Toronto Fringe Review: At The Table with Keith Brown
Keith Brown. Photo by Stoo Metz
Everyone loves a magic show. Keith Brown brings his charismatic personality and arsenal of card tricks to At the Table with Keith Brown at this year’s Fringe Festival. What you get with this show is exactly what it says on the box - an hour of laughs, bewilderment, and sleight of hand. Prepare to be amazed and to sit in awe wondering ‘how did he do that?!’
Keith Brown hails from London, Ontario and has been practicing card tricks since he was a young teen. With his Fringe show, he dazzles the audience not only with his tricks but with his hilarious stories of entertaining strangers with magic - from a train car full of drunk strangers in the Czech Republic at the age of 16 and even at a bar until last call at the age of 13. These choices, and the understanding of very supportive parents, have led him to where he is now - the stage of the Al Green Theatre.
His stage setup is perfect for card tricks. He has one camera trained on his face while another is positioned above the table focusing on his hands and cards. Both project to the large screen at the back of the stage. This way everyone can clearly see what he’s doing.
Truth be told, Brown is superb at his craft. Magic is the art of misdirection so the magician’s goal is to distract the audience by any means necessary to conceal the sleight of hand and ‘achieve the impossible’. As most magicians do, the distraction comes by way of talking a good game; get the audience laughing or thinking about something else so they aren’t aware of the swap out taking place. Watching the camera trained on his hands and cards, I made it a point to focus on the cards to see if I could catch the swap. I didn’t.
This performance had the largest Fringe audience I’ve seen at the festival so far and judging from the vocal response, everyone seemed to have a great time. Of course, just like with any magic show, part of the fun is audience participation. Prepare to be potentially called on. Unless you’re an audience plant already in on the trick.
At the Table with Keith Brown is on now until July 17 as part of the 2022 Toronto Fringe Festival.
Find show times and tickets here.
Bad Dog received multiple nominations for Holiday! An Improvised Musical and Swordplay: A Play of Swords.