Deja Vu, according to a very quick Google search I just did, means 'a feeling of having already experienced the present situation.' Now, while Francis Girola did inspire this feeling throughout his performance, it was more in relation to his incessant need to repeat the definition more than necessarily fulfilling it in a magical sense.
The sight of an audience member with a cardboard box on his head, reading a peers mind and drawing a terrible Christmas tree is hilarious.
The repetition of some slightly dull patter, however, did not stop this show from entertaining. It's always hilarious to see your friends picked on in front of an audience and, in this regard Deja Vu did not disappoint.The show kicked off with Girola easing the audience into a comfortable state by synchronizing our heartbeats. All though he was only somewhat successful at this, which was awkwardly apparent in the small room, he did seem to become more at ease, having gotten this first bit of his show done despite a stammered introduction. But presentation aside, the point of a magic show is to present to your audience something unbelievable, and that he did. Girola could not only seemingly read the minds of his audience, but at one point even enchant them into reading each others thoughts. He knew private information about people in the audience, information that could not possibly be known – and yet, there it was! Of course, the suspension of disbelief here is a bit charitable, as at no point were provably random members of the audience used as participants- all of them were chosen by Girola.
But even for skeptics, the sight of an audience member with a cardboard box on his head, reading a peers mind and drawing a terrible Christmas tree is hilarious. And if you should choose to be enchanted by this introduction to deja vu, you could certainly do worse than this free ticket to an hour of a funny French mentalist.
