Directed and produced by: Cameron Gibson, Elliot Bibby and Luke Osey
Let’s get a few things straight from the start – this show is absolutely one hour long, it does include a lot of magic, but there is very little that is insane about it. Instead of insanity there were three engaging, likeable magicians, pitched to the audience as three of the best in the country, doing some mostly fairly clever and occasionally brilliant magic tricks.
Cameron Gibson, Elliot Bibby and Luke Osey have all been ‘doing magic’ for around ten years and seemingly each one has a strong background in their field – Gibson reads minds, Osey is a stunt magician and Bibby is, well, Scottish so they all have a USP of some description. But like so many shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, this over promises and under delivers.
Yes, there were some ‘oooh’ moments, including a clever credit card trick with ice, a stunt with razor blades a finale involving a paint ball pellet being fired at speed from a gun, but there were also a lot of ‘hmmm’ moments when the humour fell flat or the tricks were somewhat perfunctory or anti-climactic.
Essentially we have three very likeable guys, doing some fairly clever stuff at a medium pace. But it lacked the wow factor for the most part, the thrill just wasn’t there and it wasn’t quite the edge of the seat stuff that it promised to be. Audience interactivity was generally successful, in particular the mind reading section by Gibson which was great but too short, those watching could happily have taken more of this over the more basic card tricks on show.
This is a middle of the road magic show, with three magicians who are clearly very good at what they do, but who haven’t quite executed on their promise of Insane Magic. Instead, we had Quite Clever Magic, and although it may well warm up over the course of the run, particularly if some of the tricks are switched up based on audience reaction, there will be better magic shows on the Fringe for sure.
Runs until 28 August 2023 | Image: Contributed
The Reviews Hub Score
Not insane enough
