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Marc Oberon One-Man Show
Nottingham Arts Theatre
Friday 23rd September
Reviewed
by Kevin Gallagher
First
of all, I greatly admire Marc for undertaking the venture in the first place.
Finding work as a magician is one thing, but hiring your own theatre and crew,
getting tickets, flyers and publicity prepared and promoting it is quite
another. And that is before you even think about getting a two hour show
together in the first place!
I was not familiar with the Nottingham Art’s Theatre. Finding it was easy enough
and it was slightly entertaining for me to see the name Marc Oberon in lights
across the front. A number of posters of Marc were dotted around, all with ‘Sold
Out’ stickers across them. Marc’s worst worries that virtually no-one would turn
up could be forgotten; all 320 seats had been sold and many more seats could
have been filled had they been available.
I took three lay-people with me so that I would have the opportunity of
listening to their thoughts and opinions. One of the first people I bumped into
was Ian Rowland who was one of a handful of magicians who had made the journey
from around the country but the audience was generally varied featuring a good
cross-section of the public.
Marc opened with what has almost become his ‘Close-up act as known’ after
his European Championships win in Blackpool, except without the spheres which
wouldn’t quite work without the camera and big-screen set-up it had been
designed for. This included his sphere to Oscar, excellent thought of card
sequences, Dick Zimmerman (?) dancing ring on rope, beautiful large coin and
keys routine and more.
Although billed as a one-man show, which it was magically, two guest acts were
featured. In the first half a competent and entertaining juggler, juggling a hat
and up to six balls and clubs. In the second, two break dancers with the usual
gyrations and head-spins and also well received.
Marc featured many areas of magic including mentalism, with a thought projection
in sphere effect using a presenter from Radio Nottingham to pick up an image
chosen from a random page from a series of books by another spectator and a name
revelation which I guess must have involved some pre-show work. General magic
including, dancing cane, card manipulations, very elegant two linking rings
magically becoming three, dancing handkerchief, cigarette manipulation, floating
ball and linking ring. Illusion, with an apparatus-less suspension and ashra
levitation. These showed Marc to be extremely versatile, competent performer
with a very endearing way about him. The only criticism I could make was the
inclusion of a few lightweight items such as Chinese sticks and three-way
equivoque effect, intended as light relief but were simply too weak against the
rest of the very strong material that characterized him and therefore served
only to dilute.
The only thing I haven’t mentioned is his ONE MAN black art section. That’s
because I saved the best until last. Without this, the show would have been
perfectly good and everyone would have gone home happy but this was outstanding.
It was the usual type of black art act with fluorescent objects such as spinning
balls, butterfly, electronically lit balls instantly appearing floating around
and just as instantly disappearing to be replaced with something else but some
of them, such as a shark, masks and growing and shrinking sphere were truly
amazing. Marc finished this section by apparently, and very effectively,
levitating himself and spinning himself around in impossible ways. The whole
show made for a fantastic night out but this section of the show in particular
provided the other occupants of my car with a non-stop topic of conversation.
Well done Marc. I’m proud of you!! It was a great and very well deserved
success.
© Kevin Gallagher, September 2005