| 08 August 2011
Like the whistle of a boiling tea kettle, an involuntary, high-pitched squeal forms and streams out of an astonished mouth in the last row. In I Hate Rabbits, James Galea proves to dizzying effect that there isn’t a seat in the house—no matter the angle or distance from the stage—that can dilute his magic.
Galea looks every bit the modern-day magician as he crosses the stage on his first night in Edinburgh,, dressed in a ‘Life is Fun’ T-shirt, a black bowler hat, and a tan so bronze that (fingers crossed!) sunless-tanner addicts might have to step back from the bottle and face the futility of their daily slathers. Revelatory moments are few and far between, however; for a reason I can’t quite place, the audience in tonight’s show can’t seem to match Galea’s alacrity. This disparity feels awkward at times in a show that is so heavily reliant upon audience participation. Impressive as it is, the show’s content and fast pace repeatedly seem to leave the audience two clicks behind Galea’s tricks, scratching their heads in befuddlement.
We must be a bad lot, then, because I can’t find fault with Galea. As the name of his show suggests, this isn’t an old-hat set. Rather, Galea approaches magic with an exuberant yet minimalist style, thus making his tricks all the more stupefying in their uncluttered presentation (a camera records each card trick, for instance, and projects a live close-up).
My advice, then, is to the audience more than it is to Galea. If you’d prefer to be a passive onlooker or if you feel uneasy being subject to the wily ways of a magician, you’d probably prefer sitting in the back half of the room. The show is best seen when you yourself are feeling spritely, or you are at least looking to feel that way by the show’s end so do what you can do tap into your happy place. Galea sees life for all of its luminosity and, after an hour with him, you are likely to do the same.
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