The Mac, Belfast
****
Back in Victorian times, one of the most celebrated brands of popular entertainment revolved around the art of the apparently impossible. Paul Bosco McEneaney, artistic director of Cahoots NI, has long been obsessed with wonder and magic, themes to which he returns in this charming co- production with the Mac.
The show is a vivid demonstration of how illusion works best when wrapped around a good story, and, to the tune of Conor Mitchell’s swirling song mosaic, the cast delivers a dizzying series of mind-bending feats, from escapology to levitation, death beds to amputation.
The heart-warming tale unwinds slowly from the workhouse to the world's great mystery palaces. Philip Judge is a charismatic presence as impresario Willard Hoffmann, building his show around his attractive daughters Marie (Flo Fields) and Bess (Kirsty Marie Ayers) and shy orphan boy Harold (Greg Fossard), whose talent for rendering himself invisible transforms him into a global superstar.
