Bringing together the knockabout fun of physical comedy and the mesmerising art of magic and illusion is a difficult trick to pull off.
However, if anyone is going to be able to do it, it’s Mischief Theatre – the award-winning geniuses behind The Play That Goes Wrong – and global magic superstars Penn & Teller.
With a pedigree like that, Magic Goes Wrong did indeed deliver laughs and gasps – eventually.
The schtick is fairly straightforward – a hapless band of magicians and illusionists are staging a charity fundraiser for those lost to disasters in magic. The only problem is, they are hopelessly bad. Hence Magic Goes Wrong.
It’s a cue to mix some of Penn & Teller’s stock-in-trade big illusions with a health dollop of slapstick, farce and more than a bit of gore as tragedy piles on disaster. What more can you ask for?
Magic Goes Wrong went right when it hit its stride
That said, Magic Goes Wrong took its time getting into gear, with a first act that initially felt like it meandered, not quite hitting the mark for the big laughs or the wow factor tricks.
Perhaps it was down to the audience settling into the show-within-a-show premise and getting to grips with the parade of characters and what this malarkey was all about.
However, once the show hit its stride – and the audience warmed up – Magic Goes Wrong went very right indeed.
Its ensemble cast managed to pull off the knockabout dark humour while performing slick feats of magic that were, indeed, “how did they do that then?”
A particular stand-out was Rory Fairbairn’s deftly-played Mind Mangler – a mind-reader so hopelessly bad that the audience ends up reading his mind – even down to someone in the third row guessing the lucky card in the Mangler’s wallet.
Funny, yes, but the skill of the magic involved in pulling that off really was incredible. No stooges here, just real HMT audience members.
How can anyone survive the pincushion of death?
Then there was The Blade, a Poundland Criss Angel essayed nicely by Keifer Moriarty, whose crass punk magician “no fear, no pain” ethos led to an eye-watering arrayof injuries.
But even as he was being stabbed through the hand, the knife ended up in the card picked by an audience member. How?
And I would like to know how he survived being trapped in cardboard box while sharpened stakes are shoved through until it looked like a pincushion of death.
Holding the whole thing together was Sam Hill as the inept Sophisticato. It was his idea to hold the charity night in honour of his father – a magician crushed to death by his own props.
Sophisticato has lofty ambitions but is clearly jinxed – his dove act was a homage to David Niven, but with a higher avian body count.
One of the big set pieces of Magic Goes Wrong was Sophisticato inviting two audience members on stage – don’t worry, it was all Covid secure – to perform a card trick.
How long is Magic Goes Wrong on at His Majesty’s?
The twist was, The Blade is trapped in a tank of water, only to be freed when the trick is finished. Guess what? Magic Goes Wrong… but it was still the correct card at the end.
By the time we got to the end of the show – via an escaped bear and spectacularly blood-splattered sawing in half – the pace, laughter and sense of wonder in the show was a joy.
The set-piece finale cemented the fact this was a show offering up illusions second to none. And that’s magic.
Magic Goes Wrong ends its run on Saturday February 5. For more information and tickets visit aberdeenperformingarts.com
