Rob Bailey, illusionist and psychologist brings his show to the Fringe and looks at the world of homeopathy, the psychic and reiki practitioner. He quickly establishes that he is none of these and simply uses skills, techniques and methods that anyone in the audience could probably master. That said, he then proceeds to gently parody and poke fun at the affectations and mannerism of this school nonsense.
Rob has a charm and an engaging personality, a quick wit that allows him to respond to the actions of his audience and has most of his patter and repartee smooth and polished. He wears a microphone and his voice is fed through a speaker system, it wasn't a large room and I would much rather have experienced the intimacy of the natural voice than the rather disembodied tones of a speaker system.
The show starts at a good pace as he proceeds to demonstrate his 'psychic' abilities which are well honed and clever. It's a 'smooth' show but some of the technical cues regularly cut in a couple of beats too early until in the end I thought it was leading up to joke, it didn't, I think they were just mistimed?
The show was engaging and the audience was clearly loving it. I was with them until the last 15 minutes, then for me it lost momentum. A penultimate revelatory trick became almost repetitious and tedious. The punch and purpose of the final illusion was lost amid hurried banter and the end line 'revelation' almost thrown away.
Show times
4 to the 29 August, 11:30 (12:30)
Ticket prices
£9-£8