Nick Mohammed’s comedy, magic and musical mashups have been among the highlights of recent Edinburgh fringes, culminating in a Houdini extravaganza two years ago that I’d happily have been chained to. His new show, The Vanishing Elephant, where he is again in character as excitable northern busybody Mr Swallow, doesn’t quite measure up. It’s more of a conventional magic show, without the preposterous narrative or musical overreach of its predecessors. I also missed erstwhile sidekicks Mr Goldsworth and Jonathan; Mr Swallow is a character at his eccentric funniest when he has someone to play off.
The conceit – it may even be true – is that Mr Swallow has narrowly failed to secure the elephant that would have supplied the show’s dramatic finale. Instead, he serves up some lesser illusions, a few impressive feats of memory – and character comedy too, if lower in the mix than usual. Sometimes the comedy and magic pull in different directions. In a subsidiary character as the scouse spirit-guide Claire, Mohammed pulls off a mean tarot card trick, but the alter ego is so garish – and the amplified voice so grating – the conjuring gets a bit overwhelmed.
But if the show is not quite one thing or another, nor up to the dazzling standards Mohammed has set, it’s still entertaining and pleasingly theatrical. A levitating table is deployed to amusing effect; elsewhere, for want of an assistant, Mr Swallow saws himself in half. Best of all are his marvels of arithmetic and “memorisation”, as audience volunteers test him on his recall of the Wagamama menu, then on the square root of their bill. One might wish the elephant hadn’t vanished before the show began – but this an enjoyable substitute.
