Wednesday 13 May 2015

INTERVIEW - Morgan & West, Udderbelly Festival



THERE is still time to catch a couple of time-travelling magicians at the Udderbelly festival before they head off to another time and space.
Victorian magic duo Morgan & West will unload another boxful of bafflement and impossibility at their Utterly Spiffing Spectacular Magic Show - For Kids (and Childish Grown-ups!).
Shows will take place on Saturday, may 16 and May 23 and audiences will get to witness a mountain of mysterious magic, a hatful of hyper-reality, and of course a truck full of tricks and tea.
Mixing brain busting illusion and good old fashioned tom-foolery, Morgan & West present a show for all the family, where magic and silliness abound.
"It's a brand new show we've developed specifically for kids," says Rhys West. "They are a very intriguing audience - they always tell you what they think and aren't afraid to tell you how things should be done.
"Also everything has to be robust and has to work! But it's great fun and they are the best audience so we decided that we should do something specially for them so here it is."
However, what the show will actually feature Rhys wants to keep top secret - to add to the mystery and intrigue.
What he will say is that the characters of Morgan & West are from 1888 and thanks to their time machine they land in early 21st century.
"It's a bit like Dr Who," laughs Rhys. "We travel all over time and all over the world and have settled down in the present day.
"The premis is that Mr West hates kids but doesn't realise he's playing to a bunch of kids.
"There is a lot of visual magic and with lots of twists and turns in the tricks plus plenty of classic ones.
"It's very silly and very funny - although we don't tell jokes as we are not good at that. But we are good at magic and so we try and bring the humour in that way.
"Other than that it's a bit difficult to explain what's going to happen as I don't want to give away the punchline!
"Everyone will enjoy it though - even the grown ups!" he promises.
The pair met at university where they were both doing science degrees.
"I was doing Maths and Rob did Chemistry and we were both intent on being teachers," says Rhys.
"I was really into Derren Brown and Rob was into poker and after we met we did our first show in 2009 and that was that."
Since then they have been wowing audiences with their surreal blend of magic and wit and say they are excited about their forthcoming visits to the South Bank's purple cow.
"Now we are really excited to be bringing this show to the Udderbelly festival. It has a really great variety of performers so it's fantastic to be there amongst them," he adds.
"We've not done Udderbelly before but it's a great venue, very silly and so perfect for our show."

Morgan & West's Utterly Spiffing Spectacular Magic Show - For Kids (and Childish Grown-ups!) takes place on Saturday, May 16 and Saturday, May 23.
Visit www.udderbelly.co.uk for listings.



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