Review: WONDERVILLE: MAGIC & CABARET - Haymarket London
Photo credit: Mark Senior
Brand-new cabaret venue on Haymarket, Wonderville (Magic & Cabaret) has opened its doors, welcoming guests to a brilliantly themed bar and performance space. Audiences are promised amazing magic and things beyond the imagination, but this iteration of Wonderville doesn’t deliver on this.
It's important to note that on the night we attended, only one of our acts was advertised on the website. There is a rotation of over fifty acts and it's luck of the draw who you get to see but the acts we witnessed weren’t of the standard expected.
The branding and the product of this venue seems to be mismatched. Perhaps this should be promoted as an evening for a much younger, more easily impressed audience, as many of the magic tricks on show are a little obvious and sometimes are not even tricks at all (a "grand finale" involving rolling a Malteser down a tape measure). Many times, our magician made mistakes, needing to redo his tricks, many of which could be found in magic sets available in shops across the country.
Our host, Desmond O'Connor, does his absolute best to energise the crowd but once the audience had seen the bulk of the acts, we were a little lost, even to him.
With a more professional and unique selection of acts on display, this could be a fantastic and amazing evening, but unfortunately Wonderville doesn’t quite live up to the spectacle promised.
** Two stars
Reviewed by: Callum Wallace
Wonderville (Magic & Cabaret) is currently booking until 30 October, with tickets available here.
