@ Summerhall, Edinburgh, until Sat 4 Jul 2015
Mark Elsdon claims to perform ten tricks, in ten minutes, for ten people, and in only ten words per trick in his show, aptly named “10“.
Intrigue builds as soon as the audience arrives at Summerhall, due in part to the place being decked out in magic decorations as the new festival hub for MagicFest, which has now grown to over 100 performances over nine days. And the intrigue is bolstered by the instruction on the ticket, which asks all audience members to “meet at Library Gallery”…
From there the audience is shown to a small room, simply decked out with one table top for Elsdon, ten spot mats placed in a circle round the floor and a spotlight in the back corner. Elsdon then explains that his magic is an art form; the group is to be astonished by its simplicity. At times it is astonishing; seemingly back-to-basics tricks have his audience oohing and aahing, which is good since audience participation is an important part of this show. Mainly used as a tool to verify that what he is doing is indeed magic, participants are asked to hold objects, answer questions and provide props (further assurance that what he is doing is really magic).
Perhaps the most impressive trick of the afternoon involves every audience member and two packs of identical cards. As he shuffles the packs together he explains that all the audience has to do is separate them into colours – hearts and diamonds are red, spades and clubs black. Easy, except that it is all to be done by guessing – red, black, black, red, red, black… Amazingly, by the end, the packs are successfully split, with the audience clueless how he did it!
So, the magic is impressive, but as a show it lacks slickness. It’s also not entirely clear he only used ten words per trick. A little more work would take this show to new heights, but it is still a solid introduction to this year’s MagicFest.
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