Morgan and West: More Magic For Kids
South Street arts centre, Reading
Thursday, February 15
ALL AROUND me where the sounds of laughter, squeals of delight and the sound of farmyard animals.
The reason? A full house and a very young audience at South Street, gathered for an hour of silliness, fun and magic courtesy of time travelling Victorian magicians, Morgan and West.
The duo were performing two daytime shows at the Reading arts centre, plus a show for slightly older families in the evening.
The show raced on at quite a pace, with the magic tricks interspersed with jokes, japes and audience interaction. And oh boy, did the audience interact. The youngsters around me very quickly got into the spirit of things, booing Mr West and cheering on Mr Morgan as they performed a range of feats. With ants in their pants, they were itching to join in and take part in the tricks, including mimicking those farmyard animals.
From an opening routine that saw Mr Morgan produce an astonishing array of umbrellas, right through to a baffling act of escapology, the laughter was heartfelt and the wows were genuine. People didn’t know how the tricks were done – and there were a lot to get through.
Highlights included a new take on the age-old art of sawing a lady in half, a magical glass of strawberry milk that kept on giving and a special quiz that ran through the show before giving its careful pay-off right at the end, with a ‘how did they do that?’ moment.
Even classic tricks, such as producing an egg from an empty bag, were given new twists, baffling and delighting the audience, especially the young volunteer plucked out to help with this routine.
There is an energy and joy to Morgan & West that makes their act a delight from start to finish. Every moment has been carefully thought through to ensure that it works on all levels: the young audience is never bored and the parents are never felt left out of the show, and the tricks keep on building, so the attention never sags.
And they kept to that good old theatre maxim: always leave them wanting more.
Morgan and West are master magicians and their show is terrific. If you get the chance to see them, do.
