For the uninitiated, the Edinburgh International Magic Festival must conjure up images of people pulling rabbits out of hats or bamboozling hapless punters with dexterous card tricks.

One look at this year's programme, however, proves that there is much more to this festival than the cliches of popular imagination.

For example, on June 30, psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman explores The Magic Of Sleep And Dreaming. And from June 30 to July 2, magic combines with family-friendly comedy in Morgan And West's Utterly Spiffing Spectacular Show For Kids (And Childish Grown-ups).

However, perhaps the most intriguing show on offer is Working Class, a solo work of theatrical New Magic performed by Benjamin Rummens of Belgian company Cirque-Cirqulaire. As the company's name suggests, it began as a New Circus group, making work which combined circus techniques with theatrical storytelling.

Early in his career as a New Circus practitioner, Rummens, a graduate of the National Circus School in Brussels, discovered an interest in magic through a chance conversation with his wife. Dissatisfied with the visual effect created by a small box on a pole, which he was using in a show, he mentioned to his other half that he had alighted on the idea of replacing it with a bird box.

"That's fine," she said, "but, in that case, I want to see a bird in your show." Rummens agreed, and was soon training with his local Magic Circle in Ghent.

Rummens's explorations in combining circus, magic and narrative theatre included wordless solo improvisations. "At a certain point," he explains, "I came upon the image of someone going to work on a desk job."

The beauty of this image, from a New Magic perspective, was its simplicity. Rummens was attracted by the contrast between the banality of the man's work environment and the wonder of magic tricks. And so Working Class, a piece in which we follow the career of an office worker, in 10-year jumps, from caretaker to company boss, was born.

In 2012, Rummens presented the initial, 15-minute long version of Working Class at the Ghent International Street Theatre Festival. He was delighted by the audience response. He remembers the comment of one elderly lady in particular, who told him "you have to have an old mind to create such a piece. It's really touching."

The acclaim for the show as a work-in-progress spurred Rummens on. By 2013, he had worked it into the 50-minute performance he will be presenting in Edinburgh.

Working Class exemplifies New Magic's insistence upon theatricality. The magic tricks and illusions of the piece are fully integrated into the character and the story. When you buy a ticket for the show, you should forget all notions of magic being performed by someone with a collection of contraptions and gadgets from a magic shop. The mundanity of the production's setting requires the artist to perform with everyday objects.

"The difficult part [in becoming a New Magic artist] is not being a magician on stage," says Rummens. "When you go to a magic shop and you have to reject everything that is artificial, there are not many things left. When you see the illusion of sawing a woman in half, it's beautiful, I adore it. But when you look at the prop, you know it's not real, you know they're twisting your perception."

With Working Class, Rummens is engaged in perception twisting of a different kind. Everything in the man's office looks real, but some objects are made-to-measure props. For example, at one point in the performance, the bundle of paper in a rubbish basket appears to breathe - an illusion that could only be created by means of bespoke stage design.

For the most part, however, the objects in the show are those you would find in any office. The worker finds that a cup he is cleaning suddenly changes colour. A banknote he is folding alters in denomination. Pencils double-up nicely as circus throwing knives.

The show was two years in the making. It was only after performing it a few times in its final version that Rummens realised that the narrative had come from his subconscious.

"Without realising it, I was telling the story of my own father," he says. "He was a businessman. He worked and worked. He was only home on Sunday afternoons and, even then, he was often busy with work."

When he realised that the show was actually a reflection on the life of his father, Rummens was struck by his character's transformation, through the decades, from carefree worker to a man obsessed with money and material possessions. "He forgets what he's living for," the artist observes.

It was quite emotionally affecting, Rummens says, to realise that he had created such a sad character based upon his father without having done so consciously. He is sure that this realisation has given his performance an additional emotional dimension.

"I had one person, who goes to theatre and New Circus performances often, come up to me after the show. He said: 'I have never had tears in my eyes during a performance before. It really moved me.' That is one of the biggest compliments I have ever had."

Working Class plays at Summerhall, Edinburgh until July 3. The Edinburgh International Magic Festival runs until July 4. For full details, visit www.magicfest.co.uk