Despite this offering, and
The Illusionists coming over from
Broadway in the autumn, magic shows have all but vanished (ha) from the
West End’s stages. I think I can see why, and that’s not the glib
dismissal it may look like.
It is not that technology has overtaken live-action jiggery-pokery:
seeing a car disappear in an instant in real life remains more
impressive than seeing it happen on a cinema screen. Tricks can move
with the times, as demonstrated in this turn-and-turn-about evening of
routines by several illusionists; instead of sawing a woman in half,
for instance, why not use a laser? Or when working with optical
illusions, materialising and dematerialising objects, then deploy an
array of iPads whose screens your apports can jump on and off.
No, the problem is similar to that which some people see in rock music,
namely that all the great songs, or at least the great riffs, have
already been written. For all the presentational changes that are rung,
the basic repertoire here consists of the same long-familiar bunch of
vanishing tricks, cabinet work, mentalism and close-up sleight-of-hand
(a video wall helps in this respect – Ben Hart can go up to the Royal
Circle to work with punters on his rope tricks while the rest of us
watch on). That’s what no amount of pumping atmospheric music and
Rubik’s Cube set design can refresh.
When it comes to the live drama aspect, the palette is even more
limited. There are basically two types of magician: the assured, even
self-regarding type that implicitly commands us to be impressed, and
the faux-comedian who disarms us into approval by appearing to foul it
up before pulling it off. The latter type is exemplified in
Impossible by mentalist Chris Cox;
as for the former, the non-silent variant on “assured” is the preferred
mode, as with Ali Cook (whose
pièce
de résistance is the Houdini Water Torture escape, an explicit
homage to the classics), whereas Jonathan Goodwin cultivates an
approachable-hard-man image whilst shooting a balloon out of his wife’s
mouth with a crossbow. It’s all thoroughly accomplished work of its
kind, but its kind will not necessarily convert you if you aren’t
already of the faith.
Written for the Financial
Times.