Review by Steve Bennett

Ali Cook has some pretty spectacular tricks, but he wears them very lightly, letting the deception speak for itself, rather than surrounding it in Vegas-style glitz. Even when he opens the show as The Enchanter, a supposedly cheesy cruise ship entertainer for two quick tricks – a levitation and making his assistant appear from inside a fiery cage – the presentation is relatively unfussed… rather begging the question why he needs this alter ego at all.Cook has taken his title from a 1948 book by his magician hero Arthur Buckley, and says he aims to include a trick from every style of magic – and while that’s not technically defined, he has taken great pains to produce a varied line-up, from the close-up magic of coins moving around the table (projected via overhead camera on to a big screen) to an impressive teleportation, making a woman’s shoe appear in a box suspended from the ceiling.There’s a spooky trick in which one person feels the sensations of another that the non-sceptical could ascribe to ESP, while the obligatory card trick is one known as the trick that fooled Houdini – and if the great conjurer himself couldn’t figure it out, you sure as hell won’t be able to. I found the trick with the love letters a bit easier to suss (I think!) but it was the only one when I even had an inkling, and even then he followed it up with a much more brain-scratching payoff.It’s all done with an everyman charm; and this year Cook has played down the comedy – probably wisely, as it was never his strong suit – yet remains witty and affable throughout. He might have an old-fashioned craft, but Cook has a modern, pared-down approach to it.His finale’s awe-inspiring, too. He puts his assistant into a box and starts running solid poles through it. So far, so predictable – but then he pulls of a truly remarkable coup de theatre that brings the solidly entertaining show to a suitably impressive climax.

Review date: 22 Aug 2011
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett