Hans Klok is one of the best illusionists in the world. His stage-presence and energy-levels are just awesome. His last show is called ‘Face the Future’ and is nothing short of mind-blowing (and really funny). I experienced the show in Capitole in Gent.
Mind-blowing
The opening is wild. It’s dynamic and fast, with stunning props, visuals projected on an immens background and upsweeping music. Klok introduces his team with one spectacular trick after another. It rocks you to the core. After four minutes in the show I (in the audience!) was already grasping for air, when Hans Klok asked the very question I was thinking about: “How on earth is he going to keep this up for the whole show which lasts almost two hours.” He laughs about it, jokes about his age (55), but really delivers.
In Face the Future Klok is dealing with getting older. He works from a lab and has to travel through time to collect the elements in order to fight an apparently younger and more successful clone of himself. In funny conversations the opponents compare eg social media followers and sponsor-deals. It’s really quite hilarious.
Great team effort
He has a team of six people supporting him on stage (and probably oh so more backstage). He brings them onto the stage, or gets rid of them, by mind-blowing illusions. People literally vanish in plain sight. I sat 5 meters from the stage and each time when I thought I got ‘the trick’ he fooled me again. Example is a trick with a floating lightbulb underneath his hands. The moment I kind of understood it, he floated the lightbulb above our heads. Like one meter above our heads. Wild.
Those spectacular illusions are connected by (funny) anekdotes and theater-play. Everything brings the story further. In a very elegant way Klok brings hommage to some illusionists that inspired him.
Kevinski
And then there is Kevinski. Kevin Gorczyński plays Klok’s lab-assistant. He can’t talk, but that’s not a problem for this funny pantomime-artist, who appears to live in a little box. Kevinski plays the most beautiful scene of the evening: home is where the heart is. That is my title for it. It’s intimate and only involves a balloon, a coat rack and Kevinski’s magic (and some beautiful light and sound). I’m not giving away more, just see the show. It’s so good.
The inevitable face off is bizarre in a good way. It really surprised me and made me wow out loud. Just when you think you have seen it all … It made me scream for more.
After the show Hans took all the time in the world to answer a few questions that I had about training, rehearsal and day-planning. Hans doesn’t take himself all that seriously, but his profession all the more. They call him the fastest illusionist in the world, but it’s also one the greatest storytellers on the planet. What a Boss!!
