The day Posh wished that David Blaine would magically disappear: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV 

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David Blaine: Beyond Magic 

Rating:

Time Commanders

Rating:

David Blaine has been shot, starved, encased in ice and buried alive. He has come through it all unscathed. But Victoria Beckham’s eyes slashed him to ribbons on his latest spectacular, Beyond Magic (C4).

As he demonstrated a gut-wrenching trick to her husband, Posh stood behind the magician with a face like frozen acid. Blaine was visiting their home, so perhaps he had traipsed mud over the carpet, but I’m guessing she was angry because he had turned his back on her, as he showed the trick to Becks.

David Blaine has been shot, starved, encased in ice and buried alive. He has come through it all unscathed. But Victoria Beckham’s eyes slashed him to ribbons on his latest spectacular, Beyond Magic

The performance ended when the conjuror swallowed David’s wedding ring and fished it out of his stomach with a bent coat-hanger. Told you it was gut-wrenching.

Victoria didn’t applaud. She just turned on her lethally pointed heel and stalked out.

We didn’t see her again, but she was still there. When Blaine sewed his own mouth shut in their hallway and then snorted live frogs from his nose, Victoria’s voice echoed ominously from the kitchen: ‘Can anyone make David disappear?’

Which David did she mean? Both men would have been wise to slope off to the pub, just to be on the safe side for a couple of hours.

Blaine has a lot of celebrity friends, and wants us to know it. He took Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ample wineglass, drained the half-pint of vin rouge and then chomped off the rim and swallowed the splinters.

Johnny Depp was so shocked by the coat-hanger trick that he could barely stand upright, and slurred his words as he staggered out of frame.

And Blaine did card tricks via a video link, asking Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence to shuffle the pack as she watched him on her phone screen. When he made a card appear in her hand, she shrieked: ‘If you started a religion I would follow it!’

These stunts lost most of their impact because there was no build-up, no sense of occasion.

No sooner had we realised that Blaine was performing for Sir Patrick Stewart, than a fistful of cards flew through the air, one stuck to a mobile phone, and the world’s finest actor-who-looks-like-a-boiled-egg was bellowing in disbelief.

All the tension and drama was reserved for the last act, where Blaine caught a bullet in his teeth. There’s no guessing why he thought this old trick was worth all the fuss — magicians have been performing it since Tudor times.

The stunt was invented by Frenchman Coulew of Lorraine, who was beaten to death on stage in 1613 with his own musket by his assistant. Victoria would doubtless have approved.

Gregg Wallace popped up to present a revival of Time Commanders (BBC4)

It was a good night for celebs who look like boiled eggs, as Gregg Wallace popped up to present a revival of Time Commanders (BBC4).

Its previous hosts, about 12 years ago, were Eddie Mair and Richard Hammond, but someone at the Beeb obviously thought the revamped show needed a man whose eyes and gaping mouth appear to be drawn on using a felt-tipped pen.Otherwise, the show was little changed.

On the computer screens, two ancient armies of Romans and Carthaginians lined up. They were controlled by a team of Glaswegian wrestlers, and a trio of posh types who looked like Cub Scouts. If you didn’t see the show, you might assume that’s an obscure joke, but it is simple, factual reporting. The Cubs soon took against Gregg and his 120 decibel commentary. They responded with polite sarcasm, when Gregg yelled that the Romans were about to rout, their commander snapped: ‘Thank you very much, sir, you are incredibly helpful and I am incredibly appreciative of it.’

The more excited Gregg got, the more he repeated himself. ‘Look look look look look!’ he shouted. ‘Go go go go!’ Eventually, everyone was ignoring him.

You didn’t feel Gregg had ever played these games himself — unlike another baldy, Dara O Briain, who hosted videogame battles on a show called Go 8 Bit, shown on Dave earlier this year, and who evidently loves them. The Beeb has hired the wrong boiled egg-head.