The Unluckiest Magician
Te Whare o Rukutia, 20 Princes St, Dunedin
19/03/2024 - 21/03/2024
Red Door Theatre, 95 Atawhai Drive, Nelson
23/03/2024 - 23/03/2024
Good Times Comedy Club, 224 St Asaph St, Christchurch
01/03/2025 - 01/03/2025
Production Details
Steve Wilbury – Writer/Performer
Joanna Joy and Eli Joseph - Directors, Dunedin Fringe performance.
Wilbury Productions
A hilarious, heartwarming and thought-provoking autobiographical comedy magic show featuring Steve Wilbury. Telling a story that has to be heard to be believed, it celebrates the indomitable human spirit, reminding audiences that even in the darkest moments, there’s magic to be found.
Eight medical mishaps, 14 screws, six plates and one fully reconstructed digestive system. Meet The Unluckiest Magician, who has the world’s most painful disease – Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. His nervous system was broken after eight surgical procedures and a truly mind-boggling run of terrible luck. He has fought through ulcerative colitis, gangrene and having literal screws loose inside his body. This is the story of a life lived on the other side of normal and the far edges of western medicine. It is a testament to the power of laughter in the face adversity. When tragedy strikes, we can laugh, cry or die. This show covers all three.
Steve mastered magic while sitting bored in hospitals waiting for test results. He would entertain the nurses and other patients to keep himself amused during his long stints in hospital. The show weaves magic through Steve’s life story with charm and wit born of twenty years of stage experience.
North West End UK gave the show five stars and called Steve “Living Magic”. The Unluckiest Magician was nominated for Best Script and Outstanding Performer at the Nelson Fringe Festival. It is written and performed by Steve Wilbury who was awarded Best Manipulation at the New Zealand Magic Convention and a Special Commendation from the Texas Association of Magicians.
1 March 2025
Good Times Comedy Club, Christchurch
Tickets $20
Previously at Dunedin Fringe Festival, 19-21st March, 2024
https://www.dunedinfringe.nz/events/the-unluckiest-magician
$20/15
Performed by Steve Wilbury
Comedy , Solo , Theatre ,
60 minutes
50 rewarding and occasionally hilarious minutes
Review by Barbara Frame 21st Mar 2024
The magician is Steve Wilbury. In perhaps an intentional parody of traditional magician garb (top hat, bow tie, tails and cloak) he wears pyjamas, a dressing gown and slippers. His odd attire epitomises the show’s two main aspects.
First, the magic. With the usual kind of audience assistance, Wilbury performs some fairly standard tricks, including card tricks and making a banknote turn up in a very unlikely place. They are faultlessly done – he is a highly skilled performer, and the audience, and this reviewer, were appropriately astonished. He has the good magician’s gift of making what must in reality be immensely difficult, appear natural and easy.
Sadly, even magicians can’t change everything that life throws at them, and this brings us to the other stuff: “The saga of my miseries,” as Wilbury puts it. He tells us how, for much of his life, he’s been in and out of hospital (pyjamas, dressing gown, slippers). His woes started with ulcerative colitis in his teens, followed by broken bones, gangrene and a neck injury, all contributing to what he calls “The horror of my life” – horror compounded by humiliating treatments and ongoing, debilitating pain.
Perhaps inevitably, the two strands come together a little awkwardly. What redeems the show is Wilbury’s warm yet unshowy personality. Despite the clichė-ridden promotional material (“a celebration of the human spirit’s ability to triumph over adversity” is just one example) there isn’t much of the standard rubbish about having a dream and believing in yourself, just the candid and sometimes self-deprecating experience of someone who’s had the most appalling luck, but, for 50 rewarding and occasionally hilarious minutes, can still make other people laugh.
Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer
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