What a week!
The opening gala had some wonderful performances - notably Rob Zabrecky, R Paul Wilson (close up on big screen) and Lukas - all held together by Nigel Mead. The Great Lafayette award, unveiled at the evening gala show, recognises a prolonged influence in performed magic and this year went to Johnny Thompson (past winners were Paul Daniels, Voronin and David Berglas). It was disappointing (though understandable) that Tomsoni was not able to collect the award in person on the night. We saw it being presented (by Lance Burton) on film, along with a short film from Penn & Teller introducing Johnny and commenting on his influence.
I was on tech for one of the venues all week but despite that did manage to see some top acts.
Colin Cloud
This was a brilliant one-hour show from Colin, and my favourite show of the festival. Colin will take the show to the Edinburgh Fringe in August so I won't spoil it by discussing any specifics here, save to say that it was a well-paced and coherent display of the mentalism we would expect from a solid performer.
Luke Jermay
I echo kartoffelngeist's post above - an hour of q&a, much of it with blindfold and the q cards collected after he was on stage. An engaging performance from a master of his art.
Colonel Custard
I only saw just over half of this show as I had to rush off to set up elsewhere, but the stand out moment was when he got a kid up to help with the unicycle, asked if they had their cycle helmet with them, and they did!
Richard Wiseman
As someone who likes RW's blog and YouTube channel, there was much familiar material here. Most of the audience had not seen the videos/pictures before, so observing their reactions (to the familiar gorilla and colour-changing card trick amongst others) was quite an education.
Billy Reid
Billy has been a finalist at the Magic Circle close-up magician of the year competition for the last 2 years, finishing second in 2013. His close-up show was a well-crafted hour of what he does best. Mostly cards, including an expert demonstration of the invisible palm and a nice handling of Chicago/rhm, and some IT left his audience amazed.
Michael Neto
Michael played the part of a former big-time magician where he told "his" story, punctuated with magic effects. Had this been a magic show, I would have liked to see more effects in it - there were maybe about 6 in the hour. But it was a piece of theatre and as such was nicely done and well received by the audience. Although for me (being tired from late nights in the rest of the festival) the dim lighting and soporific music didn't really help.
Scott Smith
Visually brilliant - Scott performed on stage with 5 projection screens displaying some story-related film (the opening story of shadows in an old house) and some mood-enhancing images. Theatrical and mentalism-based, the show included some q&a, a feat of memory and a nicely appropriate finale.
The Colour Ham
Just one sketch from TCH at the festival's finale, and one I have seen before. But I still laughed myself sore at it - brilliant and I can't wait to see what they have for us in this year's show at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Now there's almost a whole year to wait until next year's festival
Ian
