BBC - School of Hard Tricks

Watched this new BBC show yesterday. Just three 30-minute episodes on the BBC iPlayer which have been available since April 2020.

Six teenagers from Bradford who are facing different challenges in life are given the opportunity to learn magic. Allowing them to move on from previous challenges and build their confidence.

The show focuses a lot on the fact that they are strangers and the relationships that they form while attempting to learn and perform magic.

The first episode sets the scene, who they are and the magicians who will be mentoring them. The second show introduces them to performing street magic with the third episode building to a live theatre show that they will perform. It looks like they did a surprisingly good show at the end and would have been good if we could have seen more of this than just highlights.

Unlike many of these reality shows these days, the show didn't really focus on the mentors who consisted of Magic Singh, Pete Heat and Ashley Turner (The Trixta). It would have been good to see more of these three and the mentoring that would have taken place to support the trainee magicians.

Doubt the show will come back though or if it does, needs some tweaks to the format. Needs more of a balance between the mentors and the young magicians.