Magic Sho
Tron, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
FOUR STARS
It’s a razzle dazzle moment – Shona Reppe, dapper in her sparkle-edged tux and top hat, swishes on-stage and goes into her act. A dash of Fred Astaire in the footwork, a hint of va-va-voom in the set of her shoulders, a twinkle of flirtation in her smile – and it’s all because Reppe’s conjurer doesn’t just want to entertain us, she wants us to love her. There’s Rabbit, of course. Poor old scuffed and worn Rabbit, the childhood toy who is her far-from-glamourous assistant: but he’s already hers while unknown audiences are like new trophies to be won over. An occasional voice-over – sounding rather like Alan Bennett in Eeyore mode – fills in Rabbit’s side of a story that Reppe conjures up with giddy enthusiasm. “We love Spain!” she declares, itemising the countries where she’s starred. Rabbit gloomily says otherwise and with cause. But I won’t give away his reasons for disliking Barcelona especially.
Magic Sho – and magic Shona – are both wonderfully full of tricks. There are sleight of hand conjuring passes where you can’t see how it’s done – the ‘water from nowhere’ is utterly bamboozling. But even as Reppe is whisking us through a repertoire of witty, playful deceptions, she’s subtly tricking us into a bitter-sweet lesson on life, and love. She’s taken Rabbit for-granted since toddler-hood. He’s played stooge to her fantasies, victim to her mistakes.Without Rabbit, she’d be... lost. No Rabbit, no magic show. Youngsters (aged 5 to 8) and adults alike will latch on, in their own terms, to Reppe’s touchingly tragicomic awakening to home truths about blinkered selfishness, the need for give and take within relationships. Look out for it on tour before it disappears.
www.shonareppe.co.uk
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