 Mitchell and Webb were taught basic magical skills for the film, with them each receiving "welcome pack of DVDs telling the history of magic".Andrew O'Connor was a member of The Magic Circle but was thrown out for revealing secrets, so he and Scott Penrose taught Mitchell and Webb magical skills.Webb spent two weeks "trying to roll a coin across [his] fingers and [he] still couldn't do it", with Mitchell admitting that "magic proved far more problematic than we anticipated".