New Victoria Theatre, Woking – until 6 November 2021
Reviewed by Alexandra Sykes
5*****
The Disasters in Magic Charity fundraiser arrived in Woking with problems before the show even started, the doves had escaped into the auditorium. Anyone familiar with Mischief knows the show starts before curtain up with cast members running around in the audience looking for missing props and cast members.
Presented by Sophisticato (Sam Hill), who is attempting to recreate his late fathers magical act, Magic Goes Wrong features performances by The Blade (Kiefer Moriarty) who claims to be immune to pain and does death defying tricks involving knives, water tanks and rat traps, the Mind Mangler (Rory Fairbairn) who claims to have advanced senses including xray vision and the ability to guess people’s jobs by smelling them, and Bar and Spitzmaus (Chloe Tannenbaum and Jocelyn Prah respectively), sisters who perform gymnastic tricks, all have things go wrong in their acts as you would expect with Mischief productions. With support from Eugenia (Valerie Cutko) and Mickey (Daniel Anthony) the show ends up raising very little money due to legal costs and expensive confetti cannons.
Written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, Henry Shields and magic duo Penn and Teller, the show is full of audience participation, especially during the Mind Manglers act, and will have everyone laughing from start to finish. Although some of the tricks are easy to explain, some are done so well it is impossible to tell how they were actually done.
A brilliant night out for the whole family and worth every laugh, grab a ticket before it is too late and something really does go wrong.