Jamie Allan’s Amaze, Criterion Theatre Review

Reviewed by Franco Milazzo for Theatre and Tonic

Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review

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Transferring from Marylebone Theatre, magician Jamie Allan brings Amaze to the Criterion Theatre.

Allan is known for his grand illusions - having previously made a Mercedes appear out of thin air and even a helicopter vanish and then come back - and for his ability to weave technology into the tricks he brings to the stage. With this latest show co-created with Tommy Bond, there are plenty of both plus large dollops of fluent storytelling.

Magic is having something of a moment. As well as this production, Asi Wind is being Incredibly Human at Underbelly Soho, Oliver Tabor continues his West End Magic at Leicester Square and there are two different immersive close up-and-cocktails shows (the jazz-infused Rhythm & Ruse in The Vaults and the darker Magicians Table in Tanner Street). With all this competition on his hands, what does Allan bring to the table?

Allan is only the third British magician to have an extended West End run after the late, great Paul Daniels and modern marvel Derren Brown (who begins a national tour of his latest effort Only Human next April). He’s chosen a fitting venue for Amaze: in the deepest underground theatre in the capital, Jamie takes us almost bodily inside his personal history as he recounts his early childhood in plentiful detail. Through a series of engaging tales, we go inside the Horse and Jockey, the pub that his entertainer parents took where Allan played in the attic by himself and then downstairs in the cabaret bar where he played to an audience. Family members are fleshed out, not least his father and uncle whose sibling rivalry and illegal poker game leads to one of the night’s biggest illusions. His mother Kay Kennedy is remembered through a simple rope trick and, more impressively, through Allan levitating featured artist and wife Natalia Love in what could possibly be described as a Freudian lift. 

Director Jonathan Goodwin is a fellow magician who appeared in the West End as part of The Illusionists in 2019. Before an accident which paralysed him from the waist down, he was particularly known for dangerous and extreme stunts; in one Vegas show, he donned a blindfold and shot objects out of the hands of a helper using a crossbow. In contrast to his past endeavours, Amaze feels very safe with the only peril involved being the danger of the technology not working (something which unfortunately happened on press night when Allan tried to perform his famous IPad routine).

Having said that, there’s much to admire from the way he gently brings us along on his intimate journey even if some of the tricks feel a little hammy or predictable. There’s a genuine sense of connection here between the magician and the younger and older members of the audience. Allan knows how to work a room as large as The Criterion which helps him with the less successful displays of his skills. A trick titled “50/50” finishes on an old Derren Brown trope of the suspended suitcase in full view but appears to rely on an obvious sleight of hand to get there. The ripping up of a newspaper into strips then having them somehow joined back together doesn’t really connect with the night’s theme and is very similar to the rope trick he does later. 

Even if card tricks aren’t his stock-in-trade, he has a very clean and smooth technique. Before he begins pulling cards out of thin air for the sheer fun of it and showing off poker-related illusions, he beautifully reproduces Mathieu Bich’s famed Spreadwave illusion that fooled Penn & Teller. Seeing that done in a room full of people who end up struggling to understand what just happened is a wonderful thing. If magic isn’t about the sotto voce outbursts of “how?” and “wow!”, then just what is it about?

At Criterion Theatre until 23 November.

★ ★ ★