When I think of magic, these days, I normally think of Harry Potter. I think of wants shooting out colorful magical light, things levitating, and transfigurations. I also think about parties and guys pulling rabbits out of hats.
A few years ago, I was at a New Year's party and the host had a magician randomly mingling in the crowd and performing magic tricks. So, my experience with magic is pretty fair…
When my husband said he got tickets to see a Magic Show, I was totally up for checking out what the local magical scene was all about.
Wednesday evening, we went down to The Fringe Club to see the monthly live magic show. This group has probably only been doing their monthly live magic show for a year…I haven't heard much about it before.
Magic At The Fringe Info:
*See poster below*
Location
The Fringe Dairy
2 Lower Albert Road
Central
Contact The Fringe Club
2521 - 7251
Time
A given Wednesday each month
Show starts at 8:30 and lasts for about an hour and a half
Tickets are 200 HKD normally, but 250 HKD at the door. You get a complimentary drink with the purchase of a ticket (always awesome).
The venue of choice for the magic show is The Dairy room of the Fringe Club…which is a little bar area with booths, small round tables, and rows of seats set around the stage. It's quite intimate and allows the magicians to really interact with the audience.
Before the show, there were some magicians who were going round the audience and performing magic tricks close up. There were even two of the sweetest kids performing with their teacher. It was a really nice way to be introduced to the show and to meet some of the magicians that were performing that night.
The host of the show was Harry Wong, who MCed and also did magic at each interval. The first word that comes to mind when I think of Harry Wong is charisma! He really knew how to set the mood and keep up with the rhythm of the night. Plus, he was witty as hell (when my husband translated!) Most of the show is in Cantonese, by the way. But there are some bits that are translated, which I think is quite a Hong Kong bilingual world thing.
The first magician of the evening was Noah Wu, who started his act with stacking a pyramid of cards…His act left me in that state of "how did he do that?" You know? When you start trying to figure out what you were missing with his slight of hand…did he have cards up his sleeve…that sort of thing.
One thing that I thought was pretty awesome was how much the magicians interacted with the audience. And the audience, whom I think was made up of a lot of people in the magic community, were readily and most willingly wanting to be involved.
In total, there were four magicians Wednesday night. Each were introduced by our host, each showcased their talents and then we got to see the host himself perform some dazzling magic with the audience before the next magician was introduced.
The second magician of the evening was Alex Ng, who was one of my favorites for his outstanding charisma as well!
He opened his act with a story about how he used to perform magic at family gatherings, which was apart of his magical act and really quite entertaining.
He ended with a disappearing act with his hands cuffed behind his back and "escaping from his clothes." This left me in tears! Seriously, such a great performer.
The third magician of the evening was Daniel Chan, who was deemed the Manipulator. His act was really beautifully done. He was introduced as a magician who would be doing magic that we'd probably seen before, working with knots/ropes, cards, and rings. The unique difference though was his art of performance on stage.
His performance was a silent performance, which I was totally captivated by. The music helped to really set the mood too. I think he added a lot to the variety of the magician personalities on stage.
The final magician of the evening was Micky Wong. He started off with a mind reading and kept the audience engaged with his wit the entire time. He had so much energy with twists and turns in his act that it really ended the show with a bang.
The evening was so well organized…
The evening was amazing, with almost everyone enjoying themselves...
The magicians of the night were amazing…
There was such a community atmosphere there...
I'm totally going to keep myself updated on the next monthly performances!
