Don’t get me wrong, when Brendon Peel pulls you on stage to read from a card of gibberish, showing the packed Masonic Front Hall the same picture they say is a word in perfect English, you feel out of sorts.
When he looks into your eyes, holding the fluffy blue “voodoo” doll with pins stuck all over the plushy body, even the tail, and asks you to choose which pins to pull out, and his partner Li Lui opens a sealed envelope with those exact points, it must be mind-reading.
The magical pair, Lui and Peel have brought back their two-hander The Absolutely Mental Magic Show, which rose to Festival infamy when an arrow fired from a crossbow did not go as planned, resulting in a forehead flesh wound and the banning of certain weapons from the NAF stage.
The tricks in 2022 are fun, a combination of mind games, sleight of hand, card picking, handcuffs and a bit of fire, which excite the mind by presenting an unexplainable reality, while magician and mentalist Peel chirps audience members all the while.
We were baffled when individual coins landed up in impossible places or body parts.
The general chatter before the show was littered with devious ideas on how to catch the two magical men out.
A word of caution, the LED lights set up so the pair can view their victims, I mean participants, glared ominously at the front row as if we were criminal suspects.
Don’t be the only one seated in the front row, you are bound to be picked to go up on stage and lose your logic, or forget how to spell, but the fuzzy words on the white laminated card read “Edudabadoo” when I looked at it and “Education” when facing the audience.
It is true when they say a magician never reveals his secrets, and logically the explanation cannot be revealed without the help of a professional or science degree.
It was clear the two had not been in front of a large audience for some time, even after punting their success as one of the few South African acts to feature on Britain’s Got Talent, and Lui holding world records as an escape artist.
The pair stuttered through each trick, with long-drawn out anecdotes that threatened to lose us all.
Detailing is needed, the art of magic comes wrapped in a cloak of mystery, gimmicky jokes and red velvet, and with a show like this sometimes you just need to give the people what they want, before it becomes a dud.
The Greatest Showman, the circus, the freak show, add some smoke, good lighting and visual feast, give us a different world on that stage, where we can question the reality of where we are, and go home fascinated.
Go back to the drawing room boys, this is the new age of live performance, you have the CV, the skills, the stage presence and the time, rehash the flow, come up with some new jokes and present the wowzer the audience is dying to see from some of “Africa’s best” magicians.
DispatchLIVE
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