[2013057] Tony Roberts – Card Magic
Tony Roberts @ Gluttony – The Bally
10:30pm, Sun 24 Feb 2013
On the less-popular nights – i.e. not Friday or Saturday nights – I’m always curious as to how many tickets have been sold for an event; if I’ve got time, I’ll engage the door staff in a chat and enquire about the number of pre-sales. This evening, with Gluttony feeling like a ghost town, the chap doing front-of-house for The Bally was coy: “not many,” he answered when posed the question. Then, as he opened up for the performance, he admitted “it’s just you, actually.”
I’m gutted by that news, because the last time I saw Tony Roberts perform there was a tiny crowd, too. Except this evening it wasn’t a crowd at all… it was just me. So I chat with Roberts, and offer him the opportunity to bail on the performance in favour of a chat at the bar, but he’s adamant: “if even one person wants a show,” he insisted, “I’ll put a show on.”
His usual show involves him performing his tricks on a table onstage, which has a camera hovering overhead and the resulting image projected onto a screen; instead of setting that up, his tech finds a bar stool and I sit right at the table with him. Roberts proceeds to casually slip through half-a-dozen card tricks – shuffles, throws, and even a three-card Monte – whilst amiably chatting about the show, his presentation, and engaging in genuine conversation with me… and I absolutely loved it. I was sitting no more than two feet from his hands and – even though I knew that most of his tricks were a result of misdirection and prepped decks, try as I might I couldn’t see how he was performing his trickery.
After about fifteen minutes another pair of people wandered in; Tony found them seats at the table too, and the tricks and jokes continued. They were a little more reserved, and so the good-natured back-and-forth across the table subsided a bit… but after another ten minutes, a final couple arrived. She was very quiet, sitting on the end of the table, but he identified himself (or rather verified Roberts’ evaluation of him) as a confident card player, cocky in his stance and overt in his observation. When he did so, I sensed a glint in Tony’s eye, and the next trick was an absolute blinder, splitting the deck into four straight flushes almost obnoxiously. The “confident” guy’s jaw dropped, and Roberts joked his way home with one last incredible trick.
I’m so glad that I got to see this show like this; being able to essentially sit right on top of someone while they constantly fool you was a real treat. And Tony Roberts is a really, really likeable guy; and, whilst card tricks lack the spectacle of juggling and acrobats and feats of physical strength, there’s something to be said for such a confident, well-performed show.