Review: Matt Tarrant: UNSOLVED

You may remember Matt Tarrant from Channel 10’s 2016 Australian Survivor or last year’s Fringe offering Honestly Dishonest.

I really enjoyed his show at Fringe last year and I was excited to see what he would bring to the table this year, especially with the title UNSOLVED.

Matt kicks off UNSOLVED with the ending from last year’s Honestly Dishonest. He finished that show with a unique trick called Tom the bouncy hanky, Tom the hanky is in a glass jar and jumps up and down in the jar – I still have no idea how it works and in there was much theorising about how it did.

Matt’s ability for sleight of hand is well, amazing – in his next trick he adds a soundtrack of popular songs featuring numbers in the lyrics and flips cards over to match the lyrics, which was very impressive.

We then meet Matt’s puppet Bruce the Goose who performs some mentalism and wows us with a trick of picking a card someone from the audience had chosen.

I have to say my favourite part of the show was when Matt talks about his Nana Winnie who taught him that anything is possible.

He then asked for volunteers from the audience who had lost their grandma at a young age. I was lucky enough to be chosen and brought up on stage where I opened three boxes and inside the last one was a coin which had my grandma’s name engraved into it.

I am still wondering how this trick was done but I know my Grandma (who loved Fringe) would have loved the show and I found it was very moving.

It didn’t end there… Matt then asked six members of the audience chosen randomly to call out a number, then he produces a lotto ticket he had bought with the numbers.

My only disappointment was the show was over far too quickly, Matt has a natural ability to draw the audience in with humour and magical abilities. Even the cynics couldn’t solve his tricks.

Matt said, “This year, we wanted to take the magic to the next level. We want people leaving our show, questioning everything they just witnessed – and that’s a feeling I love.”

Matt certainly achieved this and more…don’t miss it!

Matt Tarrant: UNSOLVED