Andrew Frost Just Let Me Have This - Baby Grand Pleasance Courtyard - Review

In a festival that sees magicians performing daring feats, grand illusions and disappearing acts, you would think it would be difficult for a magician to keep the attention of his audience for a hour with little more than a pack of cards as his tools of the trade, but Andrew Frost does exactly that all with a cheeky glint in his eye and friendly demeanour that welcomes everyone in.

Andrew Frost has become a firm favourite of the fringe over recent years and now calling the Pleasance Courtyard’s Baby Grand his home, he presents Just Let Me Have This, a card magic show that is as engaging as it is mystifying. As the audience enters, they are invited to shuffle a deck of cards, with Frost making it clear that everyone has the conscious decision to shuffle or not, making everyone involved instantly. This idea of making choices, even at random, is revisited and used throughout to illustrate Frost’s ability to manipulate even the most random of circumstances.

If someone were to tell you don’t press that big red button, surely you would want to press it even more. In a way, Frost plays on this mind game, asking the audience not to try and work out how he does it whilst in way also knowing that people will attempt to do just that, and that is all a part of his clever game. And that is all because he knows that he will win the game, because no one can work out how he performs some mind blowing trickery where cards fly, jump through the deck and change right before our very eyes.

Whilst dazzling with his card magic, Frost is also able to make the audience laugh and feel with stories of learning long words as a child through a want to always impress , learning a new language for his partners family or showing off some impressive maths skills which may or may not have been the magic this Monday afternoon audience had in mind. He is instantly likeable and creates an atmosphere of talking and joking with friends very quickly.

Overall, Andrew Frost Just Let Me Have This is an incredible showcase of sleight of hand trickery that will leave you astounded and perhaps pointlessly grasping at straws trying to work it all out. It’s quick, slick and wonderfully impressive, proving Frost to be among the best of magicians you will see.