Review: Magic and circus skills combine in a dazzling family show
John Hargreaves enjoys a spectacular family show packed with magic, comedy, circus skills and a finale that leaves the audience spellbound
The half-term matinee special ‘Magic and Marvels’ captivated a family audience at Festival Drayton Centre. Awesome may be a word devalued by some young people, but here was the real thing on full display. Jaws literally dropped.
This was a one-man show by Michael Jordan, who regularly performs as ‘High Jinx’ in the Blackpool Tower Circus and has toured internationally with ‘Festival Mondiale de la Magie’.
At Festival Drayton Centre, Jordan’s show was intimate and intense. His enthusiasm was infectious, his comic patter perfectly pitched for an all-ages audience. And the mix of magic tricks and circus acts kept the pace fast. He worked his socks off.
Opening with a rope trick, Jordan threw three lengths out to the audience, told them to check for magnets, Velcro or any other shenanigans, and throw them back again. With fluid movements, he changed their lengths, made them one and fashioned a loop. Then, within seconds, he was juggling.
A game of ‘Get your phone back’ saw a girl from the front row up on stage, bashing her Nan’s phone with a mallet before Jordan retrieved it undamaged from a suspended box no one had touched. Then came a beautiful plate-spinning routine, choreographed to have the audience screaming warnings as he almost let one plate after another fall.
Fire-swallowing morphed into a deliberately failed card trick that set up a musical turn with guitar and looping pedal, followed by a handkerchief dancing like a mini-ghost in a bell jar, and then cups of water swirling over his head, balanced in a hoop. There was hardly time to get the jaws back in place before they fell again.
Promising ‘Danger’ with a capital ‘D’, Jordan set up a dramatic circus climax with the help of two sturdy Dads holding his unicycle in place as he comically mounted it. Then, balancing on the bike, he juggled three sharp knives.
The finale, though, was the delightful sort of quiet wonder-working that left everyone with an enormous beaming smile. Jordan methodically tore bits from a sheet of folded paper, held up the finished lattice everyone was expecting, and then triggered from it a seemingly endless cascade of confetti-sized scraps. They covered him as if in a cloak of snowflakes, carpeting a circle around his feet. Truly magical.
By John Hargreaves