My blog of things and thoughts

On Friday 7th October I visited New Greenham Arts in Newbury to see fellow magician and mind reader perform his show.  (For those with short memories, I performed my show at New Greenham Arts exactly a month before hand.)  It was interesting Chris perform at the same venue as I'd recently performed at as we have completely different styles.

Here's a review of the show I wrote for the Home Counties Magic Society (www.hcms.org.uk) which I am a member of.  This review has been written from the perspective of a magician, and is aimed at other magicians so the angle is a little different than the sort of review you'd read in a newspaper.  Talking of reviews newspapers, did I mention http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/News/Article.aspx?articleID=17823...?

Coincidentally Chris Cox (the "mind reader who can’t read minds”) performed at the New Greenham Arts theatre exactly a month after my show there, so popping down to see his show was something I couldn’t resist.

This was the first time I’ve seen Chris perform live, and this was the first date of his "Fatal Distraction” tour following his run (which attracted rave reviews and regularly sold out at Edinburgh Festival this summer). Chris has a relaxed and likeable stage persona, which is good because much of his show requires audience participation, though much of it is done from the comfort of their seats, if the audience were not on Chris’ side to start it could be a very tough gig for him.

As a magician it is interesting to see Chris gets quite a bit of mileage out of some items that many magicians would consider dismissing, but these items went down really well and helped sell his skills to the audience, making the larger effects much more believable than if he jumped straight into them.

Talking of effects, Chris performed an interesting picture duplication using four audience members, an original twist on the Q&A routine where Chris was assigned tasks to do onstage and fast paced memory test where Chris had memorised the Edinburgh Festival Guide and the latest Newbury Weekly News. This all linked together with the running theme of coincidence and romance, throughout the show various elements of a past romance were suggested by audience members and these were proven correct. This theme worked well and also allowed Chris to put in some effects that were more classic magic than mindreading.

As someone who stands on stage and reads minds I have to admire Chris’ courage to attempt some of the effects and use some of the methods he does, and also his ability to confidently manage the audience and the specific members from the stage. Chris’ backstage team also deserve to be congratulated for ensuring the show ran smoothly, and no doubt a month of Edinburgh has helped this show flow smoothly and effortlessly to its conclusion.

I managed to grab a few words with Chris afterwards and begrudgingly I can confirm he is also a nice person who takes the time to talk his audience and give out badges as people leave, and in the foyer it was obvious many of the audience members were stunned, especially at the amount of detail Chris was able to reveal.

If you get an opportunity to see Chris perform (he was in Reading the following night) then it’s definitely worth popping along. See www.magiccox.co.uk for more information.