Reviews

A Selection of Socialist Magic Reviews

Review of Revolution in the Magic Square ("Must See Show"), from Fringe Review in Edinburgh is here

Fringe Guru's four star review is here

Morning Star's review ("Not to be missed") is here

Ben Walters, Scotsman reviewer, includes the show in the "highly recommended" section of his mid-fringe round-up blog here

Scotsman four star review is here.

Chris Bartter's blog, with four star review is here.

Ian Keable's review of the preview is here

 

 

Time Out


"Ian Saville's one-man show is a gloriously witty and consummately theatrical manifestation of what could become a whole new concept in political theatre. Launching himself with gay abandon from the basic situation provided by Brecht's play 'The Good Woman of Setzuan', Saville provides a semi-autobiographical account of his own conversion from a mere purveyor of sleight-of-hand into a socialist magician....
Saville has taken the tired old tricks of the magic brigade and given them a whole new subversive meaning....An astoundingly funny display."

"A deft and funny routine ... captivating in its charm ... utterly infectious."

New Statesman

"After his act, he announces proudly, audiences are wont to rush out: 'They immediately want to get up and change the world.' Nobody showed the least sign of wanting to rush out when I saw him, for whatever reasons. I think they were too busy laughing."

 

The Stage

 "Saville deftly mixes this hotchpotch of skills and ideas into an entertaining and often hilarious whole, keeping his audience riveted from start to finish."

John Willett, Brecht translator and scholar

  "You have found out how to conjure up a most credible Brecht. Much more successfully than many Brecht experts are able to do. And as a complex demonstration of Verfremdung (or Alienation? Or what? You name it) your dialogues with him could hardly be bettered. This really is magic. You make us laugh and think. What more could BB ask?"
 

 

  "Would make the hardest liner laugh .... Ideologically sound and magnificently bonkers."
 

 "Knitted with a dry humour and a mock sense of unsophistication, Saville's act is a delight."

 

The List

 

  "Ian Saville, complete with comradely manner, is a master of fast, funny patter and his act should not be missed."
 

What's On in London

  "Saville puts the magic back into politics."
 

Morning Star

  "Good conjuring, good politics and very, very funny. Don't miss him."
 

Abracadabra (Magician's Weekly)

  "Ian laughs at his own contradictions and invites us each to confront our own. I don't suppose Norman Tebbit would enjoy the show but almost anybody with a sense of humour would."

Winnipeg Free Press

 "The mixture of radical politics and magic makes for an unusual but hilarious entertainment."
The Scotsman

Look at it This Way (with Leon Rosselson)

Magic from Ian Saville, music from Leon Rosselson. This sounds like a probable dream ticket bargain at £4.50. It exceeded expectations.

Saville is such a charmer that he managed to liberate a tenner from this reviewer for a trial-by-fire that almost exercised a fire-hazard. Only the return of the same currency stopped the first known case of a critic's death by spontaneous combustion.

Rosselson is the articulate voice of anger. His songs bite at the conscience, as does his guitar delivery which is fury personified. The other half of the audience on opening night was a man from the Independent on Sunday. We applauded each other at the end for attending one of the most stimulating hours in the mid-evening Fringe.

Look at it This Way [is] an evening of gently dialectical delights offered by socialist magician Ian Saville and Marxist songwriter Leon Rosselson, two lovely men with the worst haircuts in Scotland. No other show in town could offer you a trick that explains the injustices of gas privatisation, or a ventriloquist's dummy of William Morris exclaiming, "I had to minister to the swinish luxury of the rich." It's like two daffy uncles performing at a bar mitzvah, and done with stirring sincerity. "Now say the magic words, 'Mass Action for a Radical Transformation of Society'" They will stay on my lips until the end of the Festival.

Rejecting society's division between winners and losers, Ian Saville wants to make his way in the world doing magic "to change things". But being a socialist magician has its pitfalls - does commercial success compromise one's beliefs? His tough-talking cat certainly thinks so (a delightful piece of glove puppet ventriloquism). Singer/songwriter Leon Rosselson starts as Ian's Mr Worldly Wiseman but soon prefers to be Voice of Conscience, in a fierce yet amusing series of lyrics dissenting the evils of contemporary capitalism. A third character joins - the eloquent ghost of William Morris, an almost-large-as-life ventriloquist's doll. This clever touch is exploited to the full in wholly engaging style, and Saville and Rosselson leave us in no doubt that Morris' politics are far more relevant than his wallpaper.

There is plenty of entertainment value in this witty political cabaret by a duo of distinctive talent.