He wants to be incredible; he wants to be credible. Such is the lot of the professional conjuror, torn between dumbfounding people, and regretting that he must lie and deceive to do so. Incredibly Human is Israeli magician Asi Wind’s effort to square that circle: can you trick your audience, and be honest while doing so?
The results are inconclusive. Yes, Wind – real name Asi Betesh – delivers a terrific 80 minutes of magic, leaving you as dizzy as an ace in a fast-shuffled pack of cards. But no, he doesn’t advance his honesty/deception argument a jot – it was, as suspected, so much hot air from Wind, just another misdirection while the real jiggery-pokery was happening elsewhere.
Fair enough: faux-profound ruminations on the philosophy of magic are all part of the legerdemain these days. But Wind’s strongest suit is the trickery itself, represented here in a suite of some half dozen no-fuss routines involving Rubik’s cubes, playing cards, books and Spotify playlists. Showmanship is minimal, almost to a fault: several should-be-jaw-dropping moments are more or less thrown away for want of more dramatic buildup or stagecraft. The show is denied a strong start, too, by a punter whose vacillating about the two-digit number in his head poleaxes one early feat of mentalism.
Our host soon bounces back from that awkward moment, with routines that are sometimes familiar, still confounding, and usually given a novel spin. A book-burning section sees a page ripped out of Animal Farm, incinerated – then spirited back between the covers. Later, Wind (David Blaine’s favourite magician, apparently) doesn’t just memorise the order of a pack of cards, but does so forwards, backwards and in whichever other order you like.
I’m not sure he does quite enough groundwork to render a later Name That Tune routine credible, even if its explanation remains wholly elusive – to me at least. Same goes for a corking final number, as Wind displays a hitherto concealed talent for abstract portraiture when mining the identity of an “incredible human” from the mind of an audience member. Mind-reading, or trickery? With routines this startling, who cares?
At Underbelly Boulevard, London, until 5 January
