Marcus's friend Huon and his dad Tom asked us to go to a magic show with them, as they had free tickets. We met them down at Wrest Point Casino on Saturday afternoon. I don't go there very often; I was delighted to see they still have the large neon sign running along the building depicting dolphins gambolling happily with dollar signs. We all know how cash-focused dolphins tend to be.
Before we left Marcus said warily "I hope it's real magic. I hope he doesn't just ask us to close our eyes and then make a jail out of bones or something."
It was called the World Festival, but in fact featured only one American and one Australian magician. There magic was pretty good, but there wasn't a whole lot of variety. The main man, Tony, had a lovely assistant as well two lovely dancers (the Magic Movers). He boxed and then impaled his lovely assistant in about four different ways. Just when you were trying to concentrate very hard on the spot where the mirror/black thread/collapsible dagger probably was, the Magic Movers would start writhing in a sensual and eye-catching way. Suddenly all the dads in the audience would be clapping and agreeing it was amazing, no idea how he did that etc.
Tony and the ladies all did a lot of pointing with twirling fingers and snappy double-takes. Must have very strong neck muscles. There was a bit of S & M vamping it up going on, as the MMs would chain up Lovely Assistant, who thrashed briefly as though resisting, before going all "grrrr I'm a caged man-eater", Toto Coelo style. Tony had about eight costume changes, mostly sleeveless and caped.
It was all pretty loud. Wicked beats thumped throughout. "Saying the magic words" seems to be a thing of the past. One problem was that at the natural "wow" point for applause, the music was still at deafening volume. The MC had emphasised how crucial it was that Tony felt our love, so we tended to;
a) clap when we were impressed at the culmination of a trick, then
b) stop clapping while Tony and Lovely Assistant did some unneccesary dirty dancing unworthy of applause then
c) wait for music to die down and for Tony to give it the big "clap me" bow, then
d) finally give him an audible clap.
The scary music accompanying the grand finale was just slightly too much for Huon. We met outside afterwards and agreed that it was all pretty amazing, that Tony was a bit of a show pony and the girls were distracting but certainly decorative.
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