Masters of Deception delivers an evening of magic, laughs and surprises - review

With Masters of Deception, Festival Drayton Centre launched its new season of live events with two star performers for the price of one.

The magic of Richard Jones and Alex Jesson, different in both style and content, complemented each other to present a varied, fast-paced show. It made jaws drop and brought smiles to faces as it delivered warm-hearted entertainment which the audience clearly loved.

Alex Jesson and his team, Matricks Illusion, specialised in big-stage illusions accompanied by dramatic sound and roaming lights, all suffused with atmospheric smoke. At times, Alex’s brash enthusiasm, his warnings of danger and his exhortations for the audience to voice a scary ‘Whoooo’ seemed to verge on pantomime. It suited the classic cutting-the-assistant-in-half and levitation scenes perfectly.

The initial entry of Richard Jones, as the fourth person to emerge from a clearly empty phone box, was handsomely achieved. His was a more elegant, subtle performance, focused primarily on acts involving sleight of hand. His patter was more subdued, often self-deprecatingly comic about his magicianship. Distraction from what was afoot never came in a more charming package.

There was little reference to Jones’ former life in the band of the Household Cavalry, such as the Drayton audience heard two years ago in his Soldier of Illusion tour. But he knows people like to see something dangerous.

Last time around, he had a volunteer facing a knife hurtling through a flurry of cards, piercing a previously randomly chosen card and pinning it to body armour on the victim’s chest. In a nice touch, this time he used a pair of scissors, missed the card, and ended up ‘piercing’ his own hand. He wore a bandage on it for the rest of the evening.

Both masters of deception were adept at hauling people from the audience up onto the stage – “I see a lot of potential psychos, but I’m looking for a psychic” – and maximising the humour from their predicament. We had a Jonathan happily answering to ‘Barry’, and a youngster cheerfully obliging when asked to ‘just stand here, over this trapdoor’.

Perhaps the funniest scene was ‘Barry’ with three other ‘random blokes’, all wearing silly hats, line dancing classic moves to YMCA while Alex set up a ‘mind reading’ card trick. No need there for the roving assistant with a camera projecting detail onto the large screen for all to see clearly. Like the entire show, it was deception writ large.

By John Hargreaves