Review: Diary of a Magician, Fringe 2024

Diary of a Magician merges sleight of hand magic with classic Chinese poetry, using the diary as the mash-up mechanic.

Our magician is silent. He’s tall, dark and handsome and occasionally stands on his hands. Also, periodically, he has a mysterious-looking book, and if that’s the diary, then the audience’s attention is really drawn to the projector, which shows three or four lines of Chinese poetry in both Chinese and English between acts.

I think the act following the poetry is based on the poetry, but it’s hard to be sure that’s true. For example, there’s a line about the moon, and then the following sleigh of hand involves the magician holding a painting on which a moon appears and then becomes a small white ball in his hand.

I wasn’t clever enough to really get the Chinese poetry, wasn’t sure on the translation and wasn’t always sure how it connected to the magic. I’m not sure the diary mechanic was worth it but some of the tricks involving the mysterious book were impressive.

Tone

Is there a tone section for a magic show? Yes, because I think Diary of a Magician was trying to lean into art and culture.

The whole show is done to music and its the soft sort of courtly music that you could imagine wise academics reading and discussing poetry too. It did, however, set the pace for the show at slow and leisurely. We didn’t get fanfares, a glamorous assistant or drum rolls, but we did get a regal bow now and then.

There were plenty of kids in the audience, too. The act is absolutely family-safe, although the C Arts temple venue waiting area is tiny and terrible for restless kids.

What to expect

Our silent magician really is a sleight-of-hand specialist, which is a favourite of mine.

We have the vanishing and disappearing cards tricks, with blank rather than playing cards, and I rather liked that touch.

There’s coins into a cup, duplicating and hiding red balls between the fingers and an impressive routine where the magicians fingers keep on getting covered with little socks no matter how quickly he tears them off. There’s a little bit with metal rings as well and the occassional trick with the diary.

I suspect you’ll know all the routines, perhaps not verbatim, but most audiences will be familiar with the props and will know exactly the sleight-of-hand illusion that’s about to come.

I don’t doubt the talent. I think I could work out how some of the tricks were probably done, but I never once penetrated the illusion. I couldn’t see the cards when they were hidden or the coins as they were palmed, even if I knew that was the moment when the dexterity had just been deployed.

Overall

A good but not terribly original sleight-of-hand act despite the use of Chinese poetry.

The Diary of a Magician had enough variety to keep an audience full of kids quiet for 45 minutes (thank you!), but most adults in the room were unlikely to have seen anything new.

As there’s no banter, our black-clad magician moves fairly quickly from trick to trick, and the ratio of magic to money is really good as a result.

It’s a shame we didn’t see anything potentially unique to the Taiwan or Chinese magic circuit.