☆☆☆☆

With a mid-evening time slot at a slightly less well known venue, a weekday performance of Campbell Glazier’s Trickster can be a fairly intimate experience. Such things happen at the busy Fringe. Luckily, Glazier is a skilled performer, and the audience size feels deliberate. Those who attend get the impression that Glazier would always make the audience size feel deliberate, whether it was just one person or hundreds.

Trickster focuses on card magic. There are interludes into a few other types to mix things up, but card magic seems to be Glazier’s specialty. It’s certainly very slick. Helpfully for those who go to magic shows to try to catch out the magician, the audience sits around Glazier’s table right up close to the action. Glazier even explains the tricks if the audience wants to learn how to do them. Less helpfully for those trying to catch him out, Glazier is very good at his job, and successfully hides his methods right up until he chooses whether or not to reveal them. A highlight is a series of card finding tricks that conclude in a dramatic shower of playing cards. The messy conclusion is worth it for the impressive result.

Glazier is notable for including a live rabbit in his show. It’s a fun play on the magician’s assistant trope without veering into animal cruelty. The rabbit is hilarious and Glazier’s interactions with it and an extra element of humor and charm to the show.

In such a small setting, audience participation is both especially inescapable and especially chill. Glazier makes his way around the audience a couple of times to select cards and complete other tasks to help him show off his tricks. He is notable for his excellent rapport with everyone in his audience. It’s worth noting that at the reviewed show at least one member of the audience was a friend of his, but your reviewer can confirm that at least one was not, and Glazier had an easy, natural charm with all.

It’s rare to get such a close up experience of card magic at the Fringe, especially at a PBH venue. Finding Trickster feels like finding a hidden gem. Glazier manages to make card magic exceptionally funny, this may just be the most you laugh in a card magic show. It’s perfectly timed and placed for Leith-based commuters to stop in on their way home for a laugh and some wonder. Trickster is well worth the time.