More Critics Getting Tired...

GKV: Paul Puppet is talking about the Gary Barlow controversy. Apparently, PP has been flaming Barlow's gig listings by posting up "Not Cabaret Enough" next to them.

Meanwhile, next act. Dee Christopher. He's just got the crowd to cluster around him and says he does "some unusual stuff". There's a wee bit of a row going on next to the Vile Arts blog post. But Dee has just found five volunteers to help him with his first trick. They are grabbing crystals from a black bag.

EK: A row? Anyhow, this is getting interesting... he's trying to predict the colour of the crystals? Or rather, he's acting as a lie detector. Maybe they should take him in instead of a polygraph?

GKV: I have seen this trick before: Rob Drummond did it in his Bullet Catch performance. He is trying to detect who is lying by the tone of their voice. There's one black stone, five fists hiding stones... he found it. Easy...

EK: Isn't it basically a rule of probability? One stone in five? Either way, he's telling us a story now, about a psychic from the 70s.

GKV: Uri Gellar! He was part of my childhood. You ought to go and have a closer look... yes, got rid of him.

So, leaving Eric to ponder how the magic works, I'll ponder how this fits into cabaret. Eric's right - there is something old school about this act. He's recalling the sort of acts that used to turn up on TV in the late 1970s. Uri Gellar was taken seriously, for about five minutes, but magic, close up magic, was a staple.

Stupid really. I mean, magic on TV is like ventriloquism on the radio. Far too easy to fix... but here we have the magic being done right in front of us.

Oh Jesus is on the stage. This ought to be good. What the hell? I leave him alone for two minutes and Dee is saying that Eric is about to star in a horror movie. Now Dee is making jokes about being drunk. It's not smart to get a critic on stage when you are pissed up... I feel as if I am about to see a car crash. In slow motion.

Eric is going to take over for a bit...

EK: Yeah, that was interesting. I got to 'star in a horror movie'. Actually, I got nervous when he said "we're going to kill you tonight". I thought he meant he planned to fix some disappearing trick or something. But no, it was just an act. I pulled out a card to determine who was to kill me, then a few pieces of paper later we had a murder weapon and location. In the end, I was killed by Freddy Kruger, at the library, with a knife. Then, I pulled down a closed envelope with a script that had all these elements. Magic? I guess so. I'm too much of a critic to believe in magic.

Now the Creative Martyrs are teaching us about love... I'll be right back.