If you’re going to go to a magic show, you really need to let yourself try and enjoy it. It sounds weird, but if you’re skeptical and you go into a magic show, don’t expect much. Honestly you shouldn’t even really be there. So, going to a magic festival is definitely not something for the complete unbelievers. I took my partner along to this show, as I felt it would be an experience that needs to be shared. In the foyer, other magicians showed off their skills, but we were more enthralled by the friendly rabbits making their way through people's legs on the floor. Soon after we headed into a much smaller, more intimate room for the actual show we were there for, White Lies by Pierre Ulric.
Ulric is a likeable, eccentric man with a well-trimmed beard and glint behind his eyes. The main basis behind the show is time, which I liked. Every time he finished with a segment he turned over an hourglass, the room would go dark, then light again, and he would address us as though we were in a different time of the show, jumping between the ending, the start and halfway through. I liked this consistency, as he repeated tricks which shouldn’t be capable of repeating, such as emptying and always refilling a water bucket each time. No one seemed to notice what I found much more interesting, which was his watch. Each time he would lock it in his briefcase, and in the next segment it would be back on his hand. Even when i was on stage later when he had the watch on, i didn't see one in the briefcase. Magic, people.
Unsurprisingly as we even changed seats at the start of the show to be closer to the front (to the dismay of my anxiety-ridden girlfriend), we were of course targeted to be part of the show itself. We helped do a magic trick with cards which apparently would confirm if we were right for each other. Both drawing correct cards corresponding with important dates with each other, we obviously are meant to be. Other tricks in the show included a cool bending of metal, which went slightly wrong when it didn’t seem to work with a saw, and a final big reveal in the end where four cards corresponded with four different people on stage. It was slightly anticlimactic, but ended the show nicely. At the end of the show, I did notice someone who obviously didn’t seem to give in to the magic. He complained about tricks and tried to explain to others how it was done, which I think is pretty unnecessary. Magic might or might not be real, but that's the reason it has a following. We aren’t supposed to know, which the enticing feature. So go about with magic how you wish, but if you do decide to go to a show, don’t just ruin it for other people. White Lies performance at the Melbourne Magic Festival might be over, but for more info about his other shows check out his website pierreulric.com.
Written by Hamish Vallance
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