Britain's Got Talent magician Jamie Raven confirms audience member did choose helicopter for trick
The magician successfully made a helicopter appear on stage after an audience member supposedly suggested it - but viewers were left puzzled after no one in the crowd owned up to the choice
Magician Jamie Raven won last night’s Britain’s Got Talent semi-final, earning him a place in Sunday night’s final, but viewers were a little confused by the finale of his magic act.
During the performance Raven explained that various audience members had written an object on a card, four of which were then given to the judges to read out. One by one Raven made the things on the cards appear, from a goldfish to an ice cube. But after he made a real life helicopter appear on the stage, Cowell tried to find the person who’d suggested it and – slightly awkward – no one in the crowd owned up.
Now it's not as if we’ve all read too much Harry Potter and are hoping a real life wizard walks among us (much), but if that’s how the act was set up, it would make sense that someone could own up to having written the word on the card.
But despite the audience member doing their own disappearing act, Raven insists the way it was described was completely genuine.
“Yes, we asked things to be chosen,” Raven told RadioTimes.com. “That’s the premise of the act, and then you make these things appear.”
And he promises us the helicopter wasn’t cardboard or anything like that. “If you went up to it you’d see the switches, the propellers. I promise you, it was what it looked like, with a man sitting in it. If you tapped it, it was a real metal helicopter.”
Thanks to the magic of pausable television, Raven’s entire act came under scrutiny from eagle-eyed viewers. Many had freeze-framed him with one shoe off, a shoe he later proffered to match Cowell’s card which read ‘shoe’. But people trying to figure out how he does his tricks doesn’t worry Raven.
“I’m not magical. I’m just trying to give you something to think about. If I really could do all of these things, I’d live on Mars probably. I’d be elsewhere.
“I am not trying to convince anyone that magic exists, I’m just offering you my take on the art that I love.”
But if you think you have it all work out, you won’t get any confirmation from Raven.
“If you do work it out, great. If you asked me how I did it, I’m not going to tell you," he said with a smile as I crossed that question off of my notepad. "I just want people to think about it.”
For the final, Raven says he's "99%" there on what he'll be doing: "In my first audition I did the close-up magic, this round I did as big as I can do, so I think we'll try and meet somewhere in the middle and take the qualities of both. Go out and do my best, come up with a routine people haven't seen before."
The Britain's Got Talent semi-finals continue tonight at 7:30pm on ITV, results follow at 9:30pm
Picture: ITV
