Review by Charlotte Leamon
‘West Side Magic’ is the longest-running theatre magic show and is very family-friendly with comic acts as well as magic and stunts. English-man Wayne Trice introduced British Champion of Magic Oliver Tabor. Here, he performed a trick with a cloth moving by itself. His grand gestures and mime were elegant and his large smile comic. He brought the magic alive in his sets, another example where he brought a young girl named Leila on stage from the audience. Here, Leila received a petticoat and top-hat which comically covered her eyes. Through numerous magic tricks where Leila was ordered to mimic the actions of Tabor, cloths were knotted together through magic and of course, a dove was pulled from the top-hat. This trick made the audience gasp and clap in wonder and excitement.
Another act was a guest star who was a circus performer. He was energetic and lively, wearing a suit as he joked that’s what circus performers now wore. He had a number of cigar boxes and threw them around, catching them in between other cigar boxes. These impressive tricks had the audience clapping, and his comic remarks addressing the audience made us all laugh.
Finally, Wayne Trice was not just magical and funny, but he also was heart-warming and inspiring. He spoke of how he grew up wanting to learn magic and how we must all achieve our dreams. One trick was inspired by Houdini where he escaped from a white jacket when suspended in the air. Trice joked that he was not allowed to perform that in the venue, so escaping his suit jacket would have to do. He had two volunteers tie him up, specifically requested to be men which was a mistake as these two men took much too long attempting to lock him in. Once they confirmed he was chained up correctly they lifted the blanket and revealed it multiple times to reveal Trice in precarious positions, making the audience laugh as the two volunteers had to check his locks were still in place as his hands were in between his legs. My favourite trick of Trice’s was his newspaper trick. He discussed how he once saw a magician tear up a newspaper and reveal it was unharmed when he was 8 years old. For 15 years tried and tried to discover how this worked, he didn’t understand the illusion and how you could hear the paper tearing and see it in front of your eyes. Through talking about this experience and how he fell in love with magic, he finally revealed you fold the sides of the torn newspaper and ta-da! The newspaper he had ripped, that I saw and heard with my own eyes and ears was in fact, not harmed at all and perfectly intact.
I thoroughly recommend this show to families and anyone, it is heart warming and hilarious, as well as wonderfully magical!
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