When Jarred Fell hit on the brilliant idea of combining magic and comedy, he conjured up a gem. As he tells us at the start, it’s not real magic, it’s comedy magic – it’s about the jokes.

Many of his ‘magic tricks’ aren’t tricks at all, they’re gags that take the piss out of ‘magic’, but some of them are actually quite astonishing, and though he often explains how he did the mind-reading or sleight of hand, sometimes we are kept happily in the dark.

With both magic and comedy, it’s all in the delivery. From card tricks to Russian roulette, many of his tricks/gags involve audience ‘volunteers’. He picks on numerous audience members, somehow making almost everyone feel (or at least look) stupid.

He manipulates and flirts with the audience like a pro, simultaneously making you feel terrified he’s going to pick you and yet you think, “Pick me, pick me! I won’t screw it up like the last guy did!”

His surly, wordless, female assistant is the perfect antidote to his outrageous energy. A screen in the background provides visual punctuation and dark puns to his routine, but is never a distraction or a crutch.

With plenty of swearing, sex jokes, shock-tactics and gore, there’s never a dull moment.

Fell is as entertaining as any magician I’ve seen, and much funnier. I wholeheartedly recommend seeing him if you have the chance (and the stomach). 

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There is a lot of wanking in this show; first Jarred Fell on video in a tunnel spanking the monkey (only pretend) then repeatedly throughout the show with a flurry of thrown away lines and gestures. It always gets a laugh!

Bustling onto the stage with well-honed radar, Fell – a likeable presence – proceeds to play his audience like a well tuned instrument as he scans faces and body language for potential participation candidates.

He chooses well as various people partake in gags that tease out his deliciously random magic tricks, some focussed on the ‘danger’ theme. A nonchalant delivery and played down tone extracts some hearty laughter from the crowd as he cavorts through wayward material from a vivid imagination.

The inimitable pack of cards is used throughout to present a perplexing array of how-did-he-do-that puzzles, as well as various unique objects. This is low tech wizardry, with a less-than-willing pouty-faced assistant in stripy tights who helps pull off a brilliant gag with a bowling ball – a heart stopping moment!

My ‘outside eye’ perspective is interrupted for a time when the kooky, dapper, suit-clad Mr Magician chooses me to come on stage to assist with a trick. “What do you do?” he asks.

“I’m a theatre reviewer.” This brings the house down and adds some interesting layers to the action ‘on stage’.

He wraps the entertaining evening up by clowning around with another ‘volunteer’ using needles and cards: an innovative and fun show.  
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