Fringe Music & Cabaret

Rob Adams

Mysterious Moments of Magic

C Nova

FIVE STARS

Torte e Morte: Songs of Cake and Death

Assembly George Square

FOUR STARS

Lord of the Strings

C scala

THREE STARS

THERE must be a rational explanation behind John Henry Blackwood’s feats. Getting his audience to make a packet of jammy dodgers disappear was the easy part. How to explain, though, the brand new playing card that went through a shredder only to reappear, aged by a hundred or so years, in an index file under Thursday’s date where no such file had been a few moments earlier?

Time travel plays a big part in the act of this self-styled Victorian gentleman with a handle on tech both high and low. The routine that bookends the show involves a phone call to a number that, we’re assured, contains the dialling code for a date long past and a conversation that elicits a number, a name and a key word. This is all filmed and the details written down and entrusted to a randomly selected witness for a later revelation that drew almost uniform “no ways” from the audience.

Blackwood is as gently amusing as he is persuasively plausible. Without wishing to give too much away, there’s a sketch with a miniature plunger, called Cynthia, that defies logic and earns Cynthia repeated bows. Another one involves an improvised slot machine and some disappearing coins that return with interest. A brilliantly accomplished and engrossing hour that could do wonders for sales of advanced magic sets this Christmas.

ANYA Anastasia doesn’t, she insists, do burlesque. It’s a tease, literally, because before long she’s divesting herself of Marie Antoinette’s 18th century fashion statement while playing a variation of The Stripper on a very 21st century keyboard in Torte e Morte: Songs of Cake and Death.

There’s a little bit more of the latter than the former as, accompanied by a spot-on drummer and a singing assistant who certainly earns her fee, Anastasia shares her many talents generously. One minute she becomes a hip-hop skeleton, the next she’s singing wittily to her almost flamenco-like ukulele playing or slipping in and out of costumes as an irreverent Aussie Grim Reaper and a no holds barred – verbally at least - talking head.

Dull moments are few, although the public address gag falls a bit flat and Anastasia’s clambering over the front row seems more obligatory than provocative. There’s also a lovely little bonus cameo for her drummer in turning a bodhran into a mini, torch-lit theatre for a kind of Punch & Judy Show - with scythe instead of whacking stick.

MATTHEW Fagan is indeed a lord of the strings. He sits surrounded by guitars, a banjo and a ukulele and as his guitar challenge goes on to illustrate, there’s almost no song or instrumental that anyone cares to request that he can’t instantly recall and work into a medley. An effects unit also allows him to create very authentic Hammond organ, sitar and – appropriately for an Australian – didgeridoo sounds, so before you can say “Stax Records” he’s playing Green Onions like Booker T.

All very impressive and good fun from a musician who has toured and jammed with Billy Connolly and has the stories to prove it. His ten-string guitar sounds especially attractive but a tendency for over-elaboration in his arrangements and a presentation style that can become quite grating could use a little tempering.

All shows end August 29.