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.
2024 performances
24 May, Macs Café, Brighton Festival (as part of Festival of Ideas)
18 July, Laughing Dog Café, Worthing
19 July, Brew & Bread café, Eastbourne
25 July, The Victoria Café, Brightlingsea
26 July, The Greensward café, Clacton
13 September, Manningtree Arts café
14 September, Deli 141, Harwich
5 October, Mac's café Brighton (in partnership with Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts)
26 October, The NOse café bookshop, Walton-on-the-Naze
Close-up is written & performed by Vincent Gambini
Sound design by Yas Clarke
Producer Steve Goatman
Video and photos by Rosie Powell
Supported by Farnham Maltings' New Popular, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, the University of Sussex, and Arts Council England.