The joy of a magic trick is in the moment. The magician defies the rules of physics and we are astonished. Usually that’s it. Unless it’s Derren Brown making us doubt our very perception of the world, the trick carries no further meaning. Quickly, we move on to something else. You get the sense Scott Silven wants to change that. On one level, his online show, created for life under lockdown and enjoying a virtual international tour, is a series of clever mind-reading tricks. Playing to a live audience on a Zoom-like interface, he appears to know our thoughts before we do and to have predicted numbers, names and images even before the show has begun. [READ MORE]
By Mark Fisher
MARK FISHER is a freelance theatre critic and feature writer based in Edinburgh and has written about theatre in Scotland since the late-1980s. He is a theatre critic for The Guardian, a former editor of The List magazine and a frequent contributor to the Scotsman and other publications. He is the co-editor of the play anthology Made in Scotland (1995), and the author of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide (2012) and How to Write About Theatre (2015) – all Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. He is also the editor of The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls and What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book (both Mark Fisher Ltd).