The Amazing Randi returns to UK TV

James Randi

Don’t know if you’re aware of The Amazing James Randi or not. He’s a magician, who amongst other things performed a guillotine trick with Alice Cooper during one of his world tours and brought Penn and Teller together.

But he’s most famous for debunking Uri Geller during the 70s, appearing on numerous chat shows to demonstrate the exact same tricks that Geller performs, but without claiming psychic powers. He’s like Derren Brown – and indeed Penn and Teller – but older.

He’s also famous for his million dollar challenge, in which he promises to give $1 million to anyone who can demonstrate psychic or supernatural powers under mutually agreed conditions.

Anyway, he’s returning to UK screens* – assuming the contracts get sorted – to do a show based on his $1 million challenge for Channel 4. He’s going to have a panel of scientifically qualified people of all persuasions to help him. That’s all the details I’ve managed to glean so far from his latest podcast. Fingers crossed it’ll all come together.

* You might also remember him from his ITV show, James Randi – Psychic Investigator, which aired in 1991.

Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.

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