Quentin Reynolds: Bizarre
Live Review
Manchester Lass O’Gowrie

Well, it’s quite the compliment for a magician, having a young girl walk out, very vocally declaring that she’s a Catholic and as such will have no part in this satanic practice of communing with the dead.

Quite what she thought would happen in Quentin Reynold’s show Bizarre can only be imagined, but she clearly swallowed his paranormal patter more thoroughly than intended.

This quietly-spoken Irishman certainly paints some enjoyable old hokum around his illusions, giving proceedings a gently Gothic style as he suggest the apparently inexplicable is all down to spirit forces. And he’s deft at the trickery, too, often performed very close-up on an antique, decorative table which sometimes seems to have a life of its own.

He messes with the mind as he gets volunteers to sort a pack of spooky cards, apparently at random, only to reveal a morbid pattern, or indulges in some low-level Derren Brown-style efforts by matching possessions up with their owners.

Little is spectacular or overtly spooky, but though it’s aims are modest, Bizarre is a nicely put-together, small-scale magic show by a deft conjuror with a absorbing sense of atmosphere. Jolly entertaining, but worth going to hell over? Maybe not.