Show reviewed: 18/03/26

Show rated: A magical 5 star experience!

Productions such I want to be the World’s Greatest Magician are the very reason I persist as a writer who reviews for free to help artists and audiences connect, because this is the sort of creative art that changes people for the better. It is listed as theatre and physical theatre which puts it up against the “sexy circus” genre of performances that are doing very well at this year’s Adelaide Fringe showings such as Primal, GASHA and Inferno, but Annanya George’s one man show holds its own and punches well above it’s weight as my favourite show of 2026. Let me tell you why…

It is a story of becoming. In the language of poets and magicians, George reveals that an oracle once prophesied he would be tested four times in his life. Each of these prophecies would teach him a different lesson as he chases his life’s path to the world’s greatest magician. He is a born storyteller and weaves an entrancing narrative that connects different aspects of his life to a central theme of being your authentic self even in the face of adversity, punctuated with magical trickery and illusion that is impressive in its elegant simplicity.

He practices a genre of magic that he describes as “Magic as Medium Agnostic,” a philosophy to the art that magic can live in any artistic medium and where that creativity can be manifested in its fullest potential in aid of the narrative concept. George asks how the form of the magic can function in a way that allows the story to hit it hardest emotionally and in this he succeeds. He has a background in film making and has experimented with several other creative mediums alongside film, including sculpture and theatre. There are elements of clowning, song and mime in I want to be the World’s Greatest Magician, proving what a versatile stage performer George is.

The overarching story is of George’s lived experience as some navigating the borders of the USA as someone with a multicultural identity, and how this has shaped him. Yet it is also a coming of age story that begins Annanya’s childhood and young adult years, through his magical apprenticeship of sorts and comes to a poignant denouement at his darkest time in the at the graveside of Erik Weisz (better known to the world as Harry Houdini.) This is a show about confronting adversity at your darkest moments and reaching into your authentic self to carry on.