Review: AMAZE, Criterion Theatre

Growing up, magic was a cheesy, ever so slightly irritating, variety staple: redcoats doing holiday camp tricks to distract us from the Double Diamond and prawn cocktails; the somewhat condescending David Nixon and Paul Daniels on Saturday evening telly; occasional glimpses of big Vegas acts, in which no illusion could ever defeat the sheer volume of pantomime camp radiating from the screen.

That changed when David Blaine went into the streets, turned the camera on the audience and got people talking round the water coolers next day in the office. I read his superb book, Mysterious Stranger, that treated the history of magic seriously, as did Pete Firman and Ali Cook’s TV series The Secret World of Magic, that found old conjurors around the world and explained national and transnational cultures within magic’s brotherhood (and it was mainly men). 

Soon magic was everywhere - Derren Brown, Dynamo, the Masked Magician - audiences becoming sated and blasé about the increasingly outrageous stunts. Serious fans found solace seeking out YouTube channels packed with extraordinarily gifted technicians, who respect their art and their viewers. Jason Maher is my favourite, his work during lockdown superb, but there are plenty more and the standard is astonishing.

All magicians and most fans have an origin story, and big solo shows need them, as the exposure I’ve outlined above means that the ‘Wow!’ factor is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for success. The tricks are repurposed as stopping points on a journey, the hobby becoming an obsession becoming a career, the magician positioning themselves, and us, within a history as old as mankind itself, shadows playing on the wall of a cave.

Jamie Allan knows that and, in Amaze, he carves out a space as a kind of anti-Jerry Sadowitz, our friend who is damaged by grief, rightly proud of his realisation of a lifelong dream and equally empathetic to ‘the dreamers’ who accept the underlying conceit of magic and ‘the sceptics’ who do not. Unlike Deren, he’s no ringmaster in a circus of spectacle, more a mate seeking an almost therapeutic chat over a metaphorical bowl of chicken soup. There are times when the schtick should jar against the magician’s god-like capacity to bend the laws of nature, but it never quite does, a testament to his charm and humility.

The danger of distance is helped by Jonathan Godwin’s staging which often places Jamie (see, friends already) downstage, chatting to us, humanised and vulnerable - I was reminded of Andrew Scott’s celebrated Hamlet at times in its intimacy. A large screen also shows small photos and video clips of the nerdy kid growing up uncool in the 80s, but with supportive parents, a perfect mentor and the space and audiences only the offspring of a pub landlord could draw upon. 

That approach delivers two vital functions: it means that we buy the man as much as the showman and it enhances the shocks and surprises of the magic itself, coming from a person who looks and talks pretty much like us - not something one could say of Blaine, Brown or Copperfield, to name but three.

The magic itself will always land differently for first-timers (and I can really recommend Amaze if you haven’t seen this stuff done live before) than it will for those familiar with these tricks or their many variants, but the art of a master craftsman in any discipline is always worth appreciating. There are one or two pacing issues (did we need so many coin tosses to identify a random member of the audience?) and there’s a toppling into sentimentality that may jar with some, but they’re minor quibbles in a slick show that deserves to repay the faith shown in putting magic back into one of the great theatres of the West End.  

Which card will you turn over walking up all those steps on the way out into Piccadilly Circus? Amaze? Probably. Amuse? Certainly. Admire? Definitely.    

Amaze at the Criterion Theatre until 23 November

Photo Credits: Danny Kaan

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