The Pun

The Amazing Jonathon

By Michael Burville ⋅ May 4, 2006 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

Chances are that you’re already familiar with The Amazing Jonathan, the comedy magician probably best remembered for his pencil up the nose trick and gory physical illusions. Well, after a six year season in Las Vegas, the man dubbed the ‘Freddy Krueger of Comedy’ brings his show back to Australia.

If you’ve seen The Amazing Jonathan before, a lot of this show will be familiar. There are some notable additions to the act though, mostly in the form of Psychic Tania, ditzy assistant and comedy foil. She now bears the brunt of the physical illusions, as well as a steady stream of abuse.

Without a doubt, this is a seasoned performance that plays beautifully on the audience’s expectations. The Amazing Jonathan knows that the audience thinks the ‘crap magician’ routine is just a lead up to some actual tricks. It’s not and he delights in constantly pulling that rug out from under you. At the core of the show is a sort of ‘gotcha’ humour where you are lead along by a trick with the inevitable punchline being that there is in no trick after all. This can actually be quite funny and is generally well delivered, but after 80 minutes the joke starts to run thin.

Overall this is polished, albeit dated, comedy that would benefit from a bit of tweaking for Australian festival-going audiences. It’s a good laugh, but I can’t help but think that there are better value Festival shows that you should see first.