another one which was predominant, and that was - at school, I spent a lot of time in my headmaster's office, I was a naughty boy, and I remember he had a picture on his wall, not too dissimilar to that type of image in the background.
I later on realised it was a Mondrian.
So knowing that two of my earliest art influences was Morph and Mondrian, I thought I would combine those things and show you something like this So here we have a poster that does look a little bit like a Mondrian.
It's not a Mondrian.
It's kind of roughly what I remember in my head from the headmaster's office at school.
Now, I'm going to sell it to someone here for 1p.
It's a bargain.
1p.
- Does someone have 1p? - Yeah, I do, actually.
You have 1p? Yeah.
OK.
So I'm going to take this off, all the way down Try not to break it for you.
That's it.
There we go.
You have a, er Mondrian.
There we go.
For 1p? For 1p.
Is that it? - Keep the 1p for a moment.
- OK.
Thank you.
I'm not a complete cheapskate.
I'll also give you the Blu-Tack.
OK.
So What?! I'm going to go here this time .
.
like this.
There we go.
God! That's all four pieces of Blu-Tack.
Now, I'll give those to you.
Let me just take those off.
That's crazy! So you can have the Blu-Tack.
Come over here, so we can do this.
I'm going to squeeze this, so we can get this into some kind of ball.
OK.
There we go.
Hold on to that for a moment.
We may want to leave the Mondrian off to one side just for a moment.
One of you guys mind doing that? Did you give me the 1p, or do you still have it? I didn't.
Is this more? No, that's perfect.
Here's what we're going to do.
- Do you have the 1p? Can you grab that for me? - Yes.
Yeah? So here's what I'm going to do.
I want you to put the 1p in my hand, just on that part of my thumb.
OK.
Just here.
Just in front of it.
- A bit more towards the opening.
- Here? Perfect.
That's it.
Perfect.
That's fine.
You can let go.
This is the part where we talk about Morph.
Right.
So if we watch very closely Oh, my God.
Now we literally have the Blu-Tack for you.
If you open it up Wow, that's Look.
Antony Gormley's Another Place is the monumental installation on Crosby Beach, near Liverpool.
I've invited three people along to see if I could leave my mark on one of the country's greatest public artworks.
So, here we are at Crosby Beach, which is one of my favourite places in the world, because this is where one of my favourite works of art in the world exists.
This is Antony Gormley's Another Place.
This is 100 metal statues, all made in the image of Gormley, all facing the same direction, forever looking out to sea.
So with that in mind, I thought it would be a really great place to do something interesting.
There are 100 of these statues.
All of them are numbered.
So, Josh, pick a number between one and 100, and we will go and find that statue.
Number 64.
64? Yeah.
Right.
Where shall we start? Er, we may as well start closest.
Yep.
Why not? I'm going to grab this bottle.
I might be able to use this later.
Sorry? Do you want to look after this? OK.
Sound.
I wish it was full! 59.
Ooh, we're close.
Right.
Shall I have a look at this tag, then? What is it? So it must be that one at the back.
62.
That one was 60.
61.
So it goes 60, then it obviously goes 61 Yay! Boom! So, we are now at statue 64.
Can I take Can I borrow your scarf? Yeah.
In fact, let me put this on here for a second.
Let me show you something.
Oh, my God! What?! That's amazing! Can I use that bottle? Yeah.
Now, I didn't just bring you here today to show you that pebble spinning.
This space is so clearly defined by Gormley that what I really wanted to show you was this.
And this Oh, my God! Look.
What?! What?! What the fuck, man?! No! Oh, my God! That's mad, isn't it? He was spinning the bottle round, and then the statue would just turn round.
Crazy.
I'm just amazed.
It's really unusual, because every single statue is facing that way, and one of them now is facing the opposite way.
I'm just still shocked.
Now for an art experiment of my own.
10,000 coloured dots, 50 people, and one totally white room.
One question - can I create order out of chaos? So this is a truly interactive part of the show, where all of you are going to create an artistic environment.
Now, you are going to be given a load of coloured spots and you're going to plaster this environment with those coloured spots, creating a huge amount of chaos, without any help from me.
Now, I'll be back in half an hour to hopefully create some order out of that chaos.
Wow! I love what you've done with the place.
It's amazing.
Well done.
So in half an hour, you guys have been armed with hundreds of stickers of different colours, going mental, obviously, in here.
I did say I was going to try and create some order out of this chaos, so I need to have a little look around.
I'm going to go with I'm going to go with this here, with the yellow.
That's pretty good.
Let's do this.
OK.
That is some form of order from chaos, but you can also do it a little bit more visually, so let's have a look.
I think there was a There's a fruit bowl and stuff here.
Let me try this.
Let's try this here.
I'm going to use this.
Let's use these red spots.
It's now red.
I feel kind of bad that I've signed this room, cos it was your work of art, really.
Now, let's, er Let's take this here I'll actually do this, this way.
There we go.
Who, er Someone can have my name.
There we go.
That's for you.
'Yeah, it was pretty mind-blowing,' pulling the writing that he drew on with a pen off the wall.
Crazy! That's ridiculous! How did you do that? Each of you is going to burn one picture.
In tonight's show, all the tricks are about art.
I've invited a select group of people to join me so that I can show them the tricks I've been working on.
Some of my earliest appreciation of art was from looking at the pictures in storybooks, so I've made my own storybook to help me with the next trick.
Now, often, our first ever experience of art comes when we read those stories as children, those magical storybooks full of not only magical stories, but the art seems to come to life.
I'm going to try and recreate something along those lines tonight.
So what I first of all need is somebody that doesn't mind coming up here with me and reading out aloud.
So if there's someone that doesn't mind doing that You sure? Come on up.
What's your name? Adam.
Adam? Great.
Come and sit down with me.
This is cosy, isn't it? Yeah.
Really, really simple.
All I'd like you to do is, we're going to have a camera shooting over your shoulder so that we can actually see what you're reading.
But yeah, I'd just like you to, um, pick the book up and read it out aloud for everyone, if possible.
That would be great.
Right.
The Magical Picture Book by Benjamin Earl.
"Once upon a time there was a magician called Ben, "who decided to do a card trick.
"The person he did the trick for was a man.
"Ben asked the man to take the cards out of the box and shuffle them.
Let's see.
OK.
"Next, he asked the man to pick a card and sign it.
" Thank you.
"The man shuffled the signed card back into the pack "and then put them all back into the box.
" By the way, no pressure, but so far you're doing brilliantly.
Fantastic.
"Ben said the magic words.
" Hocus pocus.
"When the man took the cards back out of the box "and looked for his card, he had a big surprise.
" I would I would read the next page first.
Just have a look at the next page first.
"His card had vanished.
" Go ahead.
Has it gone? I'll take the box.
Let me just check.
That's amazed me.
OK.
I'd continue reading.
Yeah.
"That wasn't the biggest surprise.
"This was.
" OK.
Turn over.
Show them.
Let them see first.
What was your card? It was the four of diamonds.
Four of diamonds.
Turn it over.
Let them see.
You did fabulously well.
Give him a round of applause.
Thank you.
I was just completely just amazed, dumbfounded by it.
Um, I was there the whole time and I know that I didn't do anything beforehand and nothing happened, so when I flipped over the page and the card was there, I literally I wanted to be like "da-da!", but I was just like, "Wow!" Now, I've invited a group of blokes to join me and play a rather colourful drinking game.
All right, guys? Hi.
Sit down wherever you like.
How we all doing? Not too bad.
All good? Now, creating art is not only one of the most enjoyable things that you can possibly do, it's also one of the ultimate acts of expression.
Have any of you guys ever done any art, anything? I have trouble drawing stick-men.
Trouble drawing stick-men.
Yeah.
Now, I honestly believe that inside every person lies a hidden artist, except that most people never truly discover that person.
So today I'm going to try and release your inner artist.
Fair enough.
Now, here we have a colour wheel.
What colour would you choose to use for the rest of your life, if you were that artist? Er, I'll be orange.
I think I'll go for Mr Blue.
OK.
Yellow.
And what colour do you want to be? Purple.
Purple, yeah.
You are? I'll go green.
Green.
So that leaves me with red.
You were all asked to bring some beer with you.
Check.
Boom.
Bring it out.
Let's go.
We are now going to play a drinking game where we all just drink and drink and drink, and then as soon as you need to go for a piss, you're just going to put your glass down.
OK? Fair enough.
This is not a bravado game.
We're just going to drink until we need a piss, and we'll get to a point where we all need a piss.
We'll put this down and then go and create art.
Sorted.
So we're now going to be doing what artists have done since the beginning of time, which is consuming lots of alcohol in order to let the creative juices flow.
OK.
So all take a glass.
Yeah.
OK.
Let's just start drinking.
Waayy! Cheers! Lads.
I've got mates of mine that have pictures of me, mid-shot, soaked.
I'm confident with my sexuality, basically.
Bring on the beer, masseuse! How close are we all to pissing? I'm all right.
Another pint, anyone? Hurry up, hurry up! Do you really need to go now? Yes, I really need to go.
Really need to go.
I swear you're all lying! You really are struggling.
We all need to piss.
We all need to piss.
Twist it.
Right.
So, we all need to piss? Yep.
We're going to go and put our pint glasses on that plank of wood, and we are going to piss into our pint glasses.
Right.
We're going to get up there and go and stand in our positions.
So, yeah, just come over here and stand here.
And then place your glasses down.
Legs apart.
At the start I asked all of you to pick a colour.
So you left me with red, so I'm Mr Red, yes? You are? Mr Yellow.
Mr Yellow.
Purple.
Mr Purple.
Mr Green.
Mr Green.
Mr Orange.
Mr Orange.
Mr Blue.
Mr Blue.
OK, guys.
Er, let's piss.
How the fuck is that happening? That's ridiculous.
It's quite strange.
That can't be right, man! That's nuts! Oh, my good God! This is weird.
Don't piss on me! My urine has turned purple.
I brought my own beer.
Came here with my own glass I peed and orange came out.
The most random thing I've ever seen in my life.
I'm an artist.
No idea.
No idea.
Wow.
Wow.
The more I'm talking about it, the more confused I'm getting.
Oh, my God! In tonight's show, all the tricks are about art, and I've invited a select group of people to join me so that I can show them the tricks I've been working on.
They say that art imitates life, but can I make life imitate art? Now, has anyone here good at drawing? Or colouring in, or pictures, or likes colour? You.
Come on, stand up.
We're going to get you to just draw some pictures.
What's the name? Paul.
Paul, nice to meet you.
Now, here's what I want you to do, we have a number of pens here, different colours.
We have a board with obviously a fabulous drawing by myself on here.
It's an amazing likeness.
Now, what I want you to do is keep this so that I can see and no-one else can see, OK? So if you just stand behind here.
I, in the meantime, I'm going to go over here.
And I will ask I won't judge you, that's fine.
But we're all going to see it at the end, but, it's going to Fine.
That's fine, you'll be absolutely fine.
So I'm just going to sit down here.
And we're just going to draw some nice pictures.
OK, so just pick up any one of the pens for me.
OK.
And if you would just draw some shorts.
And just, basically colour them in.
Um And when you're done, just put it back and we'll use another colour.
OK, so pick up another colour, OK? And just draw a T-shirt, do that, big and bold as you like.
OK, and when you are done, yes? And we're going to go and pick up another colour OK.
OK? And give him some socks.
OK? He's got no feet.
That's fine.
That's fine, just give him some socks.
Are you done? Yes.
OK, pick up another colour.
Yes.
OK? And give him a scarf? Why not? And then, just let us know when you're done.
We're done.
OK? And one final time, pick up another colour.
Mm-hm.
And then give him a hat.
Why not? So at this point, we've got a guy wearing a hat, a scarf, a T-shirt, some shorts and some socks.
OK? It's not a full outfit, I know, but, are you done? We're done.
Right, now, bring your drawing forward but don't let anyone else see.
OK.
OK? I'm going to get up, just join you here, and let me see.
Um In fact, show them, show them your work.
I again won't look for the time being, but just let them Um, can I have a look? Can I have a look? Yeah You sure? Yeah, yeah.
I won't judge.
Wow.
OK, that's great.
Thanks.
That's amazing.
Hold this so everyone can see.
Wow, OK.
So, um, that's great.
I mean, it's interesting, so you've put green, green socks on and here I've got this on, so you guys can actually see this I have green socks on, which is always good.
Now, we also have a blue T-shirt on, which is great.
I like the way you've done that with just circles instead of going all around it, to save time.
I also have a, er This colour, just to, kind of save time.
Er What else do we have? Oh, yeah, in the box I was sitting on we also have a What's this? An orange an orange scarf, which we have here.
This is, er, just for me.
Oh, look at that.
Sound man's going to hate me for this.
All right? What else do we have? We have a yellow hat.
Again, just so you guys know, there's nothing else in here.
We also have a yellow hat.
Unbelievable.
OK? Look at that.
You can stand around here for a second.
Now it's fine.
Now, I did say at the beginning that, um Oh, no, it's fine.
I did say at the start sometimes art imitates life, and you do have shorts on and trousers on, I know, but sometimes life imitates art.
Look at that! Wow.
Look at that.
Thank you very much.
I said no-one would judge you for this.
There's only one person in this room being judged.
Paul, you were brilliant.
Thanks.
Thank you, keep drawing, go and sit down.
Cheers.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, everyone.
Wow.
So, I'm here at a pop-up art space in London to meet a guy called John Walter, who's an up-and-coming artist, who's kindly offered to give me a tour of his artworks in this art space.
Now, I love art and art exhibitions, but what he doesn't know is I'm here for a very different reason.
I'm going to steal one of his pieces of art.
Hey.
Hi, John.
How are you? Nice to meet you.
I understand that you're not only a painter, but you're also a kind of sculptor and performance artist.
I'm kind of, yeah.
Jack of all trades, master of all? Master of all.
Well, today, we're going to indulge in some performance art.
OK.
And to do that, we're going to select one of your paintings.
OK.
But so that it's kept safe and clean what we'll do is pop it in here OK.
.
.
so that you know that it's looked after and it's safe, so you can look after that for me until then.
Great.
But in the meantime, just let's walk around.
- Well, where shall we begin? - Wherever you like, you tell me.
Shall we start with the performancey things? OK, let's do that.
This is a character called Cheerleader, who has a gall bladder in her wig.
That's what it is.
The gall bladder is an image that crops up quite a lot.
We've got a gall bladder down there Yeah, what's that? I noticed this is also a gall bladder.
This is called Two Bill Badgers.
It's got like a real pop art feel to it.
Yeah, there's sort of poppy things going on.
Then what's this one? This is a painting called Hot Corners Number Four.
Hot Corners, I don't know if you've got it on your computer, but you set it up so that when you drag the cursor to the corner of the screen, everything moves.
Right.
OK.
RBut it sounds a bit sexy and lascivious so I like it.
That's definitely one I won't forget.
- A sexy, lascivious painting.
- What's it called? Hot Corners Number Four.
And this one here? What's this one about? Well, this is an emu.
This is the, well, it's not the Emu, not Rod Hull's Emu.
I thought I'd paint a I thought it was quite an emotional painting of an emu, I don't know.
So, what's this piece here? If we, er Well, this is another one of the Hot Corners paintings for the show at the gallery In fact, if I can be honest and stop you there, weirdly enough, um, when I said at the beginning that we were going to select a piece and do a piece of performance art Oh, yeah? Well, really, that piece of performance art was actually an art theft.
That was my idea, was an art theft.
Unlike normal art thefts, if I can take this, you normally don't want to leave evidence, so I thought I'd leave a massive piece of evidence as to which piece I wanted to take.
OK.
So if you just come here and have a look.
I think this was Hot Corners Number Four? How did you do that? Now, not only was this Hot Corners Number Four, what this does do is beg the question of where that is.
You've carried this since the start, which has been empty.
I have.
If we, just do this If we just take this for a second Now, would you just take that out and verify that that that is the painting? - That is Hot Corners Number Four.
- Without any spray paint on it.
Very good.
Don't call the police, you're just as complicit as me, you've been carrying it.
Yeah.
Do I want it back? It's real.
I don't know how those marks got on the wall, and I don't know how this jumped into the box.
The more I'm talking about it, the more confused I'm getting.
It's incredible because it's so elegant.
Creating a masterpiece takes some artists a lifetime.
However, all I need is some colour and a signature.
Right, now, if you were to try and reduce art down to its three most basic components, you could argue that it comes down to content, so something like colour, also normally a work of art has to have a name, and a title, and a signature of some sort - arguably that's one of the most important things.
If you have a famous artist's signature, like Picasso or Mondrian, it's often worth a huge amount of money.
So, we're going to do something with that today.
Can I can I use you for this? Is that OK? Is that all right? What's your name? Olivia.
Olivia.
OK, here we have a number of essentially blank canvases OK.
.
.
of which we'll create something together.
All right.
I want you to reach in and take out any blank canvas you like, - Just take out any one you wish.
- I'll take this one.
OK? Just check, make sure that is right.
Yes, that's fine.
Now, this is essentially going to a blank canvas, and if we take a pen like this, what we're going to do is give it some content, so in this case, let's put a circle .
.
like this.
OK? This is now Olivia's choice with circle.
OK? Very nice and clear and simple.
Take this pen for me.
Also what it needs is a signature, so just place your signature on the back.
An O for Olivia.
That's the one.
OK.
I'll take this back.
So now we have Olivia's choice with circle Mm-hm.
Signed by you.
That's fine.
Um, but often this needs something else.
Often this needs, er, some form of content or colour.
So we're going to try this so you can all see.
This is Olivia's choice with circle in yellow and blue.
OK? So, we can see this here.
That's fine.
And obviously this is now signed by you, so it could possibly be worth something, but often with modern art, you'd take it to a different level, or something more contemporary.
So in this case what we're going to do is actually tear this down the middle.
So now this is Olivia's choice with circle, torn .
.
in yellow and blue.
Mm-hm.
However, yellow and blue do mix, so just to take it that one stage further, this is now Olivia's choice with circle, torn .
.
in green.
All right.
Now Take that.
Go and sit down.
One day it might worth something.
'This next trick is all about peripheral vision, 'or the lack of it.
'Using the fact that one person 'would not able to see what I was doing, 'even though everyone else could, 'I thought I would try and create a piece of art for them 'without them knowing.
' Can I have some do you mind if you come up for me? Sorry, what's your name? Heidi.
Heidi.
OK, If you wouldn't mind sitting down here.
You and I are going to create a piece of art together.
'But first I have to distract Heidi, 'so she has no idea that a canvas is being mounted on the wall, 'quite literally behind her back.
' So we're going to create something with you using colour, vision and timing, but before we do that I need you to select some colours to see if they work.
People see colours in different ways, and I just want to see what works with you.
So which colour shall we use? Select three colours for me.
Green, orange and red.
Green, orange and red.
Are you sure you want those, or do you want something, cos red and orange are quite similar? Are you happy with those? Do you want a different one? I'll change the orange to a blue one.
- Are you sure? - Yeah.
OK, let's do that.
I don't want to feel like I'm forcing you to do this.
That's fine.
So We have, well, I suppose if you're changing it for that one, we have red, green, blue, RGB, which are what all good pictures are made from, so that's fine.
Let's try it with red first.
So, here's what I'm going to do, just see if this works.
Now, what I'm going to do is basically, - just put this into my hand.
OK? - Mm-hm.
Nice and simple, but, before we do that, what you have to do is just check and see which hand this is in.
OK.
It's a very, very simple kind of game.
Before we do that, will you put put both of your hands up in the air for me? OK? That's fine.
And then which would you guess it's in, if you had to guess? This one.
That one.
It's not there either.
It's good, it's working with, er, it's working with red.
It's working with red.
We'll see if this works with green, OK? OK.
This time what I'm going to do is I'm going to place it in very, very, very slowly, from the back, OK? Very, very slowly from the back.
So, obviously going very slow, and we're done.
You can put your hands down.
That's fine, slowly from the back, and we'll do this again.
Which one's it in? That one.
Are you sure? No! I was working with green as well.
I was working with green as well We'll do this with blue, we'll do this with blue.
This time, you might actually see see what's going on.
It's worked with green, it's worked with red, let's see if this works with blue, OK? Watch very carefully.
No, I'm joking, it's not really there, it's not really there.
Um OK, where is it? That one.
Let's see if this works with blue.
It's not there either, we're going to so it worked with those, we're now just going to try this, um These, OK? So, we have red, green and blue.
OK, and like I said, we're going to create a work of art, based on colour, perception and timing.
So this one's slightly more difficult, OK? Because this has two go in the hand from behind, we can just see it, and then it comes round, OK? All right? Before we do that, again, just like before, just hold your hand up for me, OK? Just hold your hands out.
OK, so it's working with red again If we can put this in again, but, in fact close both of your hands around my hands, OK? That's it, that's fine.
That's fine.
That's good.
Do exactly the same thing, again, put both your hands down for me and do it this way.
No, it's gone, it's fine.
You did brilliantly.
Brilliantly.
Stand up for me, just turn around, look.
It's really nice.
Just sign this down the corner.
No, sign it at the top.
Where? At the top.
Up here? Yes.
OK, this corner, all right, let's go over here OK, So, let me give this to you.
This is quite unwieldy, nevertheless, it's for you.
Are you going to get this home on the tube? Can you help me? Yes.
I'm following! In tonight's show, all the tricks are about art.
'As I neared the end of the show, it was time to raise the stakes.
'What I did next, the only thing between a priceless work of art 'and total destruction was me.
So I'd better not mess this up.
' Now, when it comes to the world of art, one of the most controversial things you can possibly do is to destroy a work of art.
So behind me are five paintings by Egon Schiele, William Blake, van Gogh, Henri Matisse and Paul Klee.
Now, earlier, I asked an art critic, Stephen Bailey, to verify that one of the five pictures behind me is genuine and worth a great deal of money, and the other four are fake.
Well, the only test of value of something, is it worth stealing? One of these things is worth stealing.
'We then concealed them in cardboard boxes.
' So what I've set up here is a scenario where a genuinely valuable piece of art, worth thousands, could potentially be destroyed by one of you.
And in this scenario, each of you is going to burn one of these pictures.
So there's every chance that that work of art will be destroyed.
But I'm going to try my best to stop that from happening.
However, at this point, Stephen and I know where that valuable work of art is.
So to be absolutely sure that nobody knows where it is, Stephen and I are going to go over there.
You guys will come forward and mix them all up.
- Do you want to mix any more of them around? - No.
No? Sure? OK.
We're going to come back here.
Stephen, come back with me.
So, at this point in time, nobody knows where that valuable work of art is.
The name of the artist that I want to stop being burnt is inside here, OK.
So before we open that at the very end, I'll ask you to open this so we can verify it.
But wait until the very end.
So tuck that away somewhere on your person, and we'll open that at the end.
So, we are now going to start burning boxes.
If I just asked you which we should burn Number one.
Number one.
OK.
OK, that's one down.
Let's try this a slightly different way.
- Why don't we do this with yourself? - Yep.
Now, a great way to make a choice would be if we had four playing cards with one, two, three and four Yep.
All you would have to do is pick one of those and that would essentially tell us which one to burn.
Fair? Yeah.
Mix them up, face down, and then choose one of those, any one you like.
Turn it face over, and whichever one that is A king.
Hang on.
That doesn't Let's have a look at the others.
A much easier way would be for me to just ask you.
So which of the remaining barrels shall we go for? So two, three, four, five.
Five.
Yep.
Are you sure? 100%.
OK.
Let's go with this.
Uh Number five.
OK, next up.
Two.
100% this barrel? OK.
Right, so, we only have two remaining.
In fact, Stephen, I think I might give this choice to you.
When faced with a decision between two objects, there's only one thing in the world which is the best random choice generator on the planet in a situation like this, which is a coin.
So we have, essentially, a heads and tails here.
Which is heads and which is tails? That's tails.
You just knew that was tails? I have a conviction.
- So this is heads and this is tails? - I would say.
OK.
Very simple.
All you've got to do is just name, as I toss the coin, name whether this is going to land heads or tails.
Heads.
Heads.
OK, we don't have a coin.
It's far better if you just name, if I'm really honest, let's take that away.
We have the last two barrels remaining.
- Which barrel do you want to choose? - It should be that one.
This one here? Yeah, the green one.
We're going to burn this.
So we're just going to pop this down Even destruction can be creative, remember.
Destruction can be creative.
We now have only one of the original five paintings left, so please, Stephen, can you just hang onto this? Trust me, I'm a guru.
So at this point in time, we still don't know if that's the genuine article.
You guys have no idea which was the original artist.
When I gave you this envelope at the beginning, I said inside it states unequivocally which artist I wanted to save from burning.
Just tell me what you can see written inside.
I just see a lighter.
It's just a lighter? Is there anything else written inside? No.
Nothing else is written inside? The reason is because when I said it was written inside, I meant it in a slightly different way.
This has been to do with the value of art, and we've been doing that by burning and destroying certain works of art.
So, with that in mind, let me show you with this lighter exactly which artist I wanted to save from burning right from the very beginning.
What do we do?! Follow me.
That's it.
Seriously, guys.
Come on, follow me.
Now, come follow me.
Open the package! Stephen, open the package! Oh, my God, it's the Matisse! That feels really, really hot!
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! My urine has turned purple.
How has he managed to do this? Absolutely baffled.
I'm 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, close.
This programme contains strong language.
Welcome to Trick Artist.
Thanks for all coming here today.
Now, I've spent the last few months planning a show from this warehouse, and putting together a whole load of effects and tricks that are in some way connected to art.
Now, I was trying to think of my earliest memory from art.
That's a relatively difficult thing to do - to think of your earliest art memory - and eventually, I realised that one of my earliest memories was from the show Take Hart, by the late Tony Hart.
I can't remember 90% of the show, but I do remember the final five minutes, with a small Plasticine creature called Morph, who would jump in and out of boats, appear into the ground, disappear, all the madness It was this very small Plasticine creature.
A magical memory of that, and one of my earliest art memories.
However, there was another one which was predominant, and that was - at school, I spent a lot of time in my headmaster's office, I was a naughty boy, and I remember he had a picture on his wall, not too dissimilar to that type of image in the background.
I later on realised it was a Mondrian.
So knowing that two of my earliest art influences was Morph and Mondrian, I thought I would combine those things and show you something like this So here we have a poster that does look a little bit like a Mondrian.
It's not a Mondrian.
It's kind of roughly what I remember in my head from the headmaster's office at school.
Now, I'm going to sell it to someone here for 1p.
It's a bargain.
1p.
- Does someone have 1p? - Yeah, I do, actually.
You have 1p? Yeah.
OK.
So I'm going to take this off, all the way down Try not to break it for you.
That's it.
There we go.
You have a, er Mondrian.
There we go.
For 1p? For 1p.
Is that it? - Keep the 1p for a moment.
- OK.
Thank you.
I'm not a complete cheapskate.
I'll also give you the Blu-Tack.
OK.
So What?! I'm going to go here this time .
.
like this.
There we go.
God! That's all four pieces of Blu-Tack.
Now, I'll give those to you.
Let me just take those off.
That's crazy! So you can have the Blu-Tack.
Come over here, so we can do this.
I'm going to squeeze this, so we can get this into some kind of ball.
OK.
There we go.
Hold on to that for a moment.
We may want to leave the Mondrian off to one side just for a moment.
One of you guys mind doing that? Did you give me the 1p, or do you still have it? I didn't.
Is this more? No, that's perfect.
Here's what we're going to do.
- Do you have the 1p? Can you grab that for me? - Yes.
Yeah? So here's what I'm going to do.
I want you to put the 1p in my hand, just on that part of my thumb.
OK.
Just here.
Just in front of it.
- A bit more towards the opening.
- Here? Perfect.
That's it.
Perfect.
That's fine.
You can let go.
This is the part where we talk about Morph.
Right.
So if we watch very closely Oh, my God.
Now we literally have the Blu-Tack for you.
If you open it up Wow, that's Look.
Antony Gormley's Another Place is the monumental installation on Crosby Beach, near Liverpool.
I've invited three people along to see if I could leave my mark on one of the country's greatest public artworks.
So, here we are at Crosby Beach, which is one of my favourite places in the world, because this is where one of my favourite works of art in the world exists.
This is Antony Gormley's Another Place.
This is 100 metal statues, all made in the image of Gormley, all facing the same direction, forever looking out to sea.
So with that in mind, I thought it would be a really great place to do something interesting.
There are 100 of these statues.
All of them are numbered.
So, Josh, pick a number between one and 100, and we will go and find that statue.
Number 64.
64? Yeah.
Right.
Where shall we start? Er, we may as well start closest.
Yep.
Why not? I'm going to grab this bottle.
I might be able to use this later.
Sorry? Do you want to look after this? OK.
Sound.
I wish it was full! 59.
Ooh, we're close.
Right.
Shall I have a look at this tag, then? What is it? So it must be that one at the back.
62.
That one was 60.
61.
So it goes 60, then it obviously goes 61 Yay! Boom! So, we are now at statue 64.
Can I take Can I borrow your scarf? Yeah.
In fact, let me put this on here for a second.
Let me show you something.
Oh, my God! What?! That's amazing! Can I use that bottle? Yeah.
Now, I didn't just bring you here today to show you that pebble spinning.
This space is so clearly defined by Gormley that what I really wanted to show you was this.
And this Oh, my God! Look.
What?! What?! What the fuck, man?! No! Oh, my God! That's mad, isn't it? He was spinning the bottle round, and then the statue would just turn round.
Crazy.
I'm just amazed.
It's really unusual, because every single statue is facing that way, and one of them now is facing the opposite way.
I'm just still shocked.
Now for an art experiment of my own.
10,000 coloured dots, 50 people, and one totally white room.
One question - can I create order out of chaos? So this is a truly interactive part of the show, where all of you are going to create an artistic environment.
Now, you are going to be given a load of coloured spots and you're going to plaster this environment with those coloured spots, creating a huge amount of chaos, without any help from me.
Now, I'll be back in half an hour to hopefully create some order out of that chaos.
Wow! I love what you've done with the place.
It's amazing.
Well done.
So in half an hour, you guys have been armed with hundreds of stickers of different colours, going mental, obviously, in here.
I did say I was going to try and create some order out of this chaos, so I need to have a little look around.
I'm going to go with I'm going to go with this here, with the yellow.
That's pretty good.
Let's do this.
OK.
That is some form of order from chaos, but you can also do it a little bit more visually, so let's have a look.
I think there was a There's a fruit bowl and stuff here.
Let me try this.
Let's try this here.
I'm going to use this.
Let's use these red spots.
It's now red.
I feel kind of bad that I've signed this room, cos it was your work of art, really.
Now, let's, er Let's take this here I'll actually do this, this way.
There we go.
Who, er Someone can have my name.
There we go.
That's for you.
'Yeah, it was pretty mind-blowing,' pulling the writing that he drew on with a pen off the wall.
Crazy! That's ridiculous! How did you do that? Each of you is going to burn one picture.
In tonight's show, all the tricks are about art.
I've invited a select group of people to join me so that I can show them the tricks I've been working on.
Some of my earliest appreciation of art was from looking at the pictures in storybooks, so I've made my own storybook to help me with the next trick.
Now, often, our first ever experience of art comes when we read those stories as children, those magical storybooks full of not only magical stories, but the art seems to come to life.
I'm going to try and recreate something along those lines tonight.
So what I first of all need is somebody that doesn't mind coming up here with me and reading out aloud.
So if there's someone that doesn't mind doing that You sure? Come on up.
What's your name? Adam.
Adam? Great.
Come and sit down with me.
This is cosy, isn't it? Yeah.
Really, really simple.
All I'd like you to do is, we're going to have a camera shooting over your shoulder so that we can actually see what you're reading.
But yeah, I'd just like you to, um, pick the book up and read it out aloud for everyone, if possible.
That would be great.
Right.
The Magical Picture Book by Benjamin Earl.
"Once upon a time there was a magician called Ben, "who decided to do a card trick.
"The person he did the trick for was a man.
"Ben asked the man to take the cards out of the box and shuffle them.
Let's see.
OK.
"Next, he asked the man to pick a card and sign it.
" Thank you.
"The man shuffled the signed card back into the pack "and then put them all back into the box.
" By the way, no pressure, but so far you're doing brilliantly.
Fantastic.
"Ben said the magic words.
" Hocus pocus.
"When the man took the cards back out of the box "and looked for his card, he had a big surprise.
" I would I would read the next page first.
Just have a look at the next page first.
"His card had vanished.
" Go ahead.
Has it gone? I'll take the box.
Let me just check.
That's amazed me.
OK.
I'd continue reading.
Yeah.
"That wasn't the biggest surprise.
"This was.
" OK.
Turn over.
Show them.
Let them see first.
What was your card? It was the four of diamonds.
Four of diamonds.
Turn it over.
Let them see.
You did fabulously well.
Give him a round of applause.
Thank you.
I was just completely just amazed, dumbfounded by it.
Um, I was there the whole time and I know that I didn't do anything beforehand and nothing happened, so when I flipped over the page and the card was there, I literally I wanted to be like "da-da!", but I was just like, "Wow!" Now, I've invited a group of blokes to join me and play a rather colourful drinking game.
All right, guys? Hi.
Sit down wherever you like.
How we all doing? Not too bad.
All good? Now, creating art is not only one of the most enjoyable things that you can possibly do, it's also one of the ultimate acts of expression.
Have any of you guys ever done any art, anything? I have trouble drawing stick-men.
Trouble drawing stick-men.
Yeah.
Now, I honestly believe that inside every person lies a hidden artist, except that most people never truly discover that person.
So today I'm going to try and release your inner artist.
Fair enough.
Now, here we have a colour wheel.
What colour would you choose to use for the rest of your life, if you were that artist? Er, I'll be orange.
I think I'll go for Mr Blue.
OK.
Yellow.
And what colour do you want to be? Purple.
Purple, yeah.
You are? I'll go green.
Green.
So that leaves me with red.
You were all asked to bring some beer with you.
Check.
Boom.
Bring it out.
Let's go.
We are now going to play a drinking game where we all just drink and drink and drink, and then as soon as you need to go for a piss, you're just going to put your glass down.
OK? Fair enough.
This is not a bravado game.
We're just going to drink until we need a piss, and we'll get to a point where we all need a piss.
We'll put this down and then go and create art.
Sorted.
So we're now going to be doing what artists have done since the beginning of time, which is consuming lots of alcohol in order to let the creative juices flow.
OK.
So all take a glass.
Yeah.
OK.
Let's just start drinking.
Waayy! Cheers! Lads.
I've got mates of mine that have pictures of me, mid-shot, soaked.
I'm confident with my sexuality, basically.
Bring on the beer, masseuse! How close are we all to pissing? I'm all right.
Another pint, anyone? Hurry up, hurry up! Do you really need to go now? Yes, I really need to go.
Really need to go.
I swear you're all lying! You really are struggling.
We all need to piss.
We all need to piss.
Twist it.
Right.
So, we all need to piss? Yep.
We're going to go and put our pint glasses on that plank of wood, and we are going to piss into our pint glasses.
Right.
We're going to get up there and go and stand in our positions.
So, yeah, just come over here and stand here.
And then place your glasses down.
Legs apart.
At the start I asked all of you to pick a colour.
So you left me with red, so I'm Mr Red, yes? You are? Mr Yellow.
Mr Yellow.
Purple.
Mr Purple.
Mr Green.
Mr Green.
Mr Orange.
Mr Orange.
Mr Blue.
Mr Blue.
OK, guys.
Er, let's piss.
How the fuck is that happening? That's ridiculous.
It's quite strange.
That can't be right, man! That's nuts! Oh, my good God! This is weird.
Don't piss on me! My urine has turned purple.
I brought my own beer.
Came here with my own glass I peed and orange came out.
The most random thing I've ever seen in my life.
I'm an artist.
No idea.
No idea.
Wow.
Wow.
The more I'm talking about it, the more confused I'm getting.
Oh, my God! In tonight's show, all the tricks are about art, and I've invited a select group of people to join me so that I can show them the tricks I've been working on.
They say that art imitates life, but can I make life imitate art? Now, has anyone here good at drawing? Or colouring in, or pictures, or likes colour? You.
Come on, stand up.
We're going to get you to just draw some pictures.
What's the name? Paul.
Paul, nice to meet you.
Now, here's what I want you to do, we have a number of pens here, different colours.
We have a board with obviously a fabulous drawing by myself on here.
It's an amazing likeness.
Now, what I want you to do is keep this so that I can see and no-one else can see, OK? So if you just stand behind here.
I, in the meantime, I'm going to go over here.
And I will ask I won't judge you, that's fine.
But we're all going to see it at the end, but, it's going to Fine.
That's fine, you'll be absolutely fine.
So I'm just going to sit down here.
And we're just going to draw some nice pictures.
OK, so just pick up any one of the pens for me.
OK.
And if you would just draw some shorts.
And just, basically colour them in.
Um And when you're done, just put it back and we'll use another colour.
OK, so pick up another colour, OK? And just draw a T-shirt, do that, big and bold as you like.
OK, and when you are done, yes? And we're going to go and pick up another colour OK.
OK? And give him some socks.
OK? He's got no feet.
That's fine.
That's fine, just give him some socks.
Are you done? Yes.
OK, pick up another colour.
Yes.
OK? And give him a scarf? Why not? And then, just let us know when you're done.
We're done.
OK? And one final time, pick up another colour.
Mm-hm.
And then give him a hat.
Why not? So at this point, we've got a guy wearing a hat, a scarf, a T-shirt, some shorts and some socks.
OK? It's not a full outfit, I know, but, are you done? We're done.
Right, now, bring your drawing forward but don't let anyone else see.
OK.
OK? I'm going to get up, just join you here, and let me see.
Um In fact, show them, show them your work.
I again won't look for the time being, but just let them Um, can I have a look? Can I have a look? Yeah You sure? Yeah, yeah.
I won't judge.
Wow.
OK, that's great.
Thanks.
That's amazing.
Hold this so everyone can see.
Wow, OK.
So, um, that's great.
I mean, it's interesting, so you've put green, green socks on and here I've got this on, so you guys can actually see this I have green socks on, which is always good.
Now, we also have a blue T-shirt on, which is great.
I like the way you've done that with just circles instead of going all around it, to save time.
I also have a, er This colour, just to, kind of save time.
Er What else do we have? Oh, yeah, in the box I was sitting on we also have a What's this? An orange an orange scarf, which we have here.
This is, er, just for me.
Oh, look at that.
Sound man's going to hate me for this.
All right? What else do we have? We have a yellow hat.
Again, just so you guys know, there's nothing else in here.
We also have a yellow hat.
Unbelievable.
OK? Look at that.
You can stand around here for a second.
Now it's fine.
Now, I did say at the beginning that, um Oh, no, it's fine.
I did say at the start sometimes art imitates life, and you do have shorts on and trousers on, I know, but sometimes life imitates art.
Look at that! Wow.
Look at that.
Thank you very much.
I said no-one would judge you for this.
There's only one person in this room being judged.
Paul, you were brilliant.
Thanks.
Thank you, keep drawing, go and sit down.
Cheers.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, everyone.
Wow.
So, I'm here at a pop-up art space in London to meet a guy called John Walter, who's an up-and-coming artist, who's kindly offered to give me a tour of his artworks in this art space.
Now, I love art and art exhibitions, but what he doesn't know is I'm here for a very different reason.
I'm going to steal one of his pieces of art.
Hey.
Hi, John.
How are you? Nice to meet you.
I understand that you're not only a painter, but you're also a kind of sculptor and performance artist.
I'm kind of, yeah.
Jack of all trades, master of all? Master of all.
Well, today, we're going to indulge in some performance art.
OK.
And to do that, we're going to select one of your paintings.
OK.
But so that it's kept safe and clean what we'll do is pop it in here OK.
.
.
so that you know that it's looked after and it's safe, so you can look after that for me until then.
Great.
But in the meantime, just let's walk around.
- Well, where shall we begin? - Wherever you like, you tell me.
Shall we start with the performancey things? OK, let's do that.
This is a character called Cheerleader, who has a gall bladder in her wig.
That's what it is.
The gall bladder is an image that crops up quite a lot.
We've got a gall bladder down there Yeah, what's that? I noticed this is also a gall bladder.
This is called Two Bill Badgers.
It's got like a real pop art feel to it.
Yeah, there's sort of poppy things going on.
Then what's this one? This is a painting called Hot Corners Number Four.
Hot Corners, I don't know if you've got it on your computer, but you set it up so that when you drag the cursor to the corner of the screen, everything moves.
Right.
OK.
RBut it sounds a bit sexy and lascivious so I like it.
That's definitely one I won't forget.
- A sexy, lascivious painting.
- What's it called? Hot Corners Number Four.
And this one here? What's this one about? Well, this is an emu.
This is the, well, it's not the Emu, not Rod Hull's Emu.
I thought I'd paint a I thought it was quite an emotional painting of an emu, I don't know.
So, what's this piece here? If we, er Well, this is another one of the Hot Corners paintings for the show at the gallery In fact, if I can be honest and stop you there, weirdly enough, um, when I said at the beginning that we were going to select a piece and do a piece of performance art Oh, yeah? Well, really, that piece of performance art was actually an art theft.
That was my idea, was an art theft.
Unlike normal art thefts, if I can take this, you normally don't want to leave evidence, so I thought I'd leave a massive piece of evidence as to which piece I wanted to take.
OK.
So if you just come here and have a look.
I think this was Hot Corners Number Four? How did you do that? Now, not only was this Hot Corners Number Four, what this does do is beg the question of where that is.
You've carried this since the start, which has been empty.
I have.
If we, just do this If we just take this for a second Now, would you just take that out and verify that that that is the painting? - That is Hot Corners Number Four.
- Without any spray paint on it.
Very good.
Don't call the police, you're just as complicit as me, you've been carrying it.
Yeah.
Do I want it back? It's real.
I don't know how those marks got on the wall, and I don't know how this jumped into the box.
The more I'm talking about it, the more confused I'm getting.
It's incredible because it's so elegant.
Creating a masterpiece takes some artists a lifetime.
However, all I need is some colour and a signature.
Right, now, if you were to try and reduce art down to its three most basic components, you could argue that it comes down to content, so something like colour, also normally a work of art has to have a name, and a title, and a signature of some sort - arguably that's one of the most important things.
If you have a famous artist's signature, like Picasso or Mondrian, it's often worth a huge amount of money.
So, we're going to do something with that today.
Can I can I use you for this? Is that OK? Is that all right? What's your name? Olivia.
Olivia.
OK, here we have a number of essentially blank canvases OK.
.
.
of which we'll create something together.
All right.
I want you to reach in and take out any blank canvas you like, - Just take out any one you wish.
- I'll take this one.
OK? Just check, make sure that is right.
Yes, that's fine.
Now, this is essentially going to a blank canvas, and if we take a pen like this, what we're going to do is give it some content, so in this case, let's put a circle .
.
like this.
OK? This is now Olivia's choice with circle.
OK? Very nice and clear and simple.
Take this pen for me.
Also what it needs is a signature, so just place your signature on the back.
An O for Olivia.
That's the one.
OK.
I'll take this back.
So now we have Olivia's choice with circle Mm-hm.
Signed by you.
That's fine.
Um, but often this needs something else.
Often this needs, er, some form of content or colour.
So we're going to try this so you can all see.
This is Olivia's choice with circle in yellow and blue.
OK? So, we can see this here.
That's fine.
And obviously this is now signed by you, so it could possibly be worth something, but often with modern art, you'd take it to a different level, or something more contemporary.
So in this case what we're going to do is actually tear this down the middle.
So now this is Olivia's choice with circle, torn .
.
in yellow and blue.
Mm-hm.
However, yellow and blue do mix, so just to take it that one stage further, this is now Olivia's choice with circle, torn .
.
in green.
All right.
Now Take that.
Go and sit down.
One day it might worth something.
'This next trick is all about peripheral vision, 'or the lack of it.
'Using the fact that one person 'would not able to see what I was doing, 'even though everyone else could, 'I thought I would try and create a piece of art for them 'without them knowing.
' Can I have some do you mind if you come up for me? Sorry, what's your name? Heidi.
Heidi.
OK, If you wouldn't mind sitting down here.
You and I are going to create a piece of art together.
'But first I have to distract Heidi, 'so she has no idea that a canvas is being mounted on the wall, 'quite literally behind her back.
' So we're going to create something with you using colour, vision and timing, but before we do that I need you to select some colours to see if they work.
People see colours in different ways, and I just want to see what works with you.
So which colour shall we use? Select three colours for me.
Green, orange and red.
Green, orange and red.
Are you sure you want those, or do you want something, cos red and orange are quite similar? Are you happy with those? Do you want a different one? I'll change the orange to a blue one.
- Are you sure? - Yeah.
OK, let's do that.
I don't want to feel like I'm forcing you to do this.
That's fine.
So We have, well, I suppose if you're changing it for that one, we have red, green, blue, RGB, which are what all good pictures are made from, so that's fine.
Let's try it with red first.
So, here's what I'm going to do, just see if this works.
Now, what I'm going to do is basically, - just put this into my hand.
OK? - Mm-hm.
Nice and simple, but, before we do that, what you have to do is just check and see which hand this is in.
OK.
It's a very, very simple kind of game.
Before we do that, will you put put both of your hands up in the air for me? OK? That's fine.
And then which would you guess it's in, if you had to guess? This one.
That one.
It's not there either.
It's good, it's working with, er, it's working with red.
It's working with red.
We'll see if this works with green, OK? OK.
This time what I'm going to do is I'm going to place it in very, very, very slowly, from the back, OK? Very, very slowly from the back.
So, obviously going very slow, and we're done.
You can put your hands down.
That's fine, slowly from the back, and we'll do this again.
Which one's it in? That one.
Are you sure? No! I was working with green as well.
I was working with green as well We'll do this with blue, we'll do this with blue.
This time, you might actually see see what's going on.
It's worked with green, it's worked with red, let's see if this works with blue, OK? Watch very carefully.
No, I'm joking, it's not really there, it's not really there.
Um OK, where is it? That one.
Let's see if this works with blue.
It's not there either, we're going to so it worked with those, we're now just going to try this, um These, OK? So, we have red, green and blue.
OK, and like I said, we're going to create a work of art, based on colour, perception and timing.
So this one's slightly more difficult, OK? Because this has two go in the hand from behind, we can just see it, and then it comes round, OK? All right? Before we do that, again, just like before, just hold your hand up for me, OK? Just hold your hands out.
OK, so it's working with red again If we can put this in again, but, in fact close both of your hands around my hands, OK? That's it, that's fine.
That's fine.
That's good.
Do exactly the same thing, again, put both your hands down for me and do it this way.
No, it's gone, it's fine.
You did brilliantly.
Brilliantly.
Stand up for me, just turn around, look.
It's really nice.
Just sign this down the corner.
No, sign it at the top.
Where? At the top.
Up here? Yes.
OK, this corner, all right, let's go over here OK, So, let me give this to you.
This is quite unwieldy, nevertheless, it's for you.
Are you going to get this home on the tube? Can you help me? Yes.
I'm following! In tonight's show, all the tricks are about art.
'As I neared the end of the show, it was time to raise the stakes.
'What I did next, the only thing between a priceless work of art 'and total destruction was me.
So I'd better not mess this up.
' Now, when it comes to the world of art, one of the most controversial things you can possibly do is to destroy a work of art.
So behind me are five paintings by Egon Schiele, William Blake, van Gogh, Henri Matisse and Paul Klee.
Now, earlier, I asked an art critic, Stephen Bailey, to verify that one of the five pictures behind me is genuine and worth a great deal of money, and the other four are fake.
Well, the only test of value of something, is it worth stealing? One of these things is worth stealing.
'We then concealed them in cardboard boxes.
' So what I've set up here is a scenario where a genuinely valuable piece of art, worth thousands, could potentially be destroyed by one of you.
And in this scenario, each of you is going to burn one of these pictures.
So there's every chance that that work of art will be destroyed.
But I'm going to try my best to stop that from happening.
However, at this point, Stephen and I know where that valuable work of art is.
So to be absolutely sure that nobody knows where it is, Stephen and I are going to go over there.
You guys will come forward and mix them all up.
- Do you want to mix any more of them around? - No.
No? Sure? OK.
We're going to come back here.
Stephen, come back with me.
So, at this point in time, nobody knows where that valuable work of art is.
The name of the artist that I want to stop being burnt is inside here, OK.
So before we open that at the very end, I'll ask you to open this so we can verify it.
But wait until the very end.
So tuck that away somewhere on your person, and we'll open that at the end.
So, we are now going to start burning boxes.
If I just asked you which we should burn Number one.
Number one.
OK.
OK, that's one down.
Let's try this a slightly different way.
- Why don't we do this with yourself? - Yep.
Now, a great way to make a choice would be if we had four playing cards with one, two, three and four Yep.
All you would have to do is pick one of those and that would essentially tell us which one to burn.
Fair? Yeah.
Mix them up, face down, and then choose one of those, any one you like.
Turn it face over, and whichever one that is A king.
Hang on.
That doesn't Let's have a look at the others.
A much easier way would be for me to just ask you.
So which of the remaining barrels shall we go for? So two, three, four, five.
Five.
Yep.
Are you sure? 100%.
OK.
Let's go with this.
Uh Number five.
OK, next up.
Two.
100% this barrel? OK.
Right, so, we only have two remaining.
In fact, Stephen, I think I might give this choice to you.
When faced with a decision between two objects, there's only one thing in the world which is the best random choice generator on the planet in a situation like this, which is a coin.
So we have, essentially, a heads and tails here.
Which is heads and which is tails? That's tails.
You just knew that was tails? I have a conviction.
- So this is heads and this is tails? - I would say.
OK.
Very simple.
All you've got to do is just name, as I toss the coin, name whether this is going to land heads or tails.
Heads.
Heads.
OK, we don't have a coin.
It's far better if you just name, if I'm really honest, let's take that away.
We have the last two barrels remaining.
- Which barrel do you want to choose? - It should be that one.
This one here? Yeah, the green one.
We're going to burn this.
So we're just going to pop this down Even destruction can be creative, remember.
Destruction can be creative.
We now have only one of the original five paintings left, so please, Stephen, can you just hang onto this? Trust me, I'm a guru.
So at this point in time, we still don't know if that's the genuine article.
You guys have no idea which was the original artist.
When I gave you this envelope at the beginning, I said inside it states unequivocally which artist I wanted to save from burning.
Just tell me what you can see written inside.
I just see a lighter.
It's just a lighter? Is there anything else written inside? No.
Nothing else is written inside? The reason is because when I said it was written inside, I meant it in a slightly different way.
This has been to do with the value of art, and we've been doing that by burning and destroying certain works of art.
So, with that in mind, let me show you with this lighter exactly which artist I wanted to save from burning right from the very beginning.
What do we do?! Follow me.
That's it.
Seriously, guys.
Come on, follow me.
Now, come follow me.
Open the package! Stephen, open the package! Oh, my God, it's the Matisse! That feels really, really hot!