Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Naughty or Neurodiverse – Magic From Another Planet
Angus Baskerville – Magician
Genre: Magic, Neurodiverse
Venue: theSpace On The Mile
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
An hour of astonishing magic (or illusion if you prefer) from one of the brightest young practitioners on the circuit. It mixes short form experiences with a superbly executed long form one that drew extensively on the outcomes of each aforementioned short “trick”, producing a series of “how the heck did he do that” gasps from an enrapt audience as it all came together in the impressive denouement. Quite how this all works is a secret known only to Baskerville himself but it’s all very, very clever stuff..
Review
Angus Baskerville is a mentalist, a practitioner of the art of mentalism, someone who appears to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Mind reader, to you and me. But, judging from his debut Fringe show, he’s a lot more than that. Peerless magician (or illusionist, if you prefer). Raconteur extraordinaire. Or just a darned good entertainer.
Diagnosed with autism and ADHD at age 15, he admits that his school years were a wee bit of a struggle. However, he used magic to turn his life around through learning it and then plucking up the courage to perform in front of an audience. This show takes us through that journey, pausing along the way for the odd bit of mind-reading and some slick trickery in what is a genuinely family-friendly show showcasing the superpowers that neurodiversity really can bring to life.
Like most magicians, his interest was sparked by cards and we started with an intriguing trick, something genuinely different to the “pick a card, any card, and don’t show it to me” comfort blanket that is the go to for most performers. I’ll try and avoid spoilers, but suffice to say it involved him picking a young volunteer happy to buy into the concept of shuffling and picking from an imaginary deck that resulted in the first of many “how the heck did he do that” looks from the packed theSpace on the Mile audience as the denouement was delivered.
The show revolved around a series of short form illusions (the bit that Baskerville creates) as he produces the magic that the audience then experiences. Woven very adroitly into the show was a superbly crafted long form experience, itself dependent on the outcome of the aforementioned short form tricks which all came together in a denouement where the delivery was as understated as its outcome was jaw dropping. Quite how this all works is a secret known only to Baskerville himself but it’s all very, very clever stuff.
What’s impressive is the variety of experiences he gives the audience. Several examples of mind-reading involved audience members picking random words from a book and Baskerville telling them what they were were. Or a stooge drawing an everyday object, showing it to the audience and Baskerville then comes up with something identical, having obviously not seen the stooge’s effort.
And the “restaurant trick” (let’s just leave it at that to avoid a spoiler) was, judging from the audience reaction, a bit of a mind-boggler. When the techie is applauding the trick (having presumably seen the same thing for the last couple of weeks) you know the guy on stage is a genius.
Baskerville is also refreshingly open and honest about his autism and ADHD and how he’s used its successful diagnosis to turn around his life and create a career. On today’s evidence, it should be a great success – the quality of his trickery and mind reading is up there with practitioners of far greater experience than he has so far amassed.
He’s also got all the patter to go with it, with a very engaging, quite intense yet conversational style of delivery and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of dry, droll, occasionally satirical one-liners. OK, so all that helps to distract the audience whilst an illusion is effected but it makes for a very entertaining hour. But it’s the way he works his audience that creates the warm atmosphere in the room, as well as using a significant proportion, young and old, to help out at various points during the show.
This is a show of really high quality. The magic – or illusion if you prefer – the mind reading (or is that too, a cleaver illusion), his dexterity with every object he used throughout his act, the patter (no doubt scripted but appearing to be spontaneous) and the overall structure of the piece mark is out as one to make a bee-line for.
But is it all magic or an illusion? You decide. Highly recommended.
