Presented by Gilded Balloon
@ The Garden of Unearthly Delights – The Palace
WEDNESDAY 29 February (until March 18)

If you are a fan of great showmanship, magic, apples, humour and just generally enjoying yourself, then you should definitely stop by and see Morgan & West: Time Travelling Magicians.

Rhys Morgan and Robert West are Victorian Era magicians, complete with top hats, appropriate facial hair, and a somewhat left field penchant for Harry Potter. Their performance takes place in ‘The Palace’, a venue which is somewhat hidden in its spot up the back in The Garden of Unearthly Delights. Inside the audience is met with a fairly empty stage, save for a few stools, a table, and a mysterious red envelope pinned up on the back curtain.

We are immediately asked by a disembodied voice to think of a number between 1 and 600, to write it down, and then place it in a wooden box up the front. The reason why doesn’t become apparent until the end of the show. When Morgan and West appear, they introduce themselves, and then announce that there will be no fewer than ten audience participants over the course of the next hour.  On a rainy night in the middle of the week, the show is not even close to sold out, thus making the likelihood of being one of these participants quite frighteningly high.

The show is polished, with the dialogue and banter between the two clearly well rehearsed and familiar. They finish each other’s sentences, fly through tongue twisters easily, and readily make jokes. All while performing a host of different magic tricks. No-one is here to see a man escape from a vat of water whilst handcuffed (though there is a pretty interesting take on ‘the bullet catch’). Instead, there is sleight of hand, card trickery, needle swallowing, apparent psychic powers,  a novel way to count loose change and a brief musical interlude with a balloon dog and a tragic ending.

While at times during the show, Mr Morgan in particular pretends to be bumbling along, making a few ‘mistakes’. However, this all turns out to be part of a greater scheme which will make you want to go home and crack out your abacus and school maths textbooks.

This is the first time that Morgan and West have performed at the Adelaide Fringe. Speaking to them after the show, they were ridiculously pleasant and completely un-phased by the fact that we were all standing in persistent drizzle, claiming instead to feel more at home with the rain. I learned that they met whilst in university in England, where Morgan was studying Physics and West was studying chemistry, and have been performing together for four years.  It’s interesting to think of two scientists pursuing a career in magic. After the Fringe they will be heading on to Melbourne and Sydney.

I really enjoyed the show. There are no pyrotechnics or puffs of smoke, but you feel involved in what is happening on stage (and, if you are one of the ten, you will have less of a feeling and more actual involvement). The part of me that likes dismantling toys, pens and gadgets wanted to go back the next night, just to see if I could spot how some of the tricks were done.

At the end of the night, the magicians said that if we liked the show, we should tell our friends. If we didn’t, tell an enemy. I like to think that if you’re reading this, you’re a friend and not part of some elite hit squad out to get me. So on that note, I suggest you go and see it. It’s definitely worth a look.