Liverpool Empire – until Saturday 11 September 2021
Review by Julie Noller
4****
After what feels like forever, I was excited to be heading back to the theatre. It was the theatre I remember going to as a young child, sitting on the train making sure I had my covid pass – I’ve long passed the age of being asked to prove my age but nowadays it’s proving my vaccination status. Don’t fret about this high tech QR code, even for those of us living over the welsh border who can not use the NHS app. Well it’s merely a few seconds to receive your certificate which is scanned very efficiently upon arrival at a designated time at the theatre. It is your choice to wear a mask or not, people are used to either way now.
Magic Goes Wrong is the latest tour offering from Mischief who are fast becoming a household name in the slapstick theatre world, co written by those well known magic artists Penn and Teller. I think I have to say I went wondering if it would be more Tommy Cooper than Las Vegas showbiz. Directed by Adam Meggido it’s gigglesome good fun.
Audiences are trickling back into theatres and some I feel are struggling to regain the sense of fun, slow to clap, shout out. But it was definitely there by curtain down. Like most offerings from Mischief there is much for the eyes to behold and a lot I feel I missed to notice for the first time watching, meaning I would without doubt watch again. Highly likely I would laugh once again at the same gags. You sense it was written after a long telethon charity show, including all those cliches you would expect; please donate now, let’s take a few minutes to remember all those who sadly have been lost, amazingingly most during the making of the so called Disasters in Magic Charity Show.
The premise is a show to remember Sophisticato’s (Sam Hill) recently deceased father, Sophisticato obviously feels he has a lot to prove to his father who refused to teach his son his magician ways or rather he sensed his sons lacking ability. There is no David Blaine no Derren Brown *disclaimer – Derren appears via video link, however not for long and becomes another victim of this disastrous charity show.
Magic is a family affair, Sophisticato tragically may have cut his mother Eugenia in half during a trick not surprisingly gone wrong. His half siblings Spitzmaus and Bar (Jocelyn Prah and Chloe Tannenbaum) are a huge success in Germany yet are somewhat cringy German stereotypes. However I truly believe the star of this performance is the Mind (mind.. mind…) Mangler himself (Rory Fairburn covering David Nellist) who is ridiculed throughout by those behind the scenes in lights, teleprompt and sound effects. Without doubt I could sit and laugh at his attempts at clairvoyance, mind reading, x ray vision for an entire show. His cries for a volunteer from the audience are met 3 times by his plant ‘Brian’ aka Mickey (Daniel Anthony) complete with mac, fake moustache and even dodgier ginger beard. John from the audience is dismissed as too desperate. You’ll watch as over energetic yet rather tragic ‘The Blade’ (Keifer Moriarty) claims to feel no pain, have a right hand that’s so fast you won’t believe your eyes. His helper is always Bar who speaks no english and takes every instruction as go. The results are; well you can imagine not great and you realise you are witnessing the results of why you close your eyes and squirm during Britain’s Got Talent shows as this is what could go wrong actually going wrong. Only you’re really laughing, you feel bad but this is comedy right?
So is Sophisticato any good? Well he loses his fathers entire flock of white showbiz doves. He claims that they are sleeping when they very obviously are not. Not to mention the RSPBs poor white swan. Is he terrible or just unlucky? For nearly 2 hours we watch as magic tricks and illusions are attemped and hillariously each falls flat, gone awry. Until alas wait there is my Tommy Cooper saves the day moment as we watch the totaliser miraclously spin proving the Mind Mangler may just have something after all and Sophisticato shows he may just be more than a toy shop magician. Well for a few minutes they were faster than my eyes and I missed how they did it…. Shhh there may be theatre floor secrets at work but I won’t tell if you don’t