Showing @ The Vault, Edinburgh until Thu 04 Jul

Billing himself as a parlour magician, Paul Nardini’s show is a journey through the sort of tricks that entertained the Victorian and Edwardian bourgeoisie in their front rooms long before the invention of reality TV. Since he’s recreating a past time it’s not surprising that there’s nothing particularly new here: card tricks, cup and dice, a little light mentalism and some mock spiritualism, but Nardini presents it all with such charm and lightness of touch that his familiarity breeds smiles and warm applause.

His nice line in self-deprecating patter quickly gets his audience on side and with a particular talent in convincing his volunteers that things have gone awry with his tricks before pulling the proverbial rabbit out of the hat, he’s able to surprise even the most jaded members of the audience. The fact that he manages to pull this off more than once and get away with it is a tribute to his performance skills.

What’s almost more impressive than the mind magic and manipulation is that Nardini manages to overcome the limitations of his space. The shoebox that is the Vault, with its cramped seating and poor facilities limits the kind of audience participation that a magician like Nardini requires, yet even with these restrictions he is able to get a few willing volunteers up to help.

Nothing can give a magician more pleasure than the sharp intake of breath that comes when an audience is genuinely astonished and Nardini gets this reaction more than once in his hour on stage. He achieves this without spectacle but with a consistent level of skill and performance that – as long as you’re not claustrophobic – should provide you with a hours worth of head-scratching, mind-bending fun.

Showing as part of the Edinburgh International Magic Festival 2013