Abu Dhabi experienced a magical night on Friday evening as British magician and illusionist Jamie Raven stunned the audience with his jaw-dropping antics.
Raven, who first set foot on the show-business scene by performing on the TV series Britain’s Got Talent, wowed the Emirates Palace audience with what seemed like an endless number of tricks and illusions.
Charming, funny and constantly engaging with the crowd, he performed some of the more traditional magic tricks that one expects to see, such as putting his assistant in a box and putting sharp sticks through it without killing him, to levitating a child off the table with apparently just the power of his arms, and a magic blanket.
However, he really won the audience over when he walked around the auditorium and performed magic tricks using cards, his wallet and people’s belongings — seemingly unfazed by the hundreds of eyes that were trying to figure out how he was doing it.
He repeatedly made a signed card by a group of young Emirati men in the audience disappear and appear in the most obscure places including inside his shoe. And he was fun enough to grant one of the men a selfie in the middle of his performance, which got everyone laughing.
The parents who took their children to the show no doubt became their heroes in no time. The kids watched Raven perform his magic — and make their parents’ rings and other items disappear effortlessly — in amazement.
The high turnout of children for the show did make one wonder why the performance was scheduled to start so late, at 8.30pm, and finish after 10pm, and many kids looked visibly tired by the end of the show.
Raven had two shows booked in Abu Dhabi on Friday and Saturday, July 6 and July 7, which marked his first-ever performance in the Gulf.
The Jamie Raven show is one of many performances organised for the Abu Dhabi Summer Season. The season, designed to entertain the entire family, will run until September 11.
