AUDIENCE members at the Lowry, Salford were invited to travel back in time with self-styled Victorian magic duo Morgan and West on Sunday. Our entertainment reporter Charles Creasey was there.
“Magicians, Time Travellers, and all round spiffing chaps”.
The spiffing duo being Morgan and West, who performed their new show ‘Parlour Tricks’ welcoming an unassuming audience into the world of sleight of hand magic – and rather successfully at that!
Rhys Morgan and Robert West, in the tradition of Siegfried and Roy or Penn and Teller, performed an evening of stage magic as a pair, combining their dexterity to achieve feats impossible with just one pair of hands.
In terms of magical content, the show was a tour de force. A lot of their material was completely original, and classic principles in the art were given the Morgan and West stamp of originality.
Dazzling effects left Salfordians mystified as cards seemingly vanished and miraculously re-appearing in the most unlikely of places.
The spectators were baffled when a borrowed ring was found looped on a ribbon inside a paper bag.
At the end of the first act, the audience was left completely stunned when the double-act produced an audacious yet oblivious costume change in front of their very eyes.
The second act comprised spectacular displays of mentalism, with West reciting freely calculated numbers from an IPhone whilst blindfolded, and revealing a selected word from the Oxford English Dictionary.
The stage craft had a minimalistic feel and was a terrific pastiche of the Victorian parlour. The stage was littered with a chez longue, a mysterious chest of drawers and portraits of the pair.
In terms of scripting and pacing, the dialogue between Morgan and West was sharp, and the witty interplay with the audience (often breaking the fourth wall) displayed impeccable comic timing.
The audience was left mystified, amused, and thoroughly entertained.
By Charles Creasey
@CharlesCreasey
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