Peter Antoniou’s AGT quarterfinal trick has got audiences puzzled, but, once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth – thus spake Sherlock Holmes. Can Peter Antoniou’s trick be explained?
Peter Antoniou: Explained
Sheffield-educated psychic and stand-up comedian Peter Antoniou has been wowing judges and audiences left, right and centre during this year’s series of America’s Got Talent.
But there are those whom the rising magician can’t bamboozle.
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His latest performance, for the AGT quarterfinal, lasted eight and a half minutes, involved 2000 cans of food, and saw Colombian-American actress Sofia Vergara eating pineapple while wearing a blindfold.
Incidentally, pineapples seem to be something of a trope for Peter Antoniou. He once convinced a train conductor that the date displayed on his out-of-date ticket was, in fact, the day’s date – using a pineapple (sort of).
So, how did he do the trick?
A good magician never reveals their secrets, but smart alecks among their audiences certainly will.
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More than one commenter on the YouTube video of the performance (see below) has attempted to dissect and explain Peter Antoniou’s AGT trick. One has done so with particular attention to detail, including time stamps.
All the cans, writes the user, are separated by a divider. In the top is pork brawn – aka head cheese – and in the bottom is pineapple. The fact that there are no labels mean they are horizontally symmetrical. In other words, turned upside down, they look the same.
What about the bit of paper with the judges’ favourite foods?
The performance is split into two halves. During the first, the judges are to the audiences right – or stage left – opening cans of their own.
While this is going on, the table is set for the second half of Peter’s trick. But there is only one chair. A stagehand therefore has to bring on Antoniou’s chair from the wings.
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Attached to the back of it, so goes the explanation, is a slip of paper written by his assistant.
If you look closely, from 3:20 to 3:30 in the video, you can see Antoniou take something from the back of the chair and deposit it into his right pocket. That’s the slip of paper he gives to Simon Cowell for the finale. That – is magic.