Ben Hart: Wonder

Q: It might only be February but already thoughts are turning to the Fringe with the 29-year-old magician announcing that, following his hugely successful 60 date debut tour of the UK, he will make his highly anticipated Fringe return at The Pleasance, after four total sell-out critically acclaimed previous shows. Funny, subversive, often dark and always amazing, Hart has established a reputation for always creating wonderfully alternative magic. At the age of 16 he was awarded the prestigious Young Magician of the Year Award by the Magic Circle and is one of the youngest ever members of The Inner Magic Circle with gold star - the highest level of the famous Magic Circle.

A: I’m delighted to be returning for 2020 with my show Wonder. The Fringe is a magical place - it is a melting pot of creativity and expression. The audiences at the Fringe as discerning, but they are also adventurous - the perfect crowds to play with. Somehow, as if by magic, I find myself preparing to perform my show in the behemoth of the Pleasance Grand, one of the largest venues of the Fringe. It seems a long way from the dingy basement of my first Fringe.

Q: For 2020, Hart, who has invented tricks for some of the biggest names in magic including Penn and Teller and was the mind behind the acclaimed special effects in the recent production of The Exorcist at the King’s, will create new illusions for August.

A: Edinburgh forces me to develop new material, for audiences return year after year to see what new ideas I have had - that does create a certain kind of pressure. Developing a magic trick is a terrifying prospect for a magician. Magic is totally binary, it either fools an audience or it doesn’t. This means that a new idea cannot truly be understood in rehearsals or on paper. It has to be performed in the hope of creating wonder and the audience reactions have to be studied. It doesn’t exist without an audience. It has to be honed over time in the hope that simple secrets can be transformed like alchemy into something that feels like magic

Q: Expect Wonder, Hart's most mind-blowing show yet to shine a light on magic, life, the universe and the darkest corners of your imaginations. With the simplest of props, using the objects and minds of the audience, he will conjure an altogether new kind of magic.

A: Each Fringe I bring a new show to Edinburgh as a pile of hopeful, inanimate props, totally without magic to me, for I know the secrets, and I get to watch the audience breathe wonderment into them and suddenly I can see the magic through their eyes completely without guilt or trickery, reflected back at me.