MAGIC
Showing @ Gilded Balloon, until 29 August @ 9:30pm
With all its wonder and awe, magic often treads a fine line between the spectacular and the downright cheesy. So it’s with great relief that Ali Cook starts his latest show, Principles and Deceptions, in the character of a 70s razzle dazzler. Showing that he can embrace the cheese as much as many of his predecessors, it sets the stage for an otherwise much more down-to-earth show without compromising on any of the wonderment.
Live shows are always precarious, so add a bit of magic and the risk of things going awry must increase quite significantly. Unfortunately, a fair amount does either go wrong for Cook, or is glaringly obvious. When a black woman goes into a box and her hands come out white, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s going on. Similarly, a dodgy hand movement here and an unusually thick table there reveals the key behind too many of the illusions. Whilst some of this will be down to sloppy mistakes, it seems more likely that Cook hasn’t given his audience enough credit to be able to spot things – or indeed, after so much exposure of magic on TV, to be actively looking with their beady eyes for all the usual suspicious signs.
Having said that, there’s still plenty here that’s genuinely mind-blowing. As is often the way, it’s the close-up and smaller-scale stuff that leaves the audience speechless. Astonishing tricks where cards switch position without a single person handling the deck, or invisible feathers touching people’s noses, are just a few in an impressive ensemble of vastly different magic styles. With a snappy pace, plenty of audience interaction and such a broad knowledge of his art, Ali Cook is definitely one to watch.
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