Review: WEST END MAGIC, Leicester Square Theatre

After the usual queue at this venue, a mostly family audience descended the steps to the wide auditorium of the Leicester Square Theatre. More often programming music and comedy, this time the production at the venue was West End Magic. The show is about to tour, with regulars Oliver Tabor and Wayne Trice joined by different guest stars around the country.

It’s always good to see magic return to a West End stage, and near to the sites of so many great performances of the past, and Oliver Tabor is an award-winning and impressive traditional performer. He impressed the audience most with some engaging bubble to ball routines, as well as a novel use of sound and musical notes. His final set, appearing with his (unnamed unfortunately) assistant as The Glamourists, had a real feel of some of the great acts of the past.

Tabor is a silent magician in the classical style, which perhaps meant some of the younger audience members were slow to warm to him, but by the time he was working with a young audience volunteer and helping her to produce a dove, they were much more engaged.

More immediately successful with the family audience was Master of Ceremonies Wayne Trice. A good magician himself, he is also at home with working the crowd and ensuring the performance goes to plan – not to mention rushing to the merchandise stall in the interval and at the end. His escapology routine worked particularly well. Even though the object was to sell more items, his demonstration of the light-up thumbs with a child volunteer was well done, as was the Mexican wave after the interval. Good to note too that the merchandise stall was selling proper tricks suitable for young performers.

It was good to hear the tribute mention for Alan Shaxon too, as well as Davenport’s shop, so influential to many a young magician. There were many young aspiring performers in the audience, and this show may well have sown a seed that will grow into a future magician. 

The first Guest Star was Danny Lee Grew, who started with an impressive cup transformation and then a baffling tape and rings routine. Also guesting was audience favourite Mat Ricardo, not a magician but a juggler with a background in busking. This was immediately apparent by the way in which this energetic performer took hold of the audience and got them on his side immediately. An excellent juggler of cigar boxes, he also knows how to get comedy from props – and his act had a great finish. Neither performer was credited apart from by the MC, and it would have been good to have had cast names on the projector screen or displayed somewhere in the venue.

West End Magic is a good introduction to comedy for young families then, although some magic enthusiasts present may have been disappointed by the lack of large scale illusions in this 400 seat theatre. The auditorium is not ideal, either, for some sleight of hand as the seating curves around giving quite a side view from some areas. The difficult get-in may also account for the lack of large-scale effects, but this was not an issue for the family audience.

West End Magic is an excellent first show for aspiring performers and for families looking for an enjoyable and mystifying couple of hours. It is touring for the rest of 2024 before returning to the Leicester Square Theatre in October.

*** Three Stars

Reviewed by Chris Abott