Hull New Theatre, Hull – until 12th March 2022
Reviewed by Dawn Bennett
5*****
I have had the pleasure of seeing a number of Mischief productions over the last few years so I knew roughly what to expect madness, mayhem and belly laughs and that is what we got and a lot more!
(Kenny Wax Ltd, Stage Presence Ltd and Kevin McCollum present…) Mischief and the magicians Penn & Teller, who have put together a brilliant and funny couple of hours.
From before the curtain went up, we had the cast in the audience looking for missing doves, a rabbit trying to escape across the stage and the “charity” sign having the missing letters replaced.
We were watching a “Disaster in Magic Charity Fundraiser” set up by Sophisticato (Sam Hill) who gave a brilliant performance as a magician trying fill his Father’s footsteps, as well as raise money in his memory. We had Mind Mangler (Rory Fairbairn) trying, and failing spectacularly to read the audiences mind, aided by Mickey (Daniel Anthony) as a member of the audience a bit familiar to him! The Blade (Keifer Moriarty) who played the slightly unhinged daredevil sometimes knife wielding magician. Spitzmaus (Jocely Prah) and Bar (Chloe Tannenbaum) are so funny as the magician assistants and have their own contortionist act, with various degrees of success, fitting, or not, in boxes! Sophisticatos main cash donor Eugenia (Valerie Cutko) takes part in the highlight act of magic in the first half and we see a bit more of her than they would like!
All the cast including the stagehands and camera crew played by Ishbel Cumming, Ricky Oakley, CJ Field and Jay Olpin work so well together and their timing is brilliant.
There are some brilliant tricks in this show as you would expect from the genius that is Penn & Teller that are so well executed that you will be left wondering how they did it.
To say that this is a show that “Goes Wrong” Mischief have got it very right!!