A review of David Alnwick: The Haunted Magician, Fringe 2026

“David Alnwick: Magician. Definitely Not Creepy” one poster told me the truth in a misleading manner.

I went to see David Alnwick‘s above-mentioned show on the implicit promise of a creepy magic show, something so overt that it had to issue a statement in advance. Magic can be very creepy, so I never doubted this, and I’m all here for shows that lean into the creep factor of magic. In a labyrinth as well? Yes please!

Unfortunately for me, despite his show being fun, magical, humorous and creative, it was exactly as stated: definitely not creepy.

He ended the show by telling us that he feels magic acts have largely become comedy routines, not creepy at all, and popular enough that even he is doing one such right now. He prefers towards older magic, from the times when it was feared, loaded with history and mystery.

It was hidden, and dangerous. Why don’t we come to his next show, the Haunted Magician, which definitely is creepy.

Definitely creepy

I was snuggled away in a speakeasy, hidden away behind polite company, with a projector pointing at the wall. A brief introductory story played out, a phone call between him and his mentor, discussing an ancient book full of summoning rituals adapted as a magic act. The mentor warned that ghosts don’t see the difference between summons and theatre, and would regardless answer his summons.

The phonecall ends and Alnwick runs onto stage sporting photocopies of a special new magic book he acquired, promising a fantastic new act. The projection screen showed us various closeup snips of the book, a handful of sigils and spells and photographs.

HE’S LYING TO YOU! flashes on the screen for a moment, but we’re advised to ignore this, and focus on the magic.

He walks us through three segments of his performance. Themed around the supernatural, he had prepared tricks and magic involving ancient runes, reading spirits and seances, and finally a promise to return the dead to life, to communicate with ghosts.

These spells were slung flawlessly, even more impossible than what I had seen before. His boisterous chat and banter weren’t dampened at all by his somewhat more serious tone. YOU’RE IN DANGER! flashes up on the screen, but we’re again advised to pay it no mind.

DON’T BELIEVE HIM

Alnwick treads a fine line between keeping the atmosphere creepy and foreboding, while interjecting it with enough targeted snips of humour. A false sense of security to keep us completely unprepared for a handful of actual jump scares!

His magic included mentalist mind reading, card tricks, and prophecies and predictions. Everything was layered in occult themes, such as asking the audience to quietly pick out any sigil from a list displayed on the projector, and then asking us to count up and down and change our answer. He then went through each sigil one by one, explaining in brief their ancient meanings, before landing on the final sigiil (with the projector reading “you’re fucked”) which just so happened to be the whole audience arrived at.

The tricks became more mystical in nature and increasingly elaborate. He involved more and more people and prompts. He recurrently used pre-recorded scenes on the projector of himself in candlelight, telling us he had a dream and prophecising audience interactions. A cute touch, both solidifying the magic and casting aside doubt, but also building on the developing narrative with humorous tension break.

We would be treated to another phonecall or two (always timed as he ran out of the room to collect a forgotten prop) which would keep the narrative alive, continuing the conversation between him and his mentor, as we gradually see that he is wilfully luring us, the audience, into this ghost story.

Summoning Spirits

I appreciated how none of his tricks felt random and disconnected, but was committed entirely to the developing storyline, the atmosphere, and the meta-narrative. What is normally a bundle of disconnected acts and tricks had suddenly become a single cohesive experience, all tied together in an exciting and unsettling atmosphere.

The final act of his haunted story was a summoning of the dead. He told us how your first death is of your body, and your second death is the last time anyone speaks your name. So surely, by speaking aloud a name of someone long dead and forgotten, we spiritually revive them.

He showed us personally taken photographs of old graves and mixed them all up in a bag, encouraging some audience members to take a photo from the bag. He then performed a few different summoning rituals, using ashes, photography, and a oujia board, to determine which ghost each person had collected.

Between jump scares and phonecall lore, he divined each ghost precisely, welcoming each person to speak out aloud the ghosts name for the first time and bring them back to life, in the room with us.

The final ghost, if not now then soon enough, would be himself: the haunted magician.

But what of us, the audience now haunted by his play? Well for me, this cursed performance will surely live on in my mind. I can remember the impressive magic, enjoy the laughs, squint my eyes at the jump scares that made me hit the roof, and quietly contemplate my own mortality as I await the ghosts to visit me.