mentalism

1 HOUR OF INSANE MAGIC

☆☆☆☆

 Barely a week in to their stay at Teviot, Elliot Bibby, Cameron Gibson, and Luke Osey are having a fantastic Fringe. They managed to sell over 50% of the tickets for their show 1 Hour of Insane Magic before the Fringe even started, and most recently confirmed that they’re now at over 75% sold out. They could have sat back and phoned it in for the rest of the month and called it a huge success. Luckily for their audiences they’ve chosen not to do that, they put together a great show and really seem to care about making it a great experience for every audience.

The youngest of the bunch, and apparently the physically invulnerable one, Osey has a formidable amount of magic experience for his age, primarily in creating and selling magic tricks. He’s still inventing, but as of last year is a performer as well. People who have come to the show for his promo photo in particular may be wanting and expecting him to willfully put his body in harm’s way, and he does not disappoint. Osey shoulders the weirdest and most painful looking tasks in the show with apparent ease.

The human embodiment of Kenergy-punk, Gibson is the resident Insane mentalist. Off-stage he is now also known for his magic shop and event space Wonder & Co. As someone who has gone above and beyond the usual call of magic in fulfilling his professional dreams recently, he’s perfectly suited to inspire the next generation, and in a memorable middle segment that’s exactly what he does. Audience members sitting next to the lucky child in question at the reviewed show were adorably distracted by her wonder and delight well into the following segment—the only good kind of audience distraction in performance art.

Bibby is famous within Edinburgh magic scene, he’s organized year-round magic showcases that have been gathering points for the city’s best magicians since before the pandemic, and in past Fringes he’s always seemed keen to hop in to magical supergroups. Throughout the show he’s frequently seen helping out his co-performers during their segments. He has the most classic magician role in the group, but is no less insane for it. A funny card trick sees him taking a creative approach to ensuring that his participants don’t interrupt him, offering them the kindness of a shared meat stick that prevents them from talking before his big reveal.

The Insane Magicians perform plenty of fantastic tricks in their time on stage, but the real magic is in taking their three strong solo acts and making them all work together—which is exactly what they did. The solo performances are interspersed with magic that brings all three of the magicians to the stage at once, which are easily the best parts of the show. Group magic acts have a general reputation for limiting what any one member can truly accomplish, but the simple solution that’s made this one so insanely good is the apparently genuine affection that the three magicians have for each other. It’s translated into the kind of stage chemistry that isn’t usually found outside of well-established double acts, an impressive feat for a trio that only started performing together earlier this year.

There are plenty of great reasons to see 1 Hour of Insane Magic. The pacing is perfect, the tricks all go right, they’re family friendly but universally enjoyable, audiences get to see three whole magicians for one ticket price, and the patter is all very funny. However, what sets them apart is how well their shared bond translates into stage chemistry. The Insane Magicians highlight that they have all had high profile international professional experiences, so while Edinburgh Fringe tickets may be going fast, but if an international tour isn’t in the works, it should be. Edinburghers had better act quick to catch them on home turf.

More information on 1 Hour of Insane Magic can be found here.

SUHANI SHAH: SPELLBOUND

☆☆☆☆☆

A newcomer to the Edinburgh Fringe, Suhani Shah presents a semi-autobiographical show with Spellbound. While she does deservedly brag a bit—about winning over her parents’ approval to devote her life to magic at a young age, and managing to find daily audiences as a talented youngster—she’s relatively humble about her current renown in her home country. To imagine her place in India’s cultural consciousness, UK audiences might find it helpful to picture Derren Brown as a woman with about ten times the Instagram following.

Shah’s easy rapport with the audience emerges from the start. She has a personable stage presence, and audience volunteers respond to her like she’s an old friend. At the reviewed performance some may have been a little too friendly. One of her first participants in particular was eager to shoot his shot with her, apparently in front of his wife, and Shah integrated their banter as a running joke for the rest of the show. Shah asks for volunteers before picking on random individuals, and she has no lack; in the reviewed show she did not need to resort to pulling up the unwilling.

The actual mentalism that she performs is nothing short of flawless. The basis of many of her effects will be familiar to magic fans, but she adds her own twist. Shah tells the audience about her childhood pitching up in a venue for months at a time to perform, and rightly points out that the Edinburgh Fringe is her natural habitat. One of her well personalized effects is her retelling of how she convinced her parents to allow her to lead this life, a blindfolded trick using her father’s handkerchief and a piece of her mother’s chapati dough—or here, a bit of dough she brought along and an audience member’s handkerchief. She responds blind to prompts in varied ways, allowing for new reveals to the same trick.

While acknowledging that everything that she does is a learned trick, Shah does not shy away from doing her level best to convince her audience that she’s genuinely magical. In a clever bit of show planning, the most fun element of this comes after she winds up a more traditional mentalism routine, when the audience is expecting another set-up but instead gets the immediate gratification of more magic. She doesn’t reveal anything that could potentially cause embarrassment, and in fact tells a funny story about when she learned to avoid that, but the details she discusses are specific and personal enough to make it a highly memorable moment in the show.

By Shah’s account there are at least a couple of similarities between the Indian and the Edinburgh Fringe magic scenes. In both cases there are very few female magicians and even fewer mentalists. As far as this publication is aware, Shah herself is the only female mentalist at the Fringe this year—although we welcome correction if any other female mentalists at this year’s fringe would like to get in touch. Spellbound may be Shah’s way of introducing herself to Edinburgh but it feels like the launch of a new Fringe superstar. In that endeavor Shah can only be a success, everyone in her Spellbound audience will be eager to see more from her.

More information on Suhani Shah can be found here.

CAMERON GIBSON: MYSTERIES; AN HOUR OF IMPOSSIBILITIES

☆☆☆☆

If previous years’ trends are anything to go by, Fringe goers love watching a beautiful and stylish Scottish mentalist read people’s minds.  For all in search of this, Cameron Gibson is the mentalist to go to this year.  There is more to recommend him than just physical beauty—he is also a funny and compelling performer.  In his wordily titled Mysteries; An Hour of Impossibilities Gibson displays a well structured mentalist show. 

Gibson does not limit himself to mentalism, opting for a classic cup and ball to get the show going, to great success.  A few tipsy audience members who had wandered in apparently entirely aware of what they were getting themselves in for could be heard commenting that Mysteries; An Hour of Impossibilities was already the best show they had seen this year as Gibson set his cup and ball to the side.  The one slight hiccup came in his transition to the more mentalism-themed part of the show, when a supposedly suggestible participant was slightly less suggestible than expected, but Gibson did not miss a beat, and her initial hesitation only made the second step of Gibson’s work with her that much more impressive. 

However the main event is Gibson’s mind reading using personality questionnaires that he had asked the audience to fill in immediately on entering the venue.  The quasi-psychological twist of using personality tests rather than just random bits of information adds interest.  Gibson outlines the personality types of his participants based on their responses, in what he freely admits are horoscope-level generalizations, before accurately mind reading more specific details.  The range of information gleaned and individuals read made for an exciting final segment. 

With a convenient  pre-dinner time slot at the ever popular Voodoo Rooms Gibson is this year’s must-see for the Fringe’s mentalism fans.  An hour in his affable company will only leave audiences wanting more. 

More information on Cameron Gibson can be found here.

IMPOSSIBLE! WITH BRENDON PEEL

☆☆☆

If magic is known for anything other than the tricks, it’s the bad jokes that make audiences groan until they reluctantly laugh. Brendon Peel, in Impossible! With Brendon Peel got the memo loud and clear, with an impressive stream of jokes that are absolutely terrible in the absolute best way. Impossible! Is an intentionally hodgepodge show, as Peel explains at the start that his aim is to give the audience a taste of each of the genres of magic, from sleight of hand to mind reading. The audience gets a glimpse of an apparently sweet and supportive friendship with fellow magician Tomas McCabe, who Peel points out at the back of his audience as the one to see for those who especially enjoy his mentalism section. But for an overview of magic, Peel is the one to see.

A highlight of the tricks on offer is Peel’s card finding trick. At the reviewed show the participant brought up to help with this was a young boy who looked thrilled to have been invited to share the spotlight. Peel is great with the kids in his audience, going out of his way to involve them all in his act—which is not explicitly geared toward children but is family friendly. Peel’s card finding trick was elevated by its callback to the first mind reading trick of the show, adding an unexpected extra reveal.

This first trick incidentally was a longer-form reveal that many magicians use as a grand finale. Its placement at the start of the show is an early indication of Peel’s skill and justified confidence in his act. Like the acrobats who jump straight in to a three-high tower in their opening number, he lets the audience know that they don’t need to wait until the end to be impressed, the entire show is on that higher level.

Impossible! With Brendon Peel is a perfect introduction to magic for all ages, and his excellent showmanship makes it fun for seasoned magic fans as well. His limited Fringe run is already proving popular, with a busy audience for his first weekend. He can only get more popular as word of his abilities spreads.

More information on Brendon Peel can be found here.

THE MAGIC SHOW STARRING LIAM A BLACK AS THE GLITTERING PRINCE OF MAGIC

☆☆

One of the great features of the Fringe is that you can see shows in pretty much any venue imaginable. Bars, pubs, and restaurants all clear out their back rooms to use as venues, the university partners with the Fringe to allow use of many of their buildings, and even churches allow the use of their halls, like the one on Nicolson Square where Liam Black has staged his show, The Magic Show Starring Liam A Black as the Glittering Prince of Magic. The ostentatious wordiness of the title promises a certain kind of show, and Black largely delivers on this.

It has been said that the easiest way to be at the top of your field is to pick a small field. In that vein, Black is indisputably the best magician at the Fringe at costume changes—he has a huge number of them and each costume is more elaborate, more glittery, and overall more fabulous than the last. In fact, it can be safely said that Black’s show has the greatest concentration of glitter of all Fringe magic shows. Aside from his own costumes, Black includes a sparkly assistant and team of glitter-clad dancers in his act, and is actually too much of a pastiche for this to come across as sexist. The group song and dance numbers are a highlight.

However, there are a few areas where Black feels a bit flat, and unfortunately the magic is one of them. At the reviewed show his final reveal, for example, was sadly fairly obvious from the start—the word was written a bit too clearly for it to be hidden from the audience when shown upside down. Black also spent an unfortunate amount of time playfully lambasting the audience at large for not laughing at a few of his early jokes. This was fair enough at first but eventually felt like he was berating his audience for the fact that he wasn’t being funny. Whether the audience warmed up or he moved on to better material, they did eventually start to laugh with him. The show is a solid concept, and there are definitely plenty of elements that felt like he had gotten them right, but also plenty of room for improvement.

That being said, The Magic Show Starring Liam A Black as the Glittering Prince of Magic is more than just a magic show, it’s a satire of classic magic tropes with enough glitter to make a whole church sparkle. At its best it perfectly balances paying tribute to the classic magic shows of the past with poking fun at their less than ideal features. While perhaps not perfectly executed on this occasion, the concept there, and this reviewer for one will be curious to see what Black comes up with next.

More information on Liam A Black and his performance dates can be found here.

TOMAS MCCABE: HOW TO READ MINDS

☆☆☆☆

Whether due to the late timeslot on a Friday evening, the gentle Irish accent, Tomas McCabe’s invitation to learn secret knowledge in How to Read Minds, or the appeal and reputation of the performer himself, McCabe was able to gather a huge crowd on the day that his Fringe show was reviewed.  A popular regular, McCabe’s audiences have evidentially not been diminished by the overall slowdown of this post-pandemic Fringe.  He demonstrated exactly how he earned this renown over the course of his hourlong show. 

The flipside of this success is that McCabe was at times faced with a merry mob of chatty revelers rather than a nicely attentive audience.  He dealt with this as well as could reasonably be expected of him, by ignoring the interruptions other than to drown them out by pushing on with his show.  Luckily thanks to his projection coupled with his tech assistant’s help those who wished to follow along were perfectly able to.  Said tech assistant incidentally also emerged over the course of the hour as the current most eligible bachelor of this year’s Fringe.  Ladies, contact McCabe for his number. 

McCabe demonstrated his mind reading techniques on both the audience as a whole and on a select few individuals who were invited up to the stage.  Each method was equally impressive in its own right.  A highlight involved the use of audience members’ anonymized secret confessions to aid in the demonstration.  McCabe teased his audience, but from a place of nonjudgement.  The purpose of the exercise, aside from learning techniques to help trick people in to thinking you could read their mind, was to create a space for everyone to freely express their errors in judgement without undue negative reaction.  The teasing tone was dependent on the subject matter, when McCabe came across a confession that a member of his audience was planning on coming out to his parents the next day McCabe was quick to wish him luck with the conversation. The only trick that McCabe missed was due to an inebriated would-be participant forgetting her role, which he laughed off without embarrassing her. 

McCabe is one of the more popular Fringe magicians and earns it all the more with every show.  For a fun bit of mentalism, Fringe audiences cannot go wrong with McCabe. 

More information on Tomas McCabe and his performance dates can be found here.

AVA BEAUX: WHICH WITCH

☆☆☆☆☆

Ava Beaux makes a name for herself as a rare female magician, or “magish”, as she prefers to be called.  For reference for those who may be unfamiliar with the gender balance of magishes, out of a total of over fifty magic show listings in this year’s Fringe just two feature a female magish.  Percentage-wise this year is sadly probably one of the better ones, post-pandemic overall numbers are down and regardless of the total number of shows usually only two or three feature women as magishes.  If memory serves Ava Beaux herself was the only female magish at last year’s Fringe, participating virtually over youtube.  That being said, while she mentions this in Which Witch, this is not the point of the show nor why it is worth watching. 

Which Witch creates two characters out of the one performer, Ava and Beaux, and features their struggle for control.  Ava is the one who is recognizable as a conventional magish, while Beaux likes to wear extravagant hats and has trouble communicating with the default world.  In both personas Ava/Beaux performs excellent magic.  Appropriately, Beaux has a weirder take on tricks, which was wonderful to see—although it is perhaps worth noting that ethical vegans may prefer not to be Beaux’s audience participant.  Ava/Beaux relies primarily on sleight of hand, but it was Ava’s mind reading trick that got the biggest reaction on the evening of this review. 

Ava and Beaux each charm the audience in their own way.  Ava has her hilarious stream of stories that keep the audience laughing while marveling at her tricks, while Beaux’s unfettered delight at finding herself in the audience’s presence immediately wins us over, in spite of the warnings.  Neither one makes her audience participants feel unsafe in her presence; while Beaux is less predictable any potential for destruction is focused on her own props. 

The finale of the show is visually gorgeous, it is worth sitting through the show even if you hate magic for the chance to see the last few minutes.  The theme of finding the power to take control of your own healing from trauma caused by others is unexpectedly heartfelt, and appropriately timed for a world where both global events and political elites cause suffering that is often impossible for any ordinary individual to stop—but we can take control of our narrative. 

Ava Beaux’s longer term fans may have a different appreciation for Which Witch.  She has always been a storyteller, but here we see her put down literary inspiration and step in to her own story.  It has been a privilege to watch her grow in to her talents and hone her skills.  Those finding Ava Beaux for the first time this year may have to settle for a perfect, stunning magic show, but surely everyone who sees her will be excited to see what she does next. 

More information on Ava Beaux and her performance dates can be found here.

RENZ NOVANI: ORACLE: DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE FUTURE?

☆☆☆☆

The Fringe is a very loud place, from flyerers clamoring to grab attention to performers using their best projection to ensure that their audience can hear them in distracting venues.  It’s part of the appeal, but can get tiring.  Stepping up the stairs to Renz’s calming, lilting voice and softer charisma is a welcome reprieve.  The audience of his show Oracle: Do You Want to See the Future gets to listen to him as he leads them through a series of mentalist effects in a bid to show that he, too, joins the oracles of mythology in ability to see the future. 

Renz dips in to a range of methods to display his mentalist and predictive powers.  Perhaps most fun and impressive is when he requests that audience members generate creative responses to his prompts for him to read from their minds, giving the rest of the audience insight both in to their fellow audience members and Renz himself via the range of prompts available.  You’ll find no ESP cards here, Renz’s methods create a unique experience of his skills at each show. 

The audience members who join Renz’s show as magical participants can expect an especially uplifting experience in an already uplifting show, being rewarded for leaving their seats with compliments and kindness.  Renz is a supportive presence, an audience member who initially has some trouble with Renz’s instructions becomes a temporary co-star in his own right.  Joining Renz on stage is not the only way that the audience participates in the show, which ends up feeling like a culmination of the audience’s collective participation.  

If Renz cheats the question in his ultimate conclusions regarding precognition it is no more than is reasonably expected of magicians, and the result is more inspirational than prospective audiences might anticipate.  While we at World Magic Review don’t claim to possess Renz’s precognitive abilities, we do foresee that Renz’s future audiences will very much enjoy his show. 

More information on Renz Novani and his performance dates can be found here.

ANDREW MCKINLAY: NECESSARY LIES

☆☆☆

Andrew McKinlay’s Necessary Lies has found its home in that most archetypical of free fringe venues: the back of a bar.  It’s also an archetypical fringe magic show.  An overarching theme is noticeable and appreciated to bring some shape to the string of tricks that McKinlay performs.  There are the expected unexpected moments of a magic show, and McKinlay is a strong performer, the audience doesn’t see anything to break the illusions. 

A mentalist, McKinlay uses all the classic props and doesn’t shy away from poking fun at himself for it—“It wouldn’t be a mentalist show without notecards and a sharpie”, after all.  ESP shapes are used prominently as well, in a fun sequence in which McKinlay tests whether or not the audience as a collective has the mind reading abilities to tell where he has placed the shapes. 

The small weekday evening audience of the reviewed show bonded over such moments.  Given the size, there were several times that entire audience was involved in a single trick, and even once where the whole group was all up on stage with McKinlay, effectively performing for ourselves.  This temporary sense of community, both in support of McKinlay as the magician of the evening and in response to knowing that we were collectively choosing to be manipulated by him, is the kind of magic that was most difficult to translate to the pandemic era and is a welcome sign of increasing normalcy. 

Necessary Lies has all the classic mentalist ingredients, with a little bit extra structure to make the audience think without asking them to think too hard.  McKinlay brings his full force of energy to even his small weekday shows, easily holding attention in an uncontrollable bar environment.  The Fringe going audience could do a whole lot worse than spend an hour in his company. 

More information on Andrew McKinlay and his performance dates can be found here.

DAVE ALNWICK: EXCEPTIONAL MAGIC & SUPER CHILL MAGIC

☆☆☆☆

At an Edinburgh Fringe where many familiar magicians are absent or performing limited runs, Dave Alnwick is back for full Fringe long of three to five shows a day.  By numbers alone, he accounts for exactly one third of the magic listings on the PBH Free Fringe website this year.  His two daytime shows, Super Chill Magic and Exceptional Magic, are intentionally very similar to accommodate his many fans, which is why they are both best addressed in this one review. 

The household name status that Alnwick has achieved at the Fringe makes the audience experience at his shows extra special.  People who manage to secure spots at the fronts of his queues have the camaraderie of successful pilgrims, holding spots in the queue for strangers who have urgent errands and exchanging phone numbers so those who remain can immediately update the errand-runner if anything changes.  The hype might sound excessive but as soon as the show starts, Alnwick proves that he’s earned it. 

Both Super Chill and Exceptional Magic have a bit of sleight of hand but rely more heavily on mentalism, Alnwick’s specialty.  Everything is performed flawlessly, as his audiences have learned they can expect.  A card trick that he performs with two audience participants in each show is a particular highlight, with Alnwick leaving his deck of cards in the participants’ hands for the majority of the effect.  In the talent-scouting portion of the reviewed Super Chill Magic, Alnwick found an excellent participant who briefly stole the show, and would not be out of place on his own stage, perhaps at next year’s Fringe.  Choosing participants who will best enhance the show is a skill in itself, and one that Alnwick has clearly mastered over his long career. 

Super Chill and Exceptional Magic are well timed to accommodate Alnwick’s variety of fans.  Super Chill Magic is in the early afternoon, earlier than most shows, for the Fringe tourists to kick off a busy day of show-hopping.  Exceptional Magic, on the other hand, is just about late enough for locals to pop in after a day in the office, and to catch those unwilling to get out of bed in time for Super Chill Magic.  Both Alnwick and this reviewer agree that attendance at both is not necessary for any but the most devout of his followers.  Either one is sufficient to re-cement the legend of Alnwick in the Fringe collective consciousness for another year. 

More information on Dave Alnwick and his performance dates can be found here.