Brothers Rob and Chris Ellinger bring their respective talents to the stage in their first Adelaide Fringe collaboration, combining music and magic into one show. It sounds like a winning combination, and in the moments when the two art forms truly meld, it is exactly that. Unfortunately, this true union of music and magic only happens a few times throughout the 60-minute performance.

Chris Ellinger, on acoustic guitar and vocals (and, briefly, trumpet), provides a soundtrack of gentle acoustic folk/pop, while Rob Ellinger interacts with the audience and performs a range of close up sleight of hand tricks. Both are skilled performers. Chris’s guitar playing is proficient, though the style of playing surprised me — I suppose I was expecting something more mysterious to accompany a magic show, rather than folksy strumming patterns. Rob’s magic consists of the sleight of hand tricks that we’ve all seen before, and most of them are smoothly executed. There were one or two times where I could see the mechanics behind the magic, but I suspect this was partly due to some of the seating being elevated. Hopefully a few tweaks can be made to ensure the tricks work from all sight lines.

Overall, the concept of this show is great, and the moments where music and magic were truly united were really harmonious (pun intended). Hopefully with some further workshopping, the remainder of this show will grow into its full potential.