Why Is It Called ‘Now You See Me Live’?

Although it’s a majorly fun, big-budget magic show that fully utilises its Opera House location, Now You See Me Live is not that concerned with connecting itself to the film franchise of the same name. There are a few surface level connections, but the name is presumably chosen for two reasons; partly due to the show sharing the films’ philosophy of performing large scale magic with a sense of confidence, and brand recognition.

There’s nothing wrong with that, really, especially when Now You See Me Live does things that only a show of this size can do. The quartet who take to the stage are fantastic performers and genuinely talented magicians, pulling off some tricks that’ll leave you scratching your head with how they were pulled off in front of your eyes. But I can’t lie, it made me reflect a lot that a big budget magic show like this has to be sold on a brand name rather than the talent of its performers.

Much like the movies, the performers of Now You See Me Live each excel at a different area of magic and performance art. You’ve got sleight-of-hand masters Adam Trent and Gabriella Lester, a seeming sorcerer from France in Enzo Weyne and Italy’s Andrew Basso, a genuinely masterful escape artist. They essentially take turns in the spotlight, and occasionally work together to up the wow factor even further.

And indeed, some of the tricks on display throughout this show are genuinely pretty nuts. There are absurd sleight-of-hand tricks, seeming instances of teleportation and objects appearing out of thin air in ways that do often boggle the mind, including a lot of crowdwork that makes it feel impossible for a lot of this stuff to be staged. I also liked that they lifted the curtain a little bit on how magic works, even if that act itself was often another trick.

Now You See Me Live is great fun, but not super related to the movies

However, the most impressive stuff in the show for me came from Andrew Basso’s, whose stunts were literally just putting himself in danger for our entertainment. I hesitate to explain his tricks in too much detail, but I found the way that he interacted with the audience while setting up these nail-biting tricks to be both extremely entertaining and low-key terrifying, precisely because they were so real.

That’s not to take away from the charisma of the other performers, particularly quasi-frontman Adam Trent who keeps the show moving along with a solid sense of humour. But the entire show was haunted by one question for me: why is this almost entirely singular magic show branded as a Now You See Me live experience?

Again, it largely seems like a vibes-based thing. Both the movies and this show have a penchant for making magic seem really cool (with the distinct difference that in the show, it actually is happening for real), and it uses the whole Four Horsemen shtick that the movies do too. But apart from that, what connects these two things?

I suppose I’m glad that a show like this can exist due to the brand association, and Now You See Me Live genuinely impresses with some crazy magic tricks and stagecraft. But because of the attached franchise name, I fear that the more nebulous memory of “That Now You See Me show was great!” might supplant that of the individual performers and their talents in the minds of many; a sleight-of-hand trick I’m not a particularly huge fan of.

Now You See Me Live is playing at the Sydney Opera House until January 4th, 2026.