A magician of the highest order
Magic is a magical thing, it can leave you bewitched or bewildered or both. For children, seeing a magician is like seeing the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. For adults it is a battle of wits and guile; the sorcerers trying to outwit the grown-ups in the audience while they are trying to work out how they do it. The conjurors understand these are rules of the game and know they are judged by how many tricks they can leave you confounded by, writes Michael Holland.
And so it was at Calder’s Book Shop in The Cut, where Mark Guest spent over an hour keeping us fully focussed on his hands, on his eyes and on his word; all the clues to reveal the trickery in his show – ‘Believe’ – are be there if you looked and listened hard enough.
On entering the famous book shop we were asked to write down a favourite celebrity, fold the paper and place it in a jar. We were then guided to a small room behind the bookshelves. The first one to go in had to find the magic book on a shelf to open the secret door.
Eventually the room became packed with 20-30 people and during the show Magic Mark drew most of them onto his stage to assist with the legerdemain. Each helper went back to their seat totally bamboozled – Discombobulated by how did he know their star sign, what city they were thinking of, their favourite celebrity, etc.
As the show moved from card tricks to mind-reading tricks, to tricks with phones and tricks where so many people were involved in the set-up it seemed impossible that they were all ‘plants’ and in cahoots with Mr Guest. But how did he do them?
When the show came to a dramatic end we left to have an animated discussion about the show over a glass of ale. I had managed to work out a couple of the deceptions and my son added another one, but that left the remaining number unexplained. We knew that we could not have been the only ones there not part of the ruse, so we had to agree that Mark Guest is a magician of the highest order.
‘Believe’ has been created as a tribute to Mark’s best friend who tragically passed away from cancer in January this year. This show and two shows in September will raise funds for Guy’s Cancer Charity.
Catch him (out) if you can.
Phoenix Arts Club, London, WC2H 8BU, on Monday 22nd & 29th September at 18:30.
Tickets available at: https://phoenixartsclub.com/events/believe-an-evening-of-magic-mentalism/
