Magic Roadshow

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is a United States traveling circus company billed as The Greatest Show on Earth. The circus, known as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows, was started in 1919 when the Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth, a circus created by P. T. Barnum and James Anthony Bailey was merged with the Ringling Bros. World’s Greatest Shows. The Ringling brothers had purchased Barnum & Bailey Ltd. following Bailey’s death in 1906, but ran the circuses separately until they were merged in 1919.

On July 16, 1956, at the Heidelberg Race Track in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the circus ended its season early, with President John Ringling North announcing that it would no longer exhibit under their own portable tents and starting in 1957 would exhibit in permanent venues, such as sports stadiums and arenas that had the seating already in place. In 1967, Irvin Feld and his brother Israel, along with Houston Judge Roy Hofheinz bought the circus from the Ringling family. In 1971, the Felds and Hofheinz sold the circus to Mattel, buying it back from the toy company in 1982. After the death of Irvin Feld in 1984, the circus has been a part of Feld Entertainment, an international entertainment firm headed by Kenneth Feld, with its headquarters in Ellenton, Florida.

Citing declining attendance and high operating costs, Feld Entertainment announced the circus would close in May 2017 after 146 years. (Wikipedia)

(Photo credit: Carole Segal/Syfy)  

Last season, while touted as a success story, The Magicians never scored over 1 million viewers outside of its second episode (which was the highest rated episodes of the series). The majority of its audience discovered the show through non-linear means. This is a big explanation why the series is moving away from Monday nights in 2017.

It’s not tied to a time slot. People will watch when they want to watch. This, of course, makes analyzing its value to Syfy difficult, as only the network knows its true numbers. But, if less than 1 million viewers is enough to keep a new, high-concept cable series on the air these days, more power to it.

Review:

On the basis of fandom reception, no new show on Syfy’s 2016 slate fared better than its urban fantasy romp, The Magicians, following the tale students attending an American take on Hogwarts in college form. However, while the show did well with fans, that’s not to say it’s without problems. Sadly, these problems are not much improved in season two, despite the show gaining a heavy amount of confidence based on the first four episodes. Read more..

http://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillbarr/2017/01/10/the-magicians-season-2-review/#2c28411561c3

Synopsis: It’s hard to love a professional trickster but you may feel differently after this doc. Filmed over four years, it pulls back the velvet curtain, not to give away trade secrets (you may pick up a few hints), but to introduce us to four magicians at different stages of their lives and careers, strip away the mystique and reveal the dedicated, hard-working dreamers they really are.

Movie: “Magicians: Life in the Impossible”

Country: U.S.

Director: Christoph Baaden, Marcie Hume

Cast: Jan Rouven, Frank Alfter, David Minkin, Jon Armstrong, Brian Gillis

Run time: 87 minutes

IMDb.com User Reviews: “Magicians is fun, funny, poignant, and revealing- in fact upsettingly blunt to some aficionados (as I overheard it at the premiere). But that is the greatest strength of the film: honesty. In recent years, documentaries as a genre have become polluted with fawning love letters to the subject, political propaganda, and sacrificing authenticity for drama. This is no love letter. What you get is an unflinching look at what it takes to be a professional magician. Highs and lows, glamour and glam-less. No smoke, just mirrors. The six magicians (making up four acts) profiled were well-chosen. All stage magicians, but they could hardly be more different, and they occupy totally different magic niches. The contrasting situations and characters creates a wonderful harmony against the thematic melody that runs through each of their lives. Themes of internecine conflict, of arrogance vs humility, and glory vs mundanity. It is here, where the themes are used to seamlessly bridge disparate magicians, that the masterful skill of the film’s creators (Marcie Hume and Christoph Baaden) is the most obvious.” – User Ed Clint from United States

“The ostensible topics of this film – card tricks, slight of hand, and other magic – are treated with skilled cinematography, slowly weaving us through the world of magic as experienced by both the audience and the magicians. But the true magic of the film is found in the subtle yet profound layers it unfolds (with no narrative, simply good documentary art) of the people behind the magic, and the many different paths they take in their love of the craft.

"As someone who was not especially interested in magic before I watched the film, I recommend the film for opening my eyes to this fascinating world. But even for people convinced that magic will never intrigue them, the documentary is worth watching for its masterful treatment of visuals and people.” – User Ellen

http://www.desertsun.com/story/life/entertainment/movies/film-festival/2017/01/13/review-magicians-shows-private-lives-performers/96557804/

For his bookshop and website One Grand Books, the editor Aaron Hicklin asked people to name the 10 books they’d take with them if they were marooned on a desert island. The next in the series is the illusionist David Copperfield. “I wish I had more time to read,” Copperfield says. “Telling memorable, affecting stories is what I’ve strived to do my whole career. Anyone can pull a rabbit out of a hat. But how did the rabbit get in the hat? What’s he hiding from? Whose hat is it? Why a hat? How long has it been there? That’s what makes an effect memorable, engraving a story into it. (By the way, I’ve never pulled a rabbit out of a hat.) The books that are on my top 10 list are books by master storytellers. Writers who know their way around a narrative, and who tell it beautifully.” Here, he shares his list exclusively with T.  Read more…

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/t-magazine/entertainment/david-copperfield-favorite-books-list.html?_r=0