Photo by Rosie Powell, design by David Caines
CLOSE-UP
A magic performance on headphones, for 1 spectator at a time
Inside a café, surrounded by unsuspecting customers, you are invited to sit at a table and watch a 15-minute performance. In front of your very eyes, playing cards transform inexplicably and sugar cubes vanish without a trace. But as you listen to the performer's voice and the sounds of the café on headphones, the line between reality and fiction becomes increasingly thin: is this a real café, or a film set filled with actors? What is really happening now, and what is simulated and pre-recorded?
Combining expert sleight-of-hand magic with the dreamlike nature of cinema, Close-up invites you to briefly reimagine everyday life as an uncanny illusion.
Close-up is written & performed by Vincent Gambini
Sound design by Yas Clarke
Producer and host Steve Goatman
Video and photos by Rosie Powell
Supported in 2023-2024 by Farnham Maltings' New Popular, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, the University of Sussex, and Arts Council England.
Read Maddy Costa's review of Close-up for Exeunt magazine here
2025 dates
3 May Close-Up GIFT festival Gateshead
16&17 May Close-Up, Norfolk & Norwhich Festival
23&24 May Close-Up Norfolk & Norwhich Festival
2024 dates
24 May Close-Up, Brighton Festival (world premiere)
18 July Close-Up, Laughing Dog Café, Worthing
19 July Close-Up, Brew & Bread café, Eastbourne
25 July Close-Up, The Victoria Café, Brightlingsea
26 July Close-Up, The Greensward café, Clacton
13 September Close-Up, Manningtree Arts, Manningtree
14 September Close-Up, Deli 141, Harwich
5 October Close-Up, Mac's café Brighton (in partnership with ACCA)
26 October Close-Up, The NOse café bookshop, Walton-on-the-Naze