Review: STEVEN FRAYNE: UP CLOSE AND MAGICAL, Underbelly Boulevard

The magician formerly known as Dynamo and now more formally as Steven Frayne steps away from his ex-persona to embrace a new start.

After achieving global fame for his street magic and TV shows, the Bradford-born performer’s well-documented health issues culminated in years away from the stage. He has suffered Crohn’s disease since he was a teenager and, as a reaction to eating undercooked chicken, he developed reactive arthritis. That left him unable to grip a deck of cards, a particularly hard blow to someone who was renowned for his phenomenal skills in “cardistry” and, in 2020, he attempted suicide.

Since then, he has been working towards a new phase of his career. In 2023, his one-off special Dynamo Is Dead saw him literally and metaphorically bury his famed alter ego underground. A self-proclaimed love of live performing has led him to this latest venture, a 47-show run at Underbelly Boulevard directed by Rowland French and Darren Sarsby. 

Frayne isn’t the first magician to have a residency at this newly revived venue. The Israeli-American performer Asi Wind’s Incredibly Human ran here for four months at the end of last year to mixed reviews and some of its strengths and weaknesses are reflected in Frayne’s show.

Both men came to this corner of Soho with formidable reputations to break new ground in their careers and find a new audience. Up Close And Magical is Frayne’s first outing under his birth name but - as is obvious from the start - this is far from his first rodeo. He shows no signs of the severe arthritis which crippled his hand movements a few years ago, his “cardistry” still a phenomenal sight to see as he flips entire decks this way and that, occasionally upturning cards in the middle without seemingly touching them. 

In order to give the audience a more detailed view of his close-up work and his background, a handy screen behind him switches between whatever he is doing on stage to videos of his past life (sightlines prevented me from seeing more than the bottom third).

That kind of arrangement has become de rigueur in magic shows for some time but Frayne steps it up a notch by often jumping off his stage to meet and greet his audience, chatting to those in the stalls before inviting them back to help out with his next trick. It adds a common touch missing from Incredibly Human and also emphasises the importance of intimate spaces like the Boulevard in giving experiences impossible to replicate in the bigger West End venues used recently for Derren Brown’s Unbelievable and Jamie Allan’s Amaze.

The speed of Frayne’s physical manipulation is matched by his mentalism skills and he shows off both throughout the evening to great effect. His fluid transitions ensure that the pace never drops in the packed 80-minute runtime, aided and abetted by his cheeky patter, bursts of smoke and smart lighting and sound choices that shamelessly amp up the emotion at key points. Whether it is his fans or the cards in his hands, he is a maestro when it comes to building connection.

Quite why this paint-by-numbers magic show requires two directors is more of a mystery than some of its illusions, especially as not everything here is wholly impressive or original. One of the memory tricks is a case in point: a volunteer drops part of a pack into one of Frayne’s hand and, after correctly saying that 32 cards landed on his palm, then goes on to read out what each of them were one by one. Wind performed a similar trick and, in both cases, hearing a long series of cards being called out is almost as exciting as it sounds. A “random number” calculator trick is delivered with more panache but is very similar (and just as easy to fathom) as one seen in Amaze. 

Up Close And Magical is the invocation of family members presumably to build an emotional connection with the audience, a technique that Allan, Brown and others have called upon extensively. While he has often praised in the media his wife and late grandmother with helping him through his traumatic physical and mental health issues, this time Frayne calls upon memories of his grandfather, the “number one fan” he spoke to after every show; as part of the final reveal, a voicemail from “grandpa” is played.

The magician’s sincerity, charisma and his spectacular cardistry is on full display here but - with the exception of experiencing him in this cosy room - there's no new ground being broken here.

Steven Frayne: Up Close And Magical is at Underbelly Boulevard until 11 May