☆☆☆☆

Magician Dom Chamber’s Magic Hunt is, above anything else, a lot of fun. Chambers employs an irreverently effective plot line that keeps the audience curious to see what happens next, and the style of his magic and jokes is exactly what his fans will have come to expect.

A sold out venue on a Tuesday evening, even on a 2 for 1 ticket day, is a sure sign that Chambers is catching on in Edinburgh. His style is a fairly specific taste and he seems to know it. Anyone who has ever seen Chambers, in a one man show or cabaret slot, will have probably seen him perform his apparent favorite card-to-wallet trick. It’s the perfect litmus test. While he has a fair range skill-wise, the vibe of his act is the natural continuation of that routine. Those who love it will love the rest of his show even more.

Chambers might tease his audience on occasion, but he knows how to get them on board—alcohol. If future audiences are interested it is recommended that they arrive early and queue up to sit in his front few rows.  Chambers may cheerfully subvert expectations in many areas of his performance, but when it comes to beer he does not mess around.

Magic often requires audience interaction, and that can often prove especially tricky for magicians. It’s impossible to anticipate the sheer variety of ways that those interactions can go differently than anticipated. At the reviewed show Chambers encountered an audience participant for a card trick who revealed that she did not know the English words for playing card names until he asked her to name her card to verify his finding. Luckily with his help and good humor he was able to salvage the situation, and even used the incident to augment the hilarity of his presentation of the trick.

Chambers’s hunt for the perfect magic trick has many twists and turns that would best be discovered over the course of the show. While he is demonstrably able to sell out his venue, he is perhaps not the most widely recognized of the Edinburgh Fringe magicians. He has an incredibly solid skill base, and his presentation style is fairly unusual. For those who like the idea of magic but haven’t found a magician who performs it in a way that speaks to their humor, it’s worth checking out Chambers. For the right audience he’s an instant favorite.

More information on Magic Hunt and its performance dates can be found here.

☆☆☆

Magicians will say all kinds of things to get members of their audience to join them on stage.  “It’ll be fun”, “I’ll give you a present”, “Everyone will cheer for you”, “I won’t hurt you”.  Dom Chambers has perhaps the most successful approach yet seen at this year’s Fringe, in his Edinburgh debut Fake Wizard.  Early in the show he lays out a row of beers and invites whoever gets there first to take one to enjoy while watching the rest of his show, queueing a brief race and at least a few people already predisposed to like him after having only spent a few short minutes in his presence.  This sets the tone for the rest of the show—Chambers has own cheeky takes on all the magic he performs. 

Throughout the show Chambers manages to maintain his good relationship with the audience.  He gets willing volunteers to hand him their valuables, and although magic audiences are trained to expect this to result in some temporary distress before the relief of the reveal he does leave them hanging for a while.  Nevertheless the individual in question is willing to trust Chambers repeatedly over the course of the show. 

In the reviewed showing Chambers also dealt with an unusual heckler, a baby, who was remarkably well behaved for the majority of the show but did make their complaints heard at the odd interval.  Chambers included this youngest of his fans in the act, and while the baby may not have noticed this was surely a relief to its adult guardians, as well as to the whole rest of the audience.  It’s easier to relax in to the enjoyment of the show with a magician who seems to have an even temperament. 

In Chambers’s display of Fake Wizard-ry the underlying structure of the tricks may feel familiar, but he dresses each one up to suit his playful personality.  And for his final effect, whether you love it or it makes you a little uncomfortable, you won’t see any other magician do it this Fringe.  Chambers certainly shows the kind of creative thinking that garners a fanbase. 

More information on Dom Chambers and his performance dates can be found here.