Marc Salem’s Mind Games Extra - The Review
"Any ten year old can do what I do - any ten year old with thirty years of practise"
The lights dimmed as I waited in my seat at the small and intimate setting of the Tricycle theatre - Kilburn. This really is a great theatre to see live magic at: it only holds a maximum of 230 people (and is rarely that full) so everyone has a chance to be part of the show.
After some initial problems with the lighting mind-reader Marc Salem took the stage. He began with a little introduction, rattling off his impressive list of qualifications and experience (including being director of research at Sesame Street), before moving into the first part of the act. As a “warm up” (the running gag being that his warm up lasts for virtually the whole show), in true Banachek style he threw a screwed up ball of paper in to the audience to randomly select someone. They threw it on until we had selected three people, and they had selected three numbers. Marc then proceeded to follow Corinda and created a magic square. Following this the act continued with the mentalist effects you would expect to see: number predictions, colour predictions, a book test, pick the envelope with the money in through to stopping his pulse (performed a little too fast I’m afraid) and finally a blindfolded “sightless vision” reading of billet cards and objects collected from the audience.
All of the effects were performed with great technique and delivery. His style of performance is affable and it almost feels like we are seeing a kindly uncle performing his act to his nephews. There were several kids in the audience, so maybe that enhanced the feeling. The show lasted just over an hour and a half, and we got through a fair number of tricks in that time. His act is a very “old fashioned” style of mentalist act with lots of scribbling on pads, and asking for numbers and colours and so on; but I think that just adds to its charm. OK, so anyone who’s read Corinda knows how the tricks are performed, but that’s not really the point. Although the techniques behind what he does are simple and well known, he still manages to pull off a great performance, that ensured most of the audience were totally bamboozled. It was interesting to see the sheer afront at using a Swami gimmick while walking through the audience, and making no attempt to conceal it (his use of it was totally visible to me), and yet no-one else in the audience seemed to suspect or see it’s use. As Corinda says when talking about Swami gimmicks: “they should be flesh coloured or made of dull metal - not because they are liable to be seen by the audience, but because it will make you feel happier” - and never was this so obviously true than at the Tricycle.
He finished the act with his oft quoted line: “any ten year old can do what I do - any ten year old with thirty years of practise”, and this sums up his act. Yes, it’s old fashioned - yes anyone with an interest in magic knows how it’s done, but he is great at what he does and let’s face it: there aren’t many opportunities to see mentalist acts on stage these days. If you are in anyway interested in magic, mentalism or mind-reading, get yourself down to Kilburn and experience the show whilst you can.
Technorati: Magic corinda, marc salem, mentalism, performance
