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The Review - THEATRE by TOM FOOT
Published:12 Juy 2007

Marc Salem: watching for the tell-tale signs

Tricky audience with a mind reader

MARC SALEM
Tricycle Theatre

MARC Salem may be getting a bit of a reputation around these parts.
The mind illusionist from New York thrilled press night last year by impaling his hand on a dagger in a botched stunt.
Salem made a few adjustments to this year’s act. The dagger-under-the-paper-cup trick was noticeably missing.
On Tuesday a deeper and perhaps more lasting wound was inflicted.
My mum, selected at random from a capacity crowd, foiled him into predicting she’d penned a somewhat shaky- looking house.
She drew the carrot, Salem. I could have told you that.
He never really recovered. With two 50-pence pieces taped across his eyes, he called out in the darkness for a non-existent member of the audience.
“Why am I getting Emma? Why do I get a beach?” he said, like some wretched King Lear reduced to nothingness in the storm. “Was it Tequila?” Not for a long time. “Mexico?” Switzerland. “Is there a doctor in the house?” No.
The audience didn’t help him out much.
One erudite man suggested a ‘rhomboid’ as his favourite shape.
Another troublemaker, when asked whether his mystery object told the time, which – it being a watch – it clearly did, replied: “no, well, it has other properties.”
No doubt the elaborate timepiece could also discover the square route of Pi 50 feet below sea level – but this was nit-picking that bordered on sadism.
Salem’s art is to read subtle tell-tale signs – a twitch of the finger, a pause or a stutter – that gives him a window into our brain.
He can also channel numbers, images and places into our minds and then reveal them to us – giving the impression of prophecy.
The rise of the modern day mentalists is a 21st-century phenomenon and, despite Tuesday’s performance, I can thoroughly recommend it. I recently saw the classy Ivor Cole at New End theatre in Hampstead.
The former-libel lawyer’s mind illusions were flawless and much fuller in the sense of wonder and bafflement.
Salem struggled on Tuesday night.
But despite the slip-ups he still manages to astonish. Even the greatest cynic will leave with a chink in their guard.
Until July 29
020 7328 1000

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