CRAZY FOR DICK TRICKS: A DIRK DARROW INVESTIGATION

With Dick Tricks, playfulness saves the day. Now there’s a sentence.

Tim Motley isn’t reinventing magic with Crazy for Dick Tricks, but he is practising it with a lot of charm.

Some of the formats are familiar: a series of “failed” attempts at mindreading come together in a big finish, for instance. There are too many magic scarves and a stunt involving scissors and cards only kind of worked at the show I attended.

But other tricks are more impressive and, in character as film noir hero Dirk Darrow, Motley is winningly playful with the audience. He has fun with the genre, too, describing a set of eyes “as piercing as headlights on a foggy night on a road to nowhere.”

At the Waterfront Theatre on September 5 (8:30 p.m.), 7 (1:15 p.m.), 8 (9:10 p.m.), 12 (6:45 p.m.), 14 (6:00 p.m.), and 15 (3:00 p.m.) Tickets

This review is based on a performance at the Victoria Fringe.