Pete, as expected, was very funny. He read the audience well and used his humour effectively. This was especially true with his use of 'fake' tricks. Even though we knew it was rubbish, it was still hilarious and got a lot of laughs and claps.
That's not to say he didn't do proper tricks. I adored his trick with the large cards, as well as the cuteness of the spotty handkerchief. I had seen the fire trick at Up The Creek and it had evolved and become much cooler.
Generally the banter does need work. He was using a lot of things he did for his previous shows. Here it didn't matter as most of the audience hadn't seen him before, but at Edinburgh there could be people that had seen him before and would recognise the banter. I definitely understand that he needed to focus on the tricks first then worry about the banter later. I am planning to see him near the end of the previews, around about July, and hopefully he would be able to do new banter, as the tricks are getting pretty fully formed now. He did deal with a heckler really well, as there was this drunk guy who kept shouting out random things and Pete was able to deal with him without getting frustrated or angry, which proves he is a pro.
Also, most of his tricks were very old school, with no real twists to them and it would be nice to see the concepts of the tricks played with.
However, one thing he did do actually could work with the rest of the trick. He did a version of the bullet catch using a paint ball gun. I had actually seen this trick done in February by Christian Lee at Magic Night. I think Pete did it better, as he showed how he came to do the trick as well as add a bit of the history of the bullet catch and how some practitioners died. That was absolutely fascinating and made me really want to research the history of magic. I think that the approach to this trick could work with the other, showing his thought processes behind the tricks and why he chose them. He can mix it up, and it would be boring to just do one sort of banter, but a real mix would be brilliant.
As I said, I really enjoyed the night and the tricks were excellent and am excited about seeing the whole show fully formed.
Bonus: 1. Pete recognised me and my sister as he asked whether people had seen him before and we put our hands up and he said "Oh, I know you two!" We also pondered whether we had inspired some of the banter as he did a little bit of a riff on twins!
2. Although this is actually not related to the banter he used last night, I got the idea to do this a few days ago and thought I do it now:
It's Mr Firmnus!
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